Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Digital”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,063 records · Page 59

ATM-X Digital Information Platform

High level introduction of Digital Information Platform (DIP) objectives as a sub-project under Airspace Traffic Management - Exploration (ATM-X). Important information is emerging in digital form and additional effort is required to utilize this information. DIP will provide the capability to integrate key flight information from multiple sources. DIP is currently in planning phase will take a community-involved, collaborative approach to define and develop the framework. DIP is seeking community and stakeholder input to operational needs, metrics of interest and demonstration contribution

Digital Information Platform↗

Notes on Digital-Data Analysis

The presentation is an overview and discussion of concepts normally encountered during digital-signal processing of sampled time histories. It is not a comprehensive literature survey, but simply a practical guide for best usage. Sections of the talk cover: digital sampling and representation, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, aliasing or frequency folding, the power spectrum, windowing and spectral spreading, scalloping, and best practices. The Advanced Air Transport Technology Project supports this effort.

Aeroacoustics↗

ATD-2 Digital Services / DIP

The path to NAS-wide implementation for ATD-2 multi-airport IADS is as a digital service for flight operators that builds on and supplements FAA TBO investments. This session will focus on a suite of Machine Learning (ML) services the ATD-2 team developed to model airport surface operations. The approach used to leverage SWIM data sets will be described and a preliminary analysis of ML model accuracy will be presented. NASA’s plans to build on this work under the ATM-X Digital Information Platform (DIP) sub-project will be discussed.

ATD TIM, ATD-2 Digital Services, DIP↗

DIP - Digital Information Platform

Brief updates of Digital Information Platform (DIP) plans for platform-enabled sustainable aviation services. DIP will provide the capability to integrate key flight information from multiple sources and make it easier to access data critical to developing services using advanced techniques such as machine learning. NASA will share ML-based microservices on the platform for industry to use as reference implementations. The platform will support an ecosystem to share reusable services and promote innovation for digital information.

DIP update↗

From the Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) Concept for Advanced Air Mobility Research to a Preliminary Prototype

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) encompasses a range of innovative operational and technological changes to aviation (electric aircraft, increasingly automated aircraft, increasingly automated airspace operations, etc.) that are transforming aviation’s role in everyday movement of people and goods. There are multiple associated concepts and use cases for AAM, all interrelated, including small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Upper-Class E Traffic Management (ETM), Extensible Traffic Management (xTM), Regional Air Mobility (RAM), and Urban Air Mobility (UAM). These AAM operations must integrate with traditional Air Traffic Management (ATM) operations, as well as non-aviation modes of transportation and logistics. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is spearheading an innovative digital engineering approach to integrate, communicate, and facilitate the research of multi-modal transportation systems. The Knowledge-based Digital Platform (KbDP) is a concept being developed that ties the workflows of Project Managers (PM), Principal Investigators (PI), and System Engineers together across organizational boundaries. It does so through the management of an information database defined by mathematical, data science, and system engineering principles. Machine Learning (ML) algorithms play a key role in this concept by extracting meaningful knowledge from the information database, which the human user leverages to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their research. Expected benefits of this concept include improved technology transfers from research to production, improved research portfolio investments, and research outcomes that are more integrated with all aspects of the multi-modal transportation problem. The preliminary KbDP prototype has been realized using UAM as a pathfinder use case and developed by a team of system engineer, software developer, data scientist, and interns.

Systems Engineering↗

Harnessing the Digital Transformation for Development of Electrified Aircraft Propulsion Control Systems

Hybrid electric aircraft propulsion is an emerging technology that presents a variety of potential benefits along with technical integration challenges. Developing these new propulsion architectures with their complex control systems, and ultimately proving their benefit, is a multistep process that goes from concept, to analysis, to dynamic simulation, to hardware in the loop testing, to full scale testing and beyond. This effort is being revolutionized and indeed enabled by new digital tools that support the increasing technology readiness level throughout the maturation process. NASA has developed and made available a suite of digital tools that ease the path from concept to implementation. The three packages are the Toolbox for the Modeling and Analysis of Thermodynamic Systems (T-MATS), the Electrical Modeling and Thermal Analysis Toolbox (EMTAT), and the Thermal Systems Analysis Toolbox (TSAT). These tools are interactive, complementary, and compatible with each other. T-MATS is a modular thermodynamic modeling framework designed for creating custom component level models of jet engines. EMTAT is a modeling framework used to simulate a variety of power electronic devices, using both physics-based and power flow calculations. TSAT is a framework for modeling and analysis of dynamic heat transfer. These packages all consist of graphical, drag-and-drop, parameterizable building blocks representing various components of the system to be modeled, e.g., compressors, turbines, motors, energy storage devices, etc. They are designed to enable the user to model and simulate the end-to-end dynamic operation of a hybrid powertrain at the timescale of the turbomachinery, capturing mechanical, electrical, and thermal interactions. This paper will describe through multiple examples how these tools have been used successfully in several of the early stages of hybrid electric propulsion system development, from the initial system modeling to real-time interactive pilot-in-the-loop simulation to physical hardware-in-the-loop testing, each step bringing the technology closer to fruition.

Hybrid electric propulsion↗

Development of Digital Twin Technologies for Climate Projections

Climate projections are increasingly needed for adaptation, climate resilience and related decision making. However, existing projections have systematic biases, are limited in scope, and are not readily available for most potential users. While the ideal of an observational data-driven ‘digital twin’ for climate is initially attractive, there is only a very limited set of climate data available with which to train such a tool. Nonetheless, we are confident that there is a role for ‘digital twin technologies’ in removing biases, increasing computational efficiency, expanding scenarios and data accessibility.

digital twins↗

Digital Twins of the Environment

Please download and open the zip folder on your system to view the talks. As part of AI-UK'2024 (organized by UK Turing Institute), Jacqueline Le Moigne and Robert Morris (NASA ARC AIST Associate) were part of a Panel on "Digital Twins of the Environment". We described what Earth System Digital Twins (ESDTs) are, how they could be used in the future, which technologies need to be developed for these ESDTs to become a reality and what the state-of-the-art is. No formal presentations were given but 2 videos were generated during the conference and will be posted on the AI-UK website: https://www.turing.ac.uk/events/ai-uk-2024. The 2 videos cover: (1) a recording of the entire Panel featuring Robert Morris/NASA ARC and Jacqueline Le Moigne/ESTOl; (2) a post-panel interview of Jacqueline Le Moigne.

Earth Science Remote Sensing↗

Establishing and Maintaining the Digital Thread of Additively Manufactured Materials and Applications

Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) are complementary enabling technologies for design and manufacturing of “fit-for-purpose” materials. Both technologies will impact rapid material design, reduction in cost- and time-to-market for new applications, and discovery and implementation of new materials. An ICME approach to design, however, requires experimentally validated material models at multiple length and time scales, an integrated framework that can connect analysis tools with one another to ensure the digital thread of an application is maintained, and the manufacturing (e.g., AM) capability to leverage processing-structure-property-performance (PSPP) relationships to achieve spatially varying material properties where desired. AM enables the implementation of the design of an optimized, spatially varying microstructure through careful selection of the processing parameters used during an additively manufactured build. In order to establish these PSPP relations, a large amount of data is necessary, and that data must be properly captured, analyzed and maintained in an information management system that can establish the required traceability between various aspects of the design process to ensure an application’s digital thread is maintained (from design to end of life). Such an information management system must be able to capture feedstock material pedigree, resulting microstructure from various build parameters, subsequent mechanical properties derived from testing, developed material models, and enable spatial variations in material assignment in an engineering application. Furthermore, the information management system should be easily integrated with traditionally engineered materials in a single, centralized platform to enable an ICME optimization tool to explore both types of manufacturing processes. At NASA GRC, a robust, 21st century materials information management system has been previously developed with a focus towards enabling ICME. In this work, GRC’s ICME schema is extended to accommodate additively manufactured materials, enabling storage of both traditionally and additively manufactured materials in the same construct. The methodology for properly capturing additively manufactured materials across the entire material lifecycle is presented, following the previously established database best practices, as a potential framework for establishing PSPP relationships for additively manufactured materials and applying them to engineering applications.

Data management↗

Overview of the National Airspace System (NAS) Digital Twin Simulation Environment

The National Airspace System (NAS) Digital Twin is an environment for building and running diverse, realistic simulations of current or future airspace operations. The environment allows for many different types of simulations including both fast-time and real-time operating modes. Playback of historical or live NAS traffic can be combined with simulated aircraft to create a detailed, live, virtual, and constructive environment. These capabilities go together to create an environment that allows for development of concepts through the entire Technology Readiness Levels scale from initial concept to field evaluations. This extended abstract will discuss details of the software-foundations of the NAS Digital Twin environment. Then, several example simulations and analyses will be presented to illustrate the breadth and power of the tool.

airspace simulation, digital twin↗

Overview of the National Airspace System (NAS) Digital Twin Simulation Environment

The National Airspace System (NAS) Digital Twin is an environment for building and running diverse, realistic simulations of current or future airspace operations. The environment allows for many different types of simulations including both fast-time and real-time operating modes. Playback of historical or live NAS traffic can be combined with simulated aircraft to create a detailed, live, virtual, and constructive environment. These capabilities go together to create an environment that allows for development of concepts through the entire Technology Readiness Levels scale from initial concept to field evaluations. This extended abstract will discuss details of the software-foundations of the NAS Digital Twin environment. Then, several example simulations and analyses will be presented to illustrate the breadth and power of the tool.

airspace simulation↗

Apollo Botany Experiments and Artemis: Discussion of Botany Experiment Records Digitized as Part of the Apollo Records Synthesis Project (ARSP)

The Artemis Program, with its objective of establishing a sustained human presence on the moon, has rekindled interest in lunar botany as an area of inquiry. Limited availability of collected lunar regolith samples for plant growth experiments underlines the need to leverage all existing historic datasets. As part of NASA’s Life Sciences Data Archive’s (LSDA) Apollo Records Synthesis Project (ARSP), a collection of historic Apollo era botany experiment research records from the former Space Life Sciences Archival Library (SLSAL) collection, these records have been digitized to improve access for data reuse. The records are related to post-mission quarantine experiments conducted to characterize any pathogenic effects of lunar regolith on exposed plant specimens and includes several possible dataset sources such as microscopy photos, laboratory notebooks, correspondence, data sheets, and gas chromatography results. This collection includes the output of investigations of taxa previously under-investigated in the context of space biology. An unusually phylogenetically diverse group of plants are represented in this dataset (including Pinaceae, Poeaceae, Solanaceae, Apiaceae and more). This presentation will discuss the contents of the collection, their historic context, the digitization of the collection, and the opportunities they may provide when placed in the larger corpus of lunar botany regolith experiments.

Archives↗

PROVIDING PLANT DATA ANALYTICS THROUGH A SEAMLESS DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

As technology continues to evolve and become more integrated into a worker’s daily routine in the Nuclear Power industry the need for easy access to data becomes a priority. Not only does the need for data increase but the amount of data collected increases. In most cases the data is collected and stored in various software applications, many of which are legacy systems, which do not offer any other option to access the data except through the application’s user interface. Furthermore the data gets grouped in “silos” according to work function and not necessarily by subject. Hence, in order to access all the information needed for a particular task or analysis one may have to access multiple applications to gather all the data needed. The industry and the research community have identified the need for a digital architecture and more importantly the need for a Seamless Digital Environment. An SDE provides a means to access multiple applications, gather the data points needed, conduct the analysis requested, and present the result to the user with minimal or no effort by the user. In addition, the nuclear utilities have identified the need for research focused on data analytics. The effort should develop and evaluate use cases for data mining and analytics for employing information from plant sensors and database for use in developing improved business analytics. Idaho National Laboratory is leading such effort, which is conducted in close collaboration with vendors, nuclear utilities, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, and Electric Power Research Institute. The goal of the study is to research potential approaches to building an analytics solution for equipment reliability, on a small scale, focusing on either a single piece of equipment or a single system. The analytics solution will likely consist of a data integration layer, predictive and machine learning layer and the user interface layer that will display the output of the analysis in a straight forward, easy to consume manner. This paper will describe the study and the initial results.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Digital Time-Resolved Spot Diagnostic

The digital time-resolved spot diagnostic (D-TRSD) is a fast-response, time-dependent beam diagnostic for measuring the emitted spot size and beam target interactions from radiographic x-ray sources. Legacy streaked TRSD analysis requires image processing and data extraction, which give noisy results. Processed data are used to extract edge spread and corresponding line spread functions. Digital TRSD simplifies this process, eliminating the complexity of streak camera–based systems.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Digital Radiography and Computed Tomography (DRCT) of Recovered Chemical Warfare Materiel

The Digital Radiography and Computed Tomography (DRCT) of recovered chemical warfare material (RCWM) project is an ongoing effort to provide the following to the U.S. Army Chemical Materiel Activity (CMA): 1. Development of field-portable and transportable digital x-ray inspection capabilities including radiography and computed tomography. 2. Continuous maintenance and product development to maintain state of the art in x-ray inspection. 3. Evaluation and incorporation of advanced technologies. 4. Deployment of capabilities to selected U.S. Army designated sites. 5. Training of personnel in the use of x-ray inspection equipment. 6. Development of user guides and related documentation for inspection systems. 7. Operations support to field personnel to assess and resolve problems in the field. Support includes both remote (from Idaho) and on-site depending on the problem. These systems have been used to inspect thousands of containers ranging from bare and overpacked munitions to drums and ton containers. This in-progress program review showcases prospective efforts and updates to project systems that are in the developmental stage.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DIGITAL APPLICATIONS USING REAL-TIME VEHICLE EXHAUST INFORMATION

Vehicle emission is a major source of air pollution that causes a significant number of deaths globally. It has a profound impact on energy and the environment as well. The existing vehicle emission monitoring system is unable to help mitigating the pollution properly and therefore, requires precise real-time pollution measurement. The purpose of this paper is to discuss novel applications using the real-time measurement of pollutants from a vehicle tailpipe where exhaust gases enter the environment. Today, it is possible to measure such emission due to the emergence of affordable digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless connectivity, cloud platform, and artificial intelligence. This paper discusses how digital technologies can be used for real-time monitoring of NOx gas as a measure of vehicle emission and predictive analytics applications. A description of data collection and pre-processing methodologies, actual collected data, and an approach to identify patterns between inputs such as vehicle speed and altitude and output such as NOx emission are included. Applying a simple neural network has produced promising results and is a first step towards developing predictive applications.

Digital, Vehicle Exhaust, IoT, AI, 1.4.2, Predicti↗

Mobile Hot Cell Digital Twin using Immersive Virtual Environment

Sealed radioactive sources are utilized for a wide range of applications across nuclear facilities, universities, hospitals, and industry. When these sources reach the end of their serviceable life, they become waste. This radioactive waste then goes through a process of recapture and then transfer to long term storage. With the advancement of technology in conjunction with better accessibility of technology, industries are exploring the use of digital automation to enhance productivity, efficiency, and safety while minimizing operation and maintenance costs, health and environmental risks, and uncertainty in the project life cycles. One area for exploration and the use of Digital Twin for providing a robust, versatile, and safe solution for recapturing spent sources.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Common Cause Failure Evaluation of High Safety-significant Safety-related Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems

Digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs) have many advantages over analog systems but also pose different engineering and technical challenges, such as potential threats due to common cause failures (CCFs). This paper proposes a Platform for Risk Assessment of DI&C (PRADIC) developed by Idaho National Laboratory for dealing with potential software CCFs in DI&C systems of NPPs. The methodology development of PRADIC on the quantitative evaluation of software CCFs in high safety-significant safety-related DI&C systems in NPPs is illustrated in this paper. In PRADIC, qualitative hazard analysis and quantitative reliability and consequence analysis are successively implemented to obtain quantitative risk information, compare with respective risk evaluation acceptance criteria, and provide suggestions for risk reduction and design optimization. A comprehensive case study was also performed and documented in this paper. Results show that PRADIC can effectively identify potential digital-based CCFs, estimate their failure probabilities, and evaluate their impacts to system and plant safety.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗