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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.

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At least 109 records · Page 6

Designing for human presence in space: An introduction to environmental control and life support systems

Human exploration and utilization of space requires habitats to provide appropriate conditions for working and living. These conditions are provided by environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) that ensure appropriate atmosphere composition, pressure, and temperature; manage and distribute water, process waste matter, provide fire detection and suppression; and other functions as necessary. The functions that are performed by ECLSS are described and basic information necessary to design an ECLSS is provided. Technical and programmatic aspects of designing and developing ECLSS for space habitats are described including descriptions of technologies, analysis methods, test requirements, program organization, documentation requirements, and the requirements imposed by medical, mission, safety, and system needs. The design and development process is described from initial trade studies through system-level analyses to support operation. ECLSS needs for future space habitats are also described. Extensive listings of references and related works provide sources for more detailed information on each aspect of ECLSS design and development.

Wieland, Paul↗

Simple Magnetic Device Indicates Thickness Of Alloy 903

Handheld device called "ferrite indicator" orginally designed for use in determining ferrite content of specimen of steel. Placed in contact with specimen and functions by indicating whether magnet attracted more strongly to specimen or to calibrated reference sample. Relative strength of attraction shows whether alloy overlay thinner than allowable.

Long, Pin Jeng↗

Solid State Carbon Monoxide Sensor

A means for detecting carbon monoxide which utilizes an un-heated catalytic material to oxidize carbon monoxide at ambient temperatures. Because this reaction is exothermic, a thermistor in contact with the catalytic material is used as a sensing element to detect the heat evolved as carbon monoxide is oxidized to carbon dioxide at the catalyst surface, without any heaters or external heating elements for the ambient air or catalytic element material. Upon comparison to a reference thermistor, relative increases in the temperature of the sensing thermistor correspond positively with an increased concentration of carbon monoxide in the ambient medium and are thus used as an indicator of the presence of carbon monoxide.

Upchurch, Billy T.↗

Marshall Space Flight Center's Education Department

Marshall Space Flight Center's Education Department is a resource for Educator, Students and Lifelong Learners. This paper will highlight the Marshall Space Flight Center's Education Department with references to other NASA Education Departments nationwide. The principal focus will be on the responsibilities of the Pre-college Education Team which is responsible for supporting K- 12 teachers highlighting how many of the NASA Pre-college Offices engage teachers and their students in better understanding NASA's inspiring missions, unique facilities, and specialized workforce to carryout these many agency-wide tasks, goals and objectives. Attendee's will learn about the Marshall Educational Alliance Teams, as well, which is responsible for using NASA's unique assets to support all types of learning. All experience and knowledge levels, all grades K-12, and teachers in these specified groupings will gain a true appreciation of what is available for them, through Marshall Space Flight Center's Education Department. An agency-wide blue directory booklet will be distributed to all attendees, for future references and related points of contact.

Henderson, Arthur J., Jr.↗

Meteoritical Astrophysics: A New Subdiscipline

A recent remarkable discovery by Katharina Lodders showed that the abundances of extinct radioactivities (relative to reference nuclei) in chondrites, achondrites, and irons are proportional to the squares of their mean lives, whereas no such abundance-mean life relationship is apparent for the data of calcium-aluminum rich inclusions (CAIs) and a variety of other inclusion types. In this talk I shall interpret these results in terms of galactic and solar nebula processes. The first step in organizing the data for interpretation is to require that both the abundance of the extinct radioactivity (as measured by its decay product abundance) and that of the reference nuclide should have the same nucleosynthesis history, or else that a correction to the ratio be made to compensate for the ratio of the two different production processes. The striking feature of this diagram is that the lower edge of the data (the Lodders Line) is remarkably straight; most of the data are derived from chondrites; and its slope on the log-log diagram is two. So the extinct radioactivities are present in proportion to the square of their mean lives. All the other data lie above the Lodders line in this diagram; the sources of that data are in general somewhat larger particles than those that have contributed to the Lodders Line. A straight relationship between abundances of extinct radioactivities

Cameron, A. G. W.↗

Efficient High Pressure MixtureState Equations

A method is presented for an accurate noniterative, computationally efficient calculation of high pressure fluid mixture equations of state, especially targeted to gas turbines and rocket engines. Pressures above 1 bar and temperatures above 100 K are addressed. The method is based on curve fitting an effective reference state relative to departure funcitons formed using the Peng-Robinson cubic state equation. Fit parameters for H(sub 2), O(sub 2), N(sub 2), propane, n-heptane and methanol are given.

thermodynamics state equations noniterative mixtur↗

Tracking Energy Flow Using a Volumetric Acoustic Intensity Imager (VAIM)

A new measurement device has been invented at the Naval Research Laboratory which images instantaneously the intensity vector throughout a three-dimensional volume nearly a meter on a side. The measurement device consists of a nearly transparent spherical array of 50 inexpensive microphones optimally positioned on an imaginary spherical surface of radius 0.2m. Front-end signal processing uses coherence analysis to produce multiple, phase-coherent holograms in the frequency domain each related to references located on suspect sound sources in an aircraft cabin. The analysis uses either SVD or Cholesky decomposition methods using ensemble averages of the cross-spectral density with the fixed references. The holograms are mathematically processed using spherical NAH (nearfield acoustical holography) to convert the measured pressure field into a vector intensity field in the volume of maximum radius 0.4 m centered on the sphere origin. The utility of this probe is evaluated in a detailed analysis of a recent in-flight experiment in cooperation with Boeing and NASA on NASA s Aries 757 aircraft. In this experiment the trim panels and insulation were removed over a section of the aircraft and the bare panels and windows were instrumented with accelerometers to use as references for the VAIM. Results show excellent success at locating and identifying the sources of interior noise in-flight in the frequency range of 0 to 1400 Hz. This work was supported by NASA and the Office of Naval Research.

Klos, Jacob↗

NASA Thesaurus Data File

The NASA Thesaurus contains the authorized NASA subject terms used to index and retrieve materials in the NASA Aeronautics and Space Database (NA&SD) and NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). The scope of this controlled vocabulary includes not only aerospace engineering, but all supporting areas of engineering and physics, the natural space sciences (astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science), Earth sciences, and the biological sciences. The NASA Thesaurus Data File contains all valid terms and hierarchical relationships, USE references, and related terms in machine-readable form. The Data File is available in the following formats: RDF/SKOS, RDF/OWL, ZThes-1.0, and CSV/TXT.

Source record↗

The WRF Lightning Forecasting Algorithm: Sensitivities to Microphysics and Boundary Layer Physics Schemes

As with WRF model simulated convection in general, LFA output is sensitive to cloud and PBL physics. WRF convection is also sensitive to model initialization uncertainties and unresolved errors.  Large sensitivity exists in HRRR-like Thompson microphysics and PBL, for which original LFA calibration constant needs to be multiplied by 1.13 to give proper FRD amplitudes. Thompson microphysics scheme also shows poorest correlations relative to reference data, suggesting low predictability of HRRR LFA output. Need to validate HRRR LFA against GLM observations.

weather prediction↗

Hyperspectral Radiatve Transfer Modeling and its Applications

We will describe a fast radiative transfer model that is specifically designed for hyperspectral remote sensing applications. The fast radiative transfer model is capable of performing efficient and accurate calculations under cloudy condition and in the presence of solar radiations. The model uses a Principal Component Analysis to speed up computational speed. The PCRTM model is capable of simulating top of atmospheric radiance or reflectance spectral from 50 wavenumber to 30000 wavenumber. The PCRTM has a very good accuracy relative to reference line-by-line radiative transfer models and it saves orders of magnitude computational time. We will show comparisons of the PCRTM model to AIRS, CrIS, IASI, NAST-I, and SCIAMACHY data. We will further show results of applying the PCRTM retrieval algorithm to these remote sensing data to retrieve atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, CO2, CO, CH4, N2O, and O3 profiles, cloud optical depth, size, phase, and height. Surface properties such as surface emissivity spectra and surface skin temperatures are also retrieved simultaneously.

X Liu↗

Common Origin of Warm Dark Matter and Dark Radiation

We consider a cosmological scenario where a relativistic particle and a stable massive particle are simultaneously produced from the decay of a late-decaying particle after Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis but before matter-radiation equality. The relativistic and massive particles behave as dark radiation and warm dark matter, respectively. Due to a common origin, the warmness and abundances are closely related. We refer to the models that lead to such a scenario as Common Origin of Warm and Relativistic Decay Products (COWaRD). We show that COWaRD predicts a correlation between the amount of dark radiation and suppression of the large scale structure, which can be tested in future precision cosmology observations. We demonstrate that COWaRD is realized, as an example, in a class of supersymmetric axion models and that future observations by the next generation Cosmic Microwave Background, Large Scale Structure, and 21-cm surveys can reveal the structure of the theory.

Manuel A. Buen-Abad↗

Forward and Inverse Models for Satellite Remote Sensors using Principal Component Analysis

Satellite remote sensors such as AIRS on Aqua, CrIS on S-NPP, NOAA20 and JPSS-2, IASI on Metop A, B, and C make millions of observations each day with thousands of spectral channels for each observation; this poses challenges for efficiently inversion of the inherently large dataset as needed to retrieve atmospheric and surface properties. This presentation will illustrate the use of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to speed up radiative transfer forward model calculations and to stabilize the inversion algorithms. A Principal Component-based radiative transfer model (PCRTM) developed at NASA Langley Research Center can simulate top of atmosphere (TOA) radiance or reflectance spectra from 50 cm-1 to 50000 cm-1 (200 m to 0.20 m quickly and accurately. PCRTM demonstrated very high accuracy relative to reference line-by-line radiative transfer models and it saves orders of magnitude computational time. Examples of the PCRTM model developed for hyperspectral sensors such as AIRS, CrIS, IASI, NAST-I, SHIS, CPF, TEMPO, SBG, OMI, and SCIAMACHY will be presented. In addition to using the PCRTM as forward model, the NASA Langley developed inversion algorithm also uses PCA to compress the state vector into a compressed dimension to speed up and stabilize the inversion process. Examples of retrieved atmospheric temperature, water vapor, CO2, CO, CH4, N2O, and O3 profiles, cloud properties (optical depth, size, phase, and height), and surface properties (surface emissivity spectra and skin temperatures) will be presented. This algorithm is being transitioned to the NASA Sounder SIPS and NASA's Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).

forward model↗

Developing Fast and Accurate Radiative Transfer Models to Meet the Needs of Modern Satellite Remote Sensing Applications

Modern hyperspectral satellite remote sensors provide highly accurate measurements the Earth’s Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) radiance, reflectance, or polarized spectra with hundreds to thousands of spectral channels and with millions of observations per day. The large data volume and high spectral dimensionality of the data pose challenges for retrieval algorithms. To process the satellite Level-1 data (e.g. calibrated TOA spectra) into Level-2 products (e.g. atmospheric and surface properties) using physical-based retrieval algorithms, accurate and fast Radiative Transfer Models (RTMs) are needed. RTMs are usually the limiting factor in determining the speed of a level-2 algorithm. For example, more than one million Line-by-Line (LBL) radiative transfer (RT) calculations are needed in order to properly capture the spectral contributions of important atmospheric molecules for an IR hyperspectral sensor with a spectral coverage from 3.5 m to 15 m or a solar hyperspectral sensor with spectral coverage from 0.25 m to 2.5 m. In this presentation, we will discuss advantages and disadvantages of different ways (e.g. correlated k and effective transmittance) to accelerate the speed of a fast RTM. We finally describe a Principal Component-based Radiative Transfer Model (PCRTM), which can calculate TOA radiance or reflectance spectra from 50 cm-1 to 40,000 cm-1 (200 m to 0.25 m). It has demonstrated very good accuracy relative to reference LBL RTMs and saves orders of magnitude in computational time. The PCRTM has been used in many satellite remote sensing applications. Examples include forward modeling in Level-2 and Level-3 retrieval algorithms, high fidelity satellite instrument simulators and instrument performance trade studies, spectral and radiometric accuracy characterizations of satellite Level-1 data, tools for inter-satellite calibrations, tools for satellite RTM lookup table generations, and tools for generating physically based training datasets for Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms.

climate data record↗

An Indicator-based Approach to Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (Chapter 12)

Assessing the sustainability of natural resource management choices for agricultural and forest lands requires quantification of potential changes to a set of environmental and socioeconomic indicators selected to characterize reference scenarios relative to projected future scenarios. Correctly framing the questions with local stakeholders is a critical first step in the sustainability assessment, and the questions that can be addressed are often limited by data availability. Selecting and prioritizing indicators with stakeholders to address their needs and concerns improves the likelihood of investment in monitoring and evaluation of those indicators over time. Computational techniques for analyzing interactions between the selected indicators are inherently affected by the scales and formats of the assembled indicator datasets. Data analytics have the potential to improve understanding of the potential synergies and tradeoffs involved with meeting multiple environmental and socioeconomic goals simultaneously, but timely and appropriate indicator datasets are not always available—even in this new era of “big data.” Continued improvements in data science and data analytics are needed to broaden understanding and acceptance of problems and to provide valuable information for natural resource management. Advances in these areas will enable society to design future landscapes that meet multiple objectives, including the provisioning of agricultural and forest resources along with a variety of ecosystem services (e.g., clean water and healthy soils).

Parish, Esther↗

Metastability and Degradation of CdTe Solar Cells Investigated by nm-Scale Electrical Potential Imaging

We report on investigations of reversible metastability and irreversible degradation of MZO/CdSeTe/CdTe devices from the perspective of electric field across the device using Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM). The device showed reversible transitions between the light-soak state (LSS) with the best device efficiency and the dark-soak state (DSS) with an inferior efficiency. However, it showed an irreversible degradation state (DgS) driven by long-hour light soaking at an elevated temperature. The nm-scale KPFM electric field imaging on cross-sections of the devices revealed different anomalous electric field profiles. The electric field at the LSS exhibits a main peak inside the CdSeTe layer but not at the MZO/CdSeTe heterointerface, demonstrating that working junction of the device is a buried homojunction (BHJ). At the DSS, a second electric field peak was observed at the MZO/CdSeTe interface with a similar strength to the main BHJ, which probably caused the decrease in fill factor at the DSS. At the DgS, the electric field peak at the MZO/CdSeTe interface increased significantly and a third electric field was measured at the back contact of the device. Device modeling using COMSOL and in alignment with both the electric field and device current-voltage curves suggest that a slightly low n-doped CdSeTe in the region near the MZO/CdSeTe interface caused the BHJ, and that either a loss of MZO doping or increase of the conduction band offset spike due to long-term stress caused the fill factor-dominated degradation and the increased electric field near the MZO/CdSeTe interface at the DgS. The former, MZO doping decrease, is more plausible by referring the related literature.

BHJ↗

Adaptive spectra-to-exposure conversion using ridge regularized polynomial response models

Real-time gamma spectra-to-exposure conversion in aerial and ground monitoring commonly relies on calibration-derived, detector- or system-specific conversion coefficients that are assumed to generalize across operational environments. In practice, deployment specific differences in spectral composition and transport conditions can introduce systematic bias relative to reference instruments, motivating methods that adapt coefficients using minimal field supervision while explicitly limiting overfitting. In this work, we present a conservative coefficient adaptation framework that updates a baseline polynomial energy-weighting function using ridge-regularized regression, with leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) used to select the regularization strength. The findings support ridge-constrained minimal-supervision adaptation as a practical mechanism to suppress site-specific bias without destabilizing a calibration-derived baseline.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Situational awareness-enhancing community-level load mapping with opportunistic machine learning

Motivated by present and forthcoming challenges in the adoption and integration of distributed renewable energy, we develop a machine learning (ML) approach that builds short-fuse mappings connecting the occasionally-unobservable true load in one target community with information-rich signals collected from relatively more instrumented reference communities. Our setting is inspired by and tailored to target communities with significant unobservable behind-the-meter solar generation, where true load (a relatively well-behaved quantity of interest to grid operators) is hard to discern during daytime due to insufficient instrumentation and/or privacy reasons, but that can be related to reference communities with low unobservable distributed variable generation or with sufficient instrumentation. The developed mapping, herein realized with Support Vector Machine regression, is built using nighttime data from all communities, when their distributed generation is low or zero. Our ML algorithm opportunistically learns to correlate signals of interest and then is operationally used the next day to shed light into target community load evolution. The mapping is subsequently rebuilt, rolling its short-fuse scope perpetually forward in time. Here, we demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on nine synthetically generated topologies and associated timeseries stemming from real-world data, on which we observe cumulative error performance that yields lower than 10% and 15% daily-averaged mean absolute percentage errors in target community load estimation on more than about 75% and 90% of days, respectively, in multiple yearly evaluations that shed light on long-term performance also under seasonal and one-off effects. The proposed ML-powered methodology can offer grid operators much-improved visibility into a previously obscure space and can also serve as an additional source of information in broader, multi-modal solar disaggregation solutions.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗