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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1980

The distribution of temperature maxima for micrometeorites decelerated in the earth's atmosphere without melting

A simple model for the statistics of heating of micrometeorites decelerated in the earth's atmosphere without melting predicts that for 10 micron particles with thermal emissivity near 1, roughly half of those with density 1 g/cc are heated above 550 C, while half of those with density 3 g/cc are heated above 800 C. In the study of stratosphere collected interplanetary dust, the model can be helpful in identifying petrographic thermometers of the atmospheric entry process, and in understanding the most recent history of this new class of extraterrestrial material available in the laboratory.

Fraundorf, P.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Optimization for Lithium-Ion Battery Systems

Health management of lithium-ion battery systems presents a host of challenges due to their complex physics, large numbers of components, and a wide variety of degradation behaviors across different battery types. Dr. Paul Gasper will present on research from the Electrochemical Energy Storage Group on Lithium-ion battery diagnostics, prognostics, and optimization. Diagnostics research, including state-estimation via machine-learning from electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and DC pulses as well as continuous state-estimation via Kalman filters, will highlight the ongoing challenges for accurately measuring the state of batteries without performing time-consuming characterization tests. NLR's industry-recognized battery prognostics work, which predicts real-world battery degradation by identifying degradation rate models from accelerated aging data using statistical modeling and machine-learning, will be used to demonstrate the critical impact of battery controls, thermal management, and operating strategy on durability and lifetime. Finally, the use of prognostic models for financial or lifetime optimization will be discussed.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
NASA NTRS2007

GRO J1655-40: Early Stages of the 2005 Outburst

The black-hole X-ray binary transient GRO J1655-40 underwent an outburst beginning in early 2005. We present the results of our multi-wavelength observational campaign to study the early outburst spectral and temporal evolution, which combines data from X-ray (RXTE, INTEGRAL), radio (VLA) and optical (ROTSE, SMARTS) instruments. During the reported period the source left quiescence and went through four major accreting black hole states: low-hard, hard intermediate, soft intermediate and high-soft. We investigated dipping behavior in the RXTE band and compare our results to the 1996-1997 case, when the source was predominantly in the high-soft state, finding significant differences. We consider the evolution of the low frequency quasi-periodic oscillations and find that the frequency strongly correlates with the spectral characteristics, before shutting off prior to the transition to the high-soft state. We model the broad-band high-energy spectrum in the context of empirical models, as well as more physically motivated thermal and bulk-motion Comptonization and Compton reflection models. RXTE and INTEGRAL data together support a statistically significant high energy cut-off in the energy spectrum at approximately equal to 100 - 200 keV during the low-hard state. The RXTE data alone also show it very significantly during the transition, but cannot see one in the high-soft state spectra. We consider radio, optical and X-ray connections in the context of possible synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton origins of X-ray emission in low-hard and intermediate states. In this outburst of GRO J1655-40, the radio flux does not rise strongly with the X-ray flux.

Shaposhnikov, N.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Strongly magnetized classical plasma models

Discrete particle processes in the presence of a strong external magnetic field were investigated. These processes include equations of state and other equilibrium thermodynamic relations, thermal relaxation phenomena, transport properties, and microscopic statistical fluctuations in such quantities as the electric field and the charge density. Results from the equilibrium statistical mechanics of two-dimensional plasmas are discussed, along with nonequilibrium statistical mechanics of the electrostatic guiding-center plasma (a two-dimensional plasma model).

Montgomery, D.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Liouvillian dynamics of the open Schwinger model: String breaking and kinetic dissipation in a thermal medium

Understanding the dynamics of bound state formation is one of the fundamental questions in confining quantum field theories such as Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). One hadronization mechanism that has garnered significant attention is the breaking of a string initially connecting a fermion and an antifermion. Deepening our understanding of real-time string-breaking dynamics with simpler, lower dimensional models like the Schwinger model can improve our understanding of the hadronization process in QCD and other confining systems found in condensed matter and statistical systems. Here in this paper, we consider the string-breaking dynamics within the Schwinger model and investigate its modification inside a thermal medium, treating the Schwinger model as an open quantum system coupled to a thermal environment. Within the regime of weak coupling between the system and environment, the real-time evolution of the system can be described by a Lindblad evolution equation. We analyze the Liouvillian gaps of this Lindblad equation and the time dependence of the system’s von Neumann entropy. We observe that the late-time relaxation rate decreases as the environment correlation length increases. Moreover, when the environment correlation length is infinite, the system exhibits two steady states, one in each of the sectors with definite charge-conjugation-parity (CP) quantum numbers. For parameter regimes where an initial string breaks in vacuum, we observe a delay of the string breaking in the medium, due to kinetic dissipation effects. Conversely, in regimes where an initial string remains intact in vacuum time evolution, we observe string breaking (melting) in the thermal medium. We further discuss how the Liouvillian dynamics of the open Schwinger model can be simulated on quantum computers and provide an estimate of the associated Trotter errors.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1971

Response of aerospace structures to reentry aerodynamic excitation

A bibliography on aerodynamic excitation and associated structural response is presented. Very little applicable data under actual reentry conditions was found, but many wind tunnel tests and some in-flight data were. Aerodynamic excitation and proposed space shuttle configurations and reentry trajectories were studied. Attached turbulent boundary layer, separated turbulent boundary layer, and base pressure fluctuations are the region of aerodynamic excitation most applicable to exterior panels of space shuttle-type vehicles; prediction techniques are presented for these environments. Methods for predicting the response of panel structures to acoustic excitation were investigated. A normal mode approach was developed for the low frequency response and a statistical energy approach was utilized for the high frequency response. A finite element model was made of a thermal protective system test panel. Computer programs were used to determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the panel and to calculate the response of the panel to a reverberant acoustic field. Power spectral densities of response displacement and acceleration are presented.

Carlin, D., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Estimation of spectral emissivity in the thermal infrared

A number of algorithms are available in the literature that attempt to remove most of the effects of temperature from thermal multispectral data where the final goal is to extract emissivity differences. Early approaches include adjacent spectral band ratioing, broad band radiance normalization and the use of one band where emissivities are generally high (e.g., 11 to 12 micrometers) to determine the temperature. More recent work has produced two techniques that use data averaging to extract temperature to leave a quantity related to emissivity changes. These two techniques have been investigated and compared and appear to provide reasonable results. The analysis presented in this paper develops a thermal IR multispectral temperature/emissivity estimation procedure based on formal estimation theory, Gaussian statistics, and a stochastic radiance signal model including the effects of both temperature and emissivity. The importance of this work is that this is an optimal estimation procedure which will provide minimum variance estimates of temperature and emissivity changes directly. Section 2 discusses optimal linear spectral emissivity estimation and Section 3 is a summary.

Kryskowski, David↗
DOE OSTI2025

Predicting the viscoplastic response of a crystallizing fluoropolymer using transient network theory

We employ a molecular theory of dynamic polymer networks to describe the viscoplastic response of rubbery FK-800, a thermoplastic copolymer of chlorotrifluoroethylene and vinylidene fluoride, over a broad range of thermal histories. The kinetics of crystallization at different annealing temperatures was modeled using a modified Avrami equation, whose parameters were found to evolve through simple relationships over the full temperature range of the rubbery state. By fitting experimental compression data, we discovered predictable trends for the physical parameters in our mechanical model over its full range of crystallinities (up to ≈20%) and provided insights based on molecular-level physics to justify them. Using this, an end-to-end model was developed to predict the yielding and post-yield behavior of rubbery FK-800 for arbitrary thermal histories. The model successfully predicted the highly nonlinear evolution of characteristic mechanical signatures (stiffness, yield point, post-yield drop) throughout the crystallization process. A statistical analysis of variance test was employed to determine that the measured variations in the mechanical behavior of rubbery FK-800 are primarily dictated by its fractional crystallinity, regardless of its exact thermal history.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2012

A Statistics-Based Material Property Analysis to Support TPS Characterization

Accurate characterization of entry capsule heat shield material properties is a critical component in modeling and simulating Thermal Protection System (TPS) response in a prescribed aerothermal environment. The thermal decomposition of the TPS material during the pyrolysis and charring processes is poorly characterized and typically results in large uncertainties in material properties as inputs for ablation models. These material property uncertainties contribute to large design margins on flight systems and cloud re- construction efforts for data collected during flight and ground testing, making revision to existing models for entry systems more challenging. The analysis presented in this work quantifies how material property uncertainties propagate through an ablation model and guides an experimental test regimen aimed at reducing these uncertainties and characterizing the dependencies between properties in the virgin and charred states for a Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) based TPS. A sensitivity analysis identifies how the high-fidelity model behaves in the expected flight environment, while a Monte Carlo based uncertainty propagation strategy is used to quantify the expected spread in the in-depth temperature response of the TPS. An examination of how perturbations to the input probability density functions affect output temperature statistics is accomplished using a Kriging response surface of the high-fidelity model. Simulations are based on capsule configuration and aerothermal environments expected during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) entry sequence. We identify and rank primary sources of uncertainty from material properties in a flight-relevant environment, show the dependence on spatial orientation and in-depth location on those uncertainty contributors, and quantify how sensitive the expected results are.

Copeland, Sean R.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Empirically-calibrated H100 node power models for accurate AI training energy estimation

Accurately quantifying the energy use of artificial intelligence (AI) training is critical for infrastructure planning, carbon accounting, and sustainable data center operation, but few studies have directly measured the power consumption of production workloads on contemporary hardware. By combining empirical measurements from Brookhaven National Laboratory during AI training on 8-graphics-processing-unit H100 systems with open-source benchmarking data, we develop statistical models relating computational intensity to node-level power consumption. We measure the gap between manufacturer-rated thermal design power (TDP) and actual power demand during AI training. Our analysis reveals that even computationally intensive workloads operate at only 76% of the 10.2 kW TDP rating. Our architecture-specific model, calibrated to floating-point operations, predicts energy consumption with 11.4% mean absolute percentage error, significantly outperforming TDP-based approaches (27%–37% error). We identified distinct power signatures between transformer and convolutional neural network architectures, with transformers showing characteristic fluctuations that may impact grid stability. These results provide a measurement-grounded basis for improving AI training energy estimates, enabling more reliable infrastructure sizing, cost projections, and environmental impact assessments.

Newkirk, Alex C↗
NASA NTRS1979

A computer program for thermal radiation from gaseous rocket exhuast plumes (GASRAD)

A computer code is presented for predicting incident thermal radiation from defined plume gas properties in either axisymmetric or cylindrical coordinate systems. The radiation model is a statistical band model for exponential line strength distribution with Lorentz/Doppler line shapes for 5 gaseous species (H2O, CO2, CO, HCl and HF) and an appoximate (non-scattering) treatment of carbon particles. The Curtis-Godson approximation is used for inhomogeneous gases, but a subroutine is available for using Young's intuitive derivative method for H2O with Lorentz line shape and exponentially-tailed-inverse line strength distribution. The geometry model provides integration over a hemisphere with up to 6 individually oriented identical axisymmetric plumes, a single 3-D plume, Shading surfaces may be used in any of 7 shapes, and a conical limit may be defined for the plume to set individual line-of-signt limits. Intermediate coordinate systems may specified to simplify input of plumes and shading surfaces.

Reardon, J. E.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Power Electronics Materials and Bonded Interfaces - Reliability and Lifetime

Advanced packaging technologies are currently being designed and developed by the power electronics industry however, the maximum operating temperature is still limited to 175 degrees Celsius for the silicon carbide devices. Bonded materials such as sintered copper and polymeric materials are potential candidates for high temperature operation, but it is critical to characterize and evaluate its reliability under harsh operating conditions. In this project, we discuss the results of the accelerated experiments conducted on sintered copper and polymeric materials. Additionally, a novel framework to develop the lifetime prediction model of bonded interfaces through employing statistical and machine learning models are described. In this task, scanning acoustic microscope images of bonded interfaces obtained under thermal cycling experiments are used as the data.

ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Thermal Gradient Effects on Local Hotspot Ignition in 1,3,5,7‐Tetranitro‐1,3,5,7‐tetrazocane (HMX)

Understanding hotspot ignition, growth, and criticality, as well as the timescales of each, is crucial for parameterizing mesoscale and continuum‐level models that rely on a statistical understanding of hotspots. However, these models often consider hotspots to have uniform temperatures or for hotspots of a given temperature and size to always behave the same. Therefore, using molecular dynamics simulations, we assess the influence of thermal distribution effects on hotspot local ignition and time to ignition in 1,3,5,7‐tetranitro‐1,3,5,7‐tetrazocane (HMX) nanoscale hotspots. Finally, by assessing hotspots with a gradient driven from an initial two‐temperature core–shell setup, we show that small increases in the core temperature under a constant average temperature can lead to order‐of‐magnitude effects on reaction and local ignition timescales.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design Methods, Tools, and Data for Ceramic Solar Receivers

This report presents the development of tools and methods for evaluating the reliability and performance of ceramic materials in high temperature solar receivers. As Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies aim for higher operating temperatures to enhance efficiency and meet industrial process heat requirements, current high temperature metallic materials face challenges in maintaining structural integrity. This report explores advanced ceramics as a promising alternative, given their superior high temperature strength and lower thermal expansion, compared to metals. To address the need for effective ceramic receiver design tools, this report integrates statistical failure models of ceramics into the existing srlife tool: an open-source software package designed to estimate the life of high temperature CSP components. These failure models account for the inherent variability and flaw distribution in ceramics, as well as the impact of subcritical crack growth under high temperature cyclic loads. The report also presents experimental data collected for a commercially available ceramic material, SiC, and details the process of estimating reliability model parameters from these data. A comparative design analysis is then performed between ceramic (SiC) and metallic (current nickel-based superalloys A740H and A282) receiver. This comparison demonstrates that SiC receivers can achieve service life exceeding 30 years under high incident heat flux conditions, compared to just a few years for metallic receivers.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1990

AEOSS design guide for system analysis on Advanced Earth-Orbital Spacecraft Systems

Advanced Earth Orbital Spacecraft System (AEOSS) enables users to project the requried power, weight, and cost for a generic earth-orbital spacecraft system. These variables are calculated on the component and subsystem levels, and then the system level. The included six subsystems are electric power, thermal control, structure, auxillary propulsion, attitude control, and communication, command, and data handling. The costs are computed using statistically determined models that were derived from the flown spacecraft in the past and were categorized into classes according to their functions and structural complexity. Selected design and performance analyses for essential components and subsystems are also provided. AEOSS has the feature permitting a user to enter known values of these parameters, totally and partially, at all levels. All information is of vital importance to project managers of subsystems or a spacecraft system. AEOSS is a specially tailored software coded from the relational database program of the Acius; 4th Dimension with a Macintosh version. Because of the licensing agreement, two versions of the AEOSS documents were prepared. This version AEOSS Design Guide, is for users to exploit the full capacity of the 4th Dimension. It is for a user who wants to alter or expand the program structures, the program statements, and the program procedures. The user has to possess a 4th Dimension first.

Lee, Hwa-Ping↗
NASA NTRS1990

AEOSS runtime manual for system analysis on Advanced Earth-Orbital Spacecraft Systems

Advanced earth orbital spacecraft system (AEOSS) enables users to project the required power, weight, and cost for a generic earth-orbital spacecraft system. These variables are calculated on the component and subsystem levels, and then the system level. The included six subsystems are electric power, thermal control, structure, auxiliary propulsion, attitude control, and communication, command, and data handling. The costs are computed using statistically determined models that were derived from the flown spacecraft in the past and were categorized into classes according to their functions and structural complexity. Selected design and performance analyses for essential components and subsystems are also provided. AEOSS has the feature permitting a user to enter known values of these parameters, totally and partially, at all levels. All information is of vital importance to project managers of subsystems or a spacecraft system. AEOSS is a specially tailored software coded from the relational database program of the Acius' 4th Dimension with a Macintosh version. Because of the licensing agreements, two versions of the AEOSS documents were prepared. This version, AEOSS Runtime Manual, is permitted to be distributed with a finite number of the restrictive 4D Runtime version. It can perform all contained applications without any programming alterations.

Lee, Hwa-Ping↗
DOE OSTI2025

Collisional Excitation of HCN by CO to Refine the Modeling of Cometary Comae

Here, we present the first dataset of collisional (de)-excitation rate coefficients of HCN induced by CO, one of the main perturbing gases in cometary atmospheres. The dataset spans the temperature range of 5–50 K. It includes both state-to-state rate coefficients involving the lowest ten and nine rotational levels of HCN and CO, respectively, and the so-called “thermalized” rate coefficients over the rotational population of CO at each kinetic temperature. The derivation of these coefficients exploited the good performance of the statistical adiabatic channel model (SACM) on top of an accurate interaction potential computed at the CCSD(T)-F12b/CBS level of theory. The reliability of the SACM approach was validated by comparison with full quantum calculations restricted at the lowest total angular momentum of the system. These results provide essential input to accurately model the distribution among the rotational energy levels and the abundance of HCN in cometary atmospheres, accounting for deviations from local thermodynamic equilibrium that typically occurs in such environments.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1988

On the prediction of the behavior of the velocity, temperature and humidity fields above a thermally stratified air-water interface

A turbulent kinetic energy-dissipation (k-epsilon) model is employed to numerically simulate the behavior of the mean velocity, temperature and humidity fields, along with such second-order statistics as Reynolds stresses, turbulent heat and mass transfer correlation, and bulk transfer coefficients in the boundary layer above wind-generated laboratory waves. The k and epsilon equations have been properly modified to account for thermal stratification, the presence of free surface, and favorable pressure gradient effects. Predictions are compared with available data.

Papadimitrakis, Yiannis A.↗