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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 1,117 records · Page 62
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Assessment of Survey Results from Advanced Reactor Industry Domain Experts on Nonlinear Soil-Structure Interaction Analysis Software Verification and Validation

The seismic load case has a significant impact on the design and cost of nuclear power plants. Given the need to substantially reduce cost, advanced reactor designers are looking to leverage numerical tools that enable seismic analysis of an integrated vessel/support/structure/soil system. Modern nonlinear analysis tools provide a solution, capturing dynamic coupling between components (including soil-structure interaction (SSI)) concurrent with nonlinear behavior in one or more parts of the system. Although these methods have a rich history of technical development and implementation, software quality assurance (SQA) following nuclear industry standards remains a significant burden for those wishing to adopt such methods for advanced reactor design and licensing. To reduce the SQA burden, this project will develop the guidance for SQA verification and validation (V&V) of coupled nonlinear SSI analysis tools, to include a test matrix of software features and test problems to support commercial grade dedication (CGD). The guidance is intended to be technology-neutral: supporting designers of all advanced reactors. To maximize the value of the project to reactor designers, the project team performed focused surveys of and interviews with advanced reactor designers. Additionally, the project surveyed members of the broader industry involved in reactor design and licensing. The aggregated industry feedback consists of written survey responses, live polling responses, focused interviews, and informal feedback provided after outreach presentations, collectively referred to as “survey results”. Herein, the survey results are reported, reviewed, and assessed to inform follow-on project activities. The survey results confirmed the familiarity of the industry with the coupled nonlinear SSI analysis. They also affirm the project need based upon the expressed intent to (1) incorporate nonlinear features and (2) pursue the coupled nonlinear SSI analysis to reduce seismic demands and construction costs. All reactor designers indicated their intent to incorporate two or more nonlinear features, and all reactor designer respondents opined that the coupled nonlinear SSI analysis would allow for the optimization of the reactor design and construction. However, the programmatic challenges, whether real or perceived, present a significant barrier to reactor designers. The barrier most commonly identified by the reactor designer population was regulatory risk, with 70% citing this as a reason not to pursue the approach. The perceived regulatory risk identified by the reactor designers underscores the importance of regulator engagement and dialogue in this project. Additionally, half of the reactor designers identified cost and lack of guidance as a deterrent. The survey results also provide insights to tailor specific aspects of the guidance document and test matrix. The project plans to prepare both a formal referenceable guidance document and a collaborative, web-based test matrix and problem set. The project will focus on more complete test problem definitions for the prioritized nonlinear features over shallower problem descriptions for a larger set of features. The nonlinearities prioritized as high based upon survey feedback include fluid-structure interaction and seismic isolation and energy dissipation devices. The nonlinearities prioritized as intermediate include nonlinear geomaterials, nonlinear concrete, nonlinear steel, and interface/contact nonlinearity. Deep embedment and the associated nonlinear phenomena are assigned the lowest priority based upon survey feedback.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS1971

State estimation with small nonlinearities

A variety of techniques is available for estimating the states of nonlinear dynamic systems from noisy data. The differences among several of these procedures in the presence of small dynamic and observational nonlinearities are investigated. Four discrete estimation algorithms are analyzed. The first is a strictly least square estimator, while the others are recursive algorithms similar to the Kalman filter used for estimating the states of linear systems. A group of analytic expressions is developed for the mean and covariance of the error in each of these estimators so that they may be compared without lengthy Monte Carlo simulations. The covariance expressions show that, to first order, all the estimators have the same covariance. Expressions for the means show that each estimator has a different bias. Several examples are carried out demonstrating that the relative magnitudes of the bias errors in the various estimators can be a strong function of such parameters as initial covariances and number of data points. Under some circumstances, more complicated algorithms can have larger biases than smaller ones.

Conrad, B.↗
NASA NTRS1987

A quasi-analytical method for non-iterative computation of nonlinear controls

An optimal control solution process was developed for a general class of nonlinear dynamical systems. The method combines control theory, perturbation methods, and Van Loan's recent matrix exponential results. A variety of applications support the practical utility of this method. Nonlinear rigid body optimal maneuvers are routinely solved. Flexible body dynamical systems of an order greater than 40 were solved. The method fails occasionally due to poor convergence of the perturbation expansion or numerical difficulties associated with computing the matrix exponential. The method is attractive because it appears to be a good candidate for semi-automation; no initial guess is required, and it usually converges at 2nd or 3rd order in minutes of machine time.

Junkins, J. L.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Quantum system dynamics with a weakly nonlinear Josephson junction bath

Here, we investigate the influence of a weakly nonlinear Josephson bath consisting of a chain of Josephson junctions on the dynamics of a small quantum system (LC oscillator). Focusing on the regime where the charging energy is the largest energy scale, we perturbatively calculate the correlation function of the Josephson bath to the leading order in the Josephson energy divided by the charging energy while keeping the cosine potential exactly. When the variation of the charging energy along the chain ensures fast decay of the bath correlation function, the dynamics of the LC oscillator that is weakly and capacitively coupled to the Josephson bath can be solved through the Markovian master equation. We establish a duality relation for the Josephson bath between the regimes of large charging and Josephson energies, respectively. The results can be applied to cases where the charging energy either is nonuniformly engineered or disordered in the chain. Furthermore, we find that the Josephson bath may become non-Markovian when the temperature is increased beyond the zero-temperature limit in that the bath correlation function gets shifted by a constant and does not decay with time.

1-dimensional systems↗
NASA NTRS1983

A case for nonlinear model simplification in the design of flight control systems

An algorithm is presented for obtaining a reduced order or simplified nonlinear model of a nonlinear plant. The method provides a systematic approach for quickly finding the optimal simplified model of the system. Controllers are then designed around this nonlinear model and are used to control the original plant. An example design, for the F-8 aircraft, illustrates that the simplified model does indeed enable the design of a linear controller whose performance is indistinguishable from higher order optimal controllers for the original nonlinear plant. The net result is a simplified design procedure for effectively controlling complex nonlinear systems.

Desrochers, A. A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Synthesis of Optimal Nonlinear Feedback Laws for Dynamic Systems Using Neural Networks

Open-loop solutions of dynamical optimization problems can be numerically computed usingexisting software packages. The computed time histories of the state and control variables, formultiple sets of end conditions can then be used to train a neural network to 'recognize' the optimal,nonlinear feedback relation between the states and controls of the system. The 'learned' network canthen be used to output an approximate optimal control given a full set (or a partial set) of measuredsystem states. With simple neural networks, we have successfully demonstrated the efficacy of theproposed approach using a minimum-time orbit injection problem. The usefulness and limitations ofthis novel approach on real-life optimal guidance and control problems, with many state and control variables as well as path inequality constraints, remain to be seen.

Orbit injection problem↗
NASA NTRS1989

Time dependent inflow-outflow boundary conditions for 2D acoustic systems

An analysis of the number and form of the required inflow-outflow boundary conditions for the full two-dimensional time-dependent nonlinear acoustic system in subsonic mean flow is performed. The explicit predictor-corrector method of MacCormack (1969) is used. The methodology is tested on both uniform and sheared mean flows with plane and nonplanar sources. Results show that the acoustic system requires three physical boundary conditions on the inflow and one on the outflow boundary. The most natural choice for the inflow boundary conditions is judged to be a specification of the vorticity, the normal acoustic impedance, and a pressure gradient-density gradient relationship normal to the boundary. Specification of the acoustic pressure at the outflow boundary along with these inflow boundary conditions is found to give consistent reliable results. A set of boundary conditions developed earlier, which were intended to be nonreflecting is tested using the current method and is shown to yield unstable results for nonplanar acoustic waves.

Watson, Willie R.↗
NASA NTRS1973

High speed flow past wings

The analytical solution to the transonic small perturbation equation which describes steady compressible flow past finite wings at subsonic speeds can be expressed as a nonlinear integral equation with the perturbation velocity potential as the unknown function. This known formulation is substituted by a system of nonlinear algebraic equations to which various methods are applicable for its solution. Due to the presence of mathematical discontinuities in the flow solutions, however, a main computational difficulty was to ensure uniqueness of the solutions when local velocities on the wing exceeded the speed of sound. For continuous solutions this was achieved by embedding the algebraic system in an one-parameter operator homotopy in order to apply the method of parametric differentiation. The solution to the initial system of equations appears then as a solution to a Cauchy problem where the initial condition is related to the accompanying incompressible flow solution. In using this technique, however, a continuous dependence of the solution development on the initial data is lost when the solution reaches the minimum bifurcation point. A steepest descent iteration technique was therefore, added to the computational scheme for the calculation of discontinuous flow solutions. Results for purely subsonic flows and supersonic flows with and without compression shocks are given and compared with other available theoretical solutions.

Norstrud, H.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Functional expansion representations of artificial neural networks

In the past few years, significant interest has developed in using artificial neural networks to model and control nonlinear dynamical systems. While there exists many proposed schemes for accomplishing this and a wealth of supporting empirical results, most approaches to date tend to be ad hoc in nature and rely mainly on heuristic justifications. The purpose of this project was to further develop some analytical tools for representing nonlinear discrete-time input-output systems, which when applied to neural networks would give insight on architecture selection, pruning strategies, and learning algorithms. A long term goal is to determine in what sense, if any, a neural network can be used as a universal approximator for nonliner input-output maps with memory (i.e., realized by a dynamical system). This property is well known for the case of static or memoryless input-output maps. The general architecture under consideration in this project was a single-input, single-output recurrent feedforward network.

Gray, W. Steven↗
NASA NTRS1989

Bilateral control of teleoperators with time delay

A control law for teleoperators is presented which overcomes the instability caused by time delay. By using passivity and scattering theory, a criterion is developed which shows why existing bilateral control systems are unstable for certain environments, and why the proposed bilateral control law is stable for any environment and any time delay. The control law has been implemented on a single-axis force-reflecting hand controller, and preliminary results are shown. To keep the presentation clear, a 1-DOF linear time-invariant teleoperator system is discussed. Nevertheless, the results can be extended without loss of generality to an n-DOF nonlinear teleoperation system.

Anderson, Robert J.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Gaussian processes meet NeuralODEs: a Bayesian framework for learning the dynamics of partially observed systems from scarce and noisy data

We present a machine learning framework (GP-NODE) for Bayesian model discovery from partial, noisy and irregular observations of nonlinear dynamical systems. The proposed method takes advantage of differentiable programming to propagate gradient information through ordinary differential equation solvers and perform Bayesian inference with respect to unknown model parameters using Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling and Gaussian Process priors over the observed system states. This allows us to exploit temporal correlations in the observed data, and efficiently infer posterior distributions over plausible models with quantified uncertainty. The use of the Finnish Horseshoe as a sparsity-promoting prior for free model parameters also enables the discovery of parsimonious representations for the latent dynamics. A series of numerical studies is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed GP-NODE method including predator–prey systems, systems biology and a 50-dimensional human motion dynamical system. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Data-driven prediction in dynamical systems’.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
NASA NTRS1991

Baseband pulse shaping techniques for nonlinearly amplified pi/4-QPSK and QAM systems

A new generation of multi-stage pi/4-shifted QPSK and of superposed quadrature-amplitude-modulated (SQAM) modulators-coherent demodulators (modems) and of continuous phase modulated (CPM)-gaussian premodulation filtered minimum-shift-keying (MGMSK) systems is proposed and studied. These modems will lead to bandwidth and power efficient satellite communications systems designs. As an illustrative application, a baseband processing technique pi/4-controlled transition PSK (pi/4-CTPSK) is described. To develop a cost and power efficient design strategy, we assume that nonlinear, fully saturated high power amplifiers (HPA) are utilized in the satellite earth station transmitter and in the satellite transponder. Modem structures which could lead to application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) satellite on-board processing universal modem applications are also considered. Multistate GMSK (i.e., MGMSK) signal generation methods by means of two or more RF combined nonlinearly amplified SQAM modems and by one multistate (in-phase and quadrature-baseband premodulation filtered-superposed) SQAM architecture and one RF nonlinear amplifier are studied. During the SQAM modem development phase we investigate the potential system advantages of the pi/4-shifted logic. The bandwidth efficiency of the proposed multistate GMSK and baseband filtered PAM-FM modulator (a new class in the CPM family) will be significantly higher than that of conventional G-MSK systems. To optimize the practical P(sub e) = f((E sub b)/(N sub o)) performance we consider improved coherent demodulation MGMSK structures such as deviated-frequency locking coherent demodulators. For relative low bit rate SATCOM applications, e.g., bit rates less than 300 kb/s, phase noise tracking cancellation (for fixed site earth station) and phase noise cancellation as well as Doppler compensation (for satellite to mobile earth station) applications may be required. We study digital channel sounding methods which could cancel the phase noise-caused degradations of CPM and GMSK modems.

Feher, Kamilo↗
DOE OSTI2020

A model for discrete fracture-clay rock interaction incorporating electrostatic effects on transport

Abstract A model based on the code CrunchClay is presented for a fracture-clay matrix system that takes electrostatic effects on transport into account. The electrostatic effects on transport include those associated with the development of a diffusion potential as captured by the Nernst-Planck equation, and the formation of a diffuse layer bordering negatively charged clay particles within which partial anion exclusion occurs. The model is based on a dual continuum formulation that accounts for diffuse layer and bulk water pore space, providing a more flexible framework than is found in the classical mean electrostatic potential models. The diffuse layer model is obtained by volume averaging ion concentrations in the Poisson-Boltzmann equation, but also includes the treatment of longitudinal transport within this continuum. The calculation of transport within the bulk and diffuse layer porosity is based on a new formulation for the Nernst-Planck equation that considers averaging of diffusion coefficients and accumulation factors at grid cell interfaces. Equations for function residuals and the associated Jacobian matrix are presented such that the system of nonlinear differential-algebraic equations can be solved with Newton’s method. As an example, we consider a 2D system with a single discrete fracture within which flow and advective transport occurs that is coupled to diffusion in the clay-rich matrix. The simulation results demonstrate the lack of retardation for anions (e.g., 36 Cl − ) of the contaminant plume within the fracture flow system because they are largely excluded from the charged clay rock, while the migration of cations (e.g., 90 Sr ++ ) is more strongly attenuated. The diffusive loss of divalent cations in particular from the fracture is accentuated by their accumulation in the diffuse layer within the clay-rich matrix.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Large-scale harmonic balance simulations with Krylov subspace and preconditioner recycling

The multi-harmonic balance method combined with numerical continuation provides an efficient framework to compute a family of time-periodic solutions, or response curves, for large-scale, nonlinear mechanical systems. The predictor and corrector steps repeatedly solve a sequence of linear systems that scale by the model size and number of harmonics in the assumed Fourier series approximation. In this paper, a novel Newton–Krylov iterative method is embedded within the multi-harmonic balance and continuation algorithm to efficiently compute the approximate solutions from the sequence of linear systems that arise during the prediction and correction steps. Further, the method recycles, or reuses, both the preconditioner and the Krylov subspace generated by previous linear systems in the solution sequence. A delayed frequency preconditioner refactorizes the preconditioner only when the performance of the iterative solver deteriorates. The GCRO-DR iterative solver recycles a subset of harmonic Ritz vectors to initialize the solution subspace for the next linear system in the sequence. The performance of the iterative solver is demonstrated on two exemplars with contact-type nonlinearities and benchmarked against a direct solver with traditional Newton–Raphson iterations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1972

A comparison of the effects of small nonlinearities on several estimation schemes.

A variety of techniques are available for estimating the states of nonlinear dynamic systems from noisy data. These procedures are generally equivalent when applied to linear systems. This paper investigates the difference between several of these procedures in the presence of small dynamic and observational nonlinearities. In particular, it examines one least square batch processing algorithm, and three recursive algorithms similar to the Kalman filter. To first order, all the estimators have the same covariance. Expressions for the means, however, show that each estimator has a different bias. The examples presented show that the biases can be a strong function of such parameters as initial covariances and number of data points being considered.

Conrad, B.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Modeling flow at the nozzle of a solid rocket motor

The mechanical behavior of a rocket motor internal flow field results in a system of nonlinear partial differential equations which can be solved numerically. The accuracy and the convergence of the solution of the system of equations depends largely on how precisely the sharp gradients can be resolved. An adaptive grid generation scheme is incorporated into the computer algorithm to enhance the capability of numerical modeling. With this scheme, the grid is refined as the solution evolves. This scheme significantly improves the methodology of solving flow problems in rocket nozzle by putting the refinement part of grid generation into the computer algorithm.

Chow, Alan S.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Experimental results in nonlinear compensation of a one degree-of-freedom magnetic suspension

Nonlinear control techniques are of increasing interest in magnetic bearing applications. A one-degree-of-freedom magnetic suspension system has been constructed to serve as a test system for nonlinear control. The objective of this effort is to build an accurate model for the nonlinear suspension dynamics and to show the advantages of compensating for these nonlinearities by using a nonlinear controller. The results obtained with a nonlinear controller are experimentally demonstrated as superior to those obtained with a linear controller. Specifically, a controller which contains a force-control block yields transient responses which are largely independent of the operating point air gap.

Trumper, David L.↗