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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Data-driven Community-centered Resilient Assessment and Planning Toolkit for Nexus of Energy and Water (DCRAPT-NEW)

Urban areas, including Detroit and Pittsburgh, have suffered significant dual outages of the electrical and water infrastructure in the past decade due, in part, to the increasing number of extreme weather events. With increasing temperatures and rainfall intensity, these regions need to prepare for increasing extreme events through community-based energy and water resilience analysis, planning, and enhancement. This project developed a suite of open-source, open-access, community-centered, data-driven assessment and distributed energy resource (DER) and planning tools for energy and water resilience enhancement in urban areas. Through establishing a multi-level community awareness and engagement mechanism and a comprehensive collection of power outage and flooding data, an innovative group of community energy and water resilience assessment and planning tools have been developed for a wide range of users with differing and variable sets of data available to them. The developed tools include (1) DOE EAGLE-I data-driven, deep-learning assisted resilience assessment and DER planning tools at the county level with socioeconomic factors incorporated; (2) Utility annual power outage data-driven tools for long term resilience assessment and DER planning and 15-min power outage data-driven tools for short term resilience assessment and planning; (3) Detailed engineering tools for energy and water systems resilience assessment and planning when the system topology and component fragility curves are available; (4) Alternative Resiliency Metric Calculation that extracts and separates outage and restoration processes; and (5) Co-optimization tools that evaluate the resilience of the power and sewage system and allow users to conduct joint planning with energy and wastewater systems. The developed tools provide planners, decision-makers, and stakeholders with powerful capabilities to systematically evaluate system/community resilience and optimal and actionable guidance for enhancing resilience while prioritizing DER investments. The tools have been used and validated in Detroit and Pittsburgh and can be used in other areas of the nation. In addition, this project will (1) advance the knowledge and applications of machine-learning methods in analyzing and fusing different layers of information and generating meaningful data points such as generating rare weather events; (2) significantly improve the energy and water resilience of the identified communities in Detroit and Pittsburgh and prepare for more frequent and severe weather conditions; (3) help communities assess extreme weather event impacts and address short-term and long-term resilience-related issues The developed tools have been made public via GitHub and demonstrated to community stakeholders and utility companies via the two annual workshops and numerous community engagement meetings. The project outcomes are also disseminated through publications in various journals and conference proceedings, and presentations at top conferences.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Dynamic Tripolar Strategic Balance: A Net Assessment (Workshop Summary)

On December 9-10, the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) hosted a workshop titled “The Dynamic Tripolar Strategic Balance: A Net Assessment.” The discussion was guided by the following key questions: • By what metrics should the strategic balance be assessed? • How dynamic is the balance? How fragile? • Is the United States gaining strategic advantage, losing it, or holding steady, overall? • In order to gain new advantages or re-gain advantages lost, can or should the United States prioritize some domains and accept more risk in others? If so, which ones?

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fermilab 2025 Summer Internship: Repairing Pre-Amplifiers with Mu2e Electronics Installation Team

The author spent nine weeks over summer 2025 working on the tracker electronics installation team for the Mu2e experiment. One of her main responsibilities was repairing high voltage (HV) and calibration (Cal) pre-amplifiers (pre-amps). During installation, the fragile wires connecting the two sockets to the pre-amp board must be bent, often leading to breakage. During production, the sockets and wires were initially soldered to the board at UC Berkely, then the whole pre-amp was coated in parylene before transport to Fermilab. The interns were able to expedite the repairs, and thus whole installation process, by using an alternative method on-site with epoxy. Another task they were responsible for, not included in the original project specifications, was attaching copper clips to specific vias on the Cals to reduce noise. The talk will give listeners insight into the daily problem-solving required by the novel technologies in the Mu2e project. The author would like to acknowledge her fellow Monmouth College undergraduate interns, Lizzie Durfee and Gianna Maughan, advisor and PI of the DOE RENEW Grant Dr. Christopher G. Fasano, and the Mu2e team lead by co-spokesperson Dr. Bob Bernstein and tracker L2 manager Dr. Brendan Kiburg.

de Zwart, Bronte [Monmouth Coll.]↗
DOE OSTI2026

Powered By ERAD [Slides]

Energy Resilience Analysis for Distribution Power System (ERAD) is a free, open-source Python toolkit for estimating the energy and service impacts of hazards like earthquakes and flooding. It uses a graph-based approach to capture high resolution connectivity among the grid, critical services, and customers and rapidly compute household level metrics and aggregated statistics across large distribution systems. It uses asset fragility curves that relate hazard severity to survival probability for power system equipment including cables, transformers, substations, etc. The tool is designed to be modular and extensible, allowing it to interface with third-party hazard simulators and integrate into broader resilience analysis workflows. ERAD enables researchers, students, communities, distribution utilities, and other stakeholders to understand hazard impacts and evaluate the effectiveness of different programs to improve energy resilience. The webinar was hosted by NLR researcher Aadil Latif.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Fermilab 2025 Summer Internship Skills Learned from Working with Mu2e Tracker Team

As part of a DOE RENEW Grant, the undergraduate authors interned at Fermilab. They spent nine weeks over summer 2025 working on the tracker team for the Mu2e experiment. They gained practical experience in a multitude of new skills including electronics installation, testing, and repairs. Their work particularly increased productivity by helping repair the high voltage and calibration pre-amplifiers, over 20,000 of which are needed in the tracker. These components are very fragile and often break during the installation process. The experience also taught them several soft skills such as the importance of thoughtful data storage, record- keeping, and problem-solving skills. They learned the demands of a large, international collaboration and how to work in a team. The authors would like to acknowledge their advisor and PI of the grant, Dr. Christopher G. Fasano, and the Mu2e team lead by co- spokesperson Dr. Bob Bernstein and tracker L2 manager Dr. Brendan Kiburg.

de Zwart, Brontë↗
DOE OSTI2026

Strategies for Flood Resilience and Grid Investment Among Iowa's Electric Distribution Utilities

Flooding poses a growing threat to Iowa's electric distribution system, yet utilities face significant data and modeling challenges in planning effective resilience investments. This report provides a foundational assessment of how distribution utilities in Iowa, investor-owned, municipal, and cooperative, approach resilience planning, with a focus on flood risk. It combines hazard characterization, review of state and utility practices, and application of NLR's Energy Resilience Analysis for Distribution Systems (ERAD) and Capacity Expansion Decision Support for Distribution Networks (CADET) tools. Using FEMA floodplains, Iowa Flood Center depth grids, and utility infrastructure data, the analysis quantifies asset exposure, simulates outage risks, and evaluates resilience strategies such as pole hardening, undergrounding, and substation protection. Results indicate that while feeder-level upgrades provide incremental benefits, the most significant reductions in outage risk are achieved through targeted substation interventions. The report highlights key data gaps, such as limited elevation data and fragility functions, and underscores the need for probability-weighted investment frameworks to address both frequent and catastrophic flood events. These insights aim to support utilities, state agencies, and federal partners in prioritizing resilience investments that safeguard Iowa's electric grid against future flooding.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Turbine Damage Probability

Damage probability maps for offshore wind turbines exposed to tropical cyclones (TCs) under both historical and future climate scenarios along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are presented in this dataset. TCs are generated using the Risk Analysis Framework for Tropical Cyclones (RAFT), forced by CMIP6 historical and future global climate simulations. Maximum wind speeds for 20- and 50-year TCs are processed through a fragility function specific to offshore wind (OSW) turbines in order to estimate the probability of damage – specifically yielding and buckling – based on wind speed intensity.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1966

Epoxy-coated containers easily opened by wire band

Epoxy coating reduces punctures, abrasions, and contamination of synthetic cellular containers used for shipping and storing fragile goods and equipment. A wire band is wound around the closure joint, followed by the epoxy coating. The container can then be easily opened by pulling the wire through the epoxy around the joint.

Mc Coy, J. W.↗
NASA NTRS1969

Pressure transducer

Pressure-sensitive transducer, consisting of a series of spindle-supported electrically conductive metal washers connected to electrical sensing circuitry, determines the force exerted between a mounting bolt and nut on relatively fragile components.

Baker, C. D.↗
NASA NTRS1969

Development of improved potting and conformal coating compounds

Improved organic potting and conformal coating materials protect fragile electronic components and circuitry from mechanical shock and vibration, moisture, and corrosion. These materials meet specifications covering resistance to cycling, radiation, flammability, and sterilizing agents for certain space applications.

Webster, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Proposed electromagnetic wave energy converter

Device converts wave energy into electric power through array of insulated absorber elements responsive to field of impinging electromagnetic radiation. Device could also serve as solar energy converter that is potentially less expensive and fragile than solar cells, yet substantially more efficient.

Bailey, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Spiritual impacts of the space program on the world

The lessons learned from the space program in showing how fragile the environment is on earth are discussed. Examples are cited of the reactions of the astronauts to the unique features of earth. The reactions of the populace in seeking better living conditions and their concern with improving the environment are given as two outgrowths of the program.

Esch, M.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Assessment of Southern California environment from ERTS-1

ERTS-1 imagery is a useful source of data for evaluation of earth resources in Southern California. The improving quality of ERTS-1 imagery, and our increasing ability to enhance the imagery has resulted in studies of a variety of phenomena in several Southern California environments. These investigations have produced several significant results of varying detail. They include the detection and identification of macro-scale tectonic and vegetational patterns, as well as detailed analysis of urban and agricultural processes. The sequential nature of ERTS-1 imagery has allowed these studies to monitor significant changes in the environment. In addiation, some preliminary work has begun directed toward assessing the impact of expanding recreation, agriculture and urbanization into the fragile desert environment. Refinement of enhancement and mapping techniques and more intensive analysis of ERTS-1 imagery should lead to a greater capability to extract detailed information for more precise evaluations and more accurate monitoring of earth resources in Southern California.

Bowden, L. W.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Laminating cored, stressed-face, sandwich structures

Structure assemblies of fragile and flexible components are rigidly supported from aggregate exterior during bonding operation. Support assures conformance to desired profiles and duplication of assembly results. It minimizes exterior surface identification with core character, improving structure rigidity while adding desirable aerodynamic qualities and finished appearance.

Heier, W. C.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Development of a process for producing ribbon shaped filaments

Silicon carbide (SiC) ribbon filaments were produced on a carbon ribbon substrate, about 1500 microns (60 mils) wide and 100 microns (4 mils) thick in lengths up to 2 meters (6 ft), and with tensile strengths up to 142 KN/cm sq (206 Ksi). During the course of the study, ribbon filaments of boron were also produced on the carbon ribbon substrate; the boron ribbon produced was extremely fragile. The tensile strength of the SiC ribbon was limited by large growths or flaws caused by anomalies at the substrate surface; these anomalies were either foreign dirt or substrate imperfections or both. Related work carried out on round 100 micron (4 mils) diameter SiC filaments on a 33 micron (1.3 mil) diameter, very smooth carbon monofilament substrate has shown that tensile strengths as high as 551 KN/cm sq (800 Ksi) are obtainable with the SiC-carbon round substrate combination, and indicates that if the ribbon substrate surface and ribbon deposition process can be improved similar strengths can be realizable. Cost analysis shows that 100 micron x 5-10 micron SiC ribbon can be very low cost reinforcement material.

Debolt, H. E.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Contributions to the study of ultrasonic machining

Problems in the industrial application of ultrasounds are discussed. Starting from the industrial characteristics of ultrasonic working, especially of hard and fragile materials that are difficult to work by means of conventional methods, the characteristics of the feed system, the circulation system of the abrasive suspension, and the ultra-acoustic unit of machines for ultrasonic working are described. Experiments on the behavior of different types of ultra-acoustic unit design and on the optimal operating conditions connected with the manner of execution, fixation, and excitation conditions are analyzed.

Savii, G.↗
NASA NTRS1974

On particle motion in an electric welding arc treated with sonic or ultrasonic oscillations

The criteria for the stability of the subharmonic, harmonic, or superharmonic oscillations determine the relation between acoustic field parameters and particle parameters. The derived formulas underlie the destruction of the fragile Widmanstatten structure in weldings and therefore the designing of the generators that must be used for this welding process.

Petru, S.↗