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At least 127 records · Page 7

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NASA NTRS2010

Advancements in Dual-Pump Broadband CARS for Supersonic Combustion Measurements

Space- and time-resolved measurements of temperature and species mole fractions of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen were obtained with a dual-pump coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) system in hydrogen-fueled supersonic combustion free jet flows. These measurements were taken to provide time-resolved fluid properties of turbulent supersonic combustion for use in the creation and verification of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models. CFD models of turbulent supersonic combustion flow currently facilitate the design of air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engines. Measurements were made in supersonic axi-symmetric free jets of two scales. First, the measurement system was tested in a laboratory environment using a laboratory-scale burner (approx.10 mm at nozzle exit). The flow structures of the laboratory-burner were too small to be resolved with the CARS measurements volume, but the composition and temperature of the jet allowed the performance of the system to be evaluated. Subsequently, the system was tested in a burner that was approximately 6 times larger, whose length scales are better resolved by the CARS measurement volume. During both these measurements, weaknesses of the CARS system, such as sensitivity to vibrations and beam steering and inability to measure temperature or species concentrations in hydrogen fuel injection regions were indentified. Solutions were then implemented in improved CARS systems. One of these improved systems is a dual-pump broadband CARS technique called, Width Increased Dual-pump Enhanced CARS (WIDECARS). The two lowest rotational energy levels of hydrogen detectable by WIDECARS are H2 S(3) and H2 S(4). The detection of these lines gives the system the capability to measure temperature and species concentrations in regions of the flow containing pure hydrogen fuel at room temperature. WIDECARS is also designed for measurements of all the major species (except water) in supersonic combustion flows fueled with hydrogen and hydrogen/ethylene mixtures (N2, O2, H2, C2H4, CO, and CO2). This instrument can characterize supersonic combustion fueled with surrogate fuel mixtures of hydrogen and ethylene. This information can lead to a better understanding of the chemistry and performance of supersonic combustion fueled with cracked jet propulsion (JP)-type fuel.

Tedder, Sarah Augusta Umberger↗

NASA NTRS1993

Atomization and vaporization characteristics of airblast fuel injection inside a venturi tube

This paper describes the experimental and numerical characterization of the capillary fuel injection, atomization, dispersion, and vaporization of liquid fuel in a coflowing air stream inside a single venturi tube. The experimental techniques used are all laser-based. Phase Doppler analyzer was used to characterize the atomization and vaporization process. Planar laser-induced fluorescence visualizations give good qualitative picture of the fuel droplet and vapor distribution. Limited quantitative capabilities of the technique are also demonstrated. A modified version of the KIVA-II was used to simulate the entire spray process, including breakup and vaporization. The advantage of venturi nozzle is demonstrated in terms of better atomization, more uniform F/A distribution, and less pressure drop. Multidimensional spray calculations can be used as a design tool only if care is taken for the proper breakup model, and wall impingement process.

Sun, H.↗

DOE OSTI2024

AGR-2 TRISO Layer Thickness Imaging Archive

As a part of fuel quality control characterization, optical microscopy images of particle cross sections near midplane were acquired at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). These particles were produced by the Advanced Gas Reactor Fuel Development and Qualification (AGR) Program’s AGR-2 irradiation campaign. These images may be of use for the development of image processing algorithms with the benchmark values measured at ORNL. This report provides those benchmark values, along with the raw images and data generated by the ORNL particle layer thickness analysis process.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS2011

Characterization of Catalyst Materials for Production of Aerospace Fuels

Due to environmental, economic, and security issues, there is a greater need for cleaner alternative fuels. There will undoubtedly be a shift from crude oil to non-petroleum sources as a feedstock for aviation (and other transportation) fuels. Additionally, efforts are concentrated on reducing costs coupled with fuel production from non-conventional sources. One solution to this issue is Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquid technology. Fischer-Tropsch processing of synthesis gas (CO/H2) produces a complex product stream of paraffins, olefins, and oxygenated compounds such as alcohols and aldehydes. The Fisher-Tropsch process can produce a cleaner diesel oil fraction with a high cetane number (typically above 70) without any sulfur or aromatic compounds. This process is most commonly catalyzed by heterogeneous (in this case, silver and platinum) catalysts composed of cobalt supported on alumina or unsupported alloyed iron powders. Physisorption, chemisorptions, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) are described to better understand the potential performance of Fischer-Tropsch cobalt on alumina catalysts promoted with silver and platinum. The overall goal is to preferentially produce C8 to C18 paraffin compounds for use as aerospace fuels. Progress towards this goal will eventually be updated and achieved by a more thorough understanding of the characterization of catalyst materials. This work was supported by NASA s Subsonic Fixed Wing and In-situ Resource Utilization projects.

DeLaRee, Ana B.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Characterization of Catalyst Materials for Production of Aerospace Fuels

Best, Lauren M.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Dual-Fuel Ammonia Equivalence Ratio Sweep Data

Ammonia (NH3) has garnered significant interest as an alternative fuel for meeting international emissions reduction mandates in sectors with high weight and distance requirements, such as shipping. Technical barriers and unanswered questions remain on the combustion strategies that can maximize ammonia utilization and minimize emissions. Prior research studies at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have shown strong performance with NH3 under dual-fuel mode using conventional diesel combustion (CDC) manifold air pressure settings. Diesel airflow was initially used to simplify retrofitting (no turbocharger modification), which resulted in air-fuel equivalence ratios (λ) greater than 1.5. To characterize potential improvements in dual-fuel NH3 combustion performance at richer in-cylinder conditions, a global λ sweep compared the use of early (E-pilot) and late (L-pilot) single diesel injections. The experiments were conducted at 1200 RPM and 12.8 ± 0.2 bar (75 % load), and λ was varied by decreasing the commanded air flow to the engine at greater than 90 % ammonia energy substitution level. A diesel injection timing sweep was conducted for both the injection strategies at fixed λ, and the timing with the lowest engine-out N2O emissions was identified. The results indicated an optimal balance between CO2,eq and thermal efficiency benefits both E-pilot and L-pilot injection strategy cases compared with CDC at a λ of 1.4. The indicated nitrogen-based emissions exhibited a strong correlation to the ratio of CA5–50 and ignition delay for L-pilot, but no apparent trend emerged for the E-pilot injection strategy at the tested boundary conditions. This dataset includes the raw experimental data and documentation of the experiment conditions and methods.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

NASA NTRS1999

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel Cell for Space Shuttle

Development of a PEM fuel cell powerplant (PFCP) for use in the Space Shuttle offers multiple benefits to NASA. A PFCP with a longer design life than is delivered currently from the alkaline fuel will reduce Space Shuttle Program maintenance costs. A PFCP compatible with zero-gravity can be adapted for future NASA transportation and exploration programs. Also, the commercial PEM fuel cell industry ensures a competitive environment for select powerplant components. Conceptual designs of the Space Shuttle PFCP have resulted in identification of key technical areas requiring resolution prior to development of a flight system. Those technical areas include characterization of PEM fuel cell stack durability under operational conditions and water management both within and external to the stack. Resolution of the above issues is necessary to adequately control development, production, and maintenance costs for a PFCP.

Hoffman, William C., III↗

NASA NTRS1983

Characterization of a high-pressure diesel fuel injection system as a control technology option to improve engine performance and reduce exhaust emissions

Test results from a high pressure electronically controlled fuel injection system are compared with a commercial mechanical injection system on a single cylinder, diesel test engine using an inlet boost pressure of 2.6:1. The electronic fuel injection system achieved high pressure by means of a fluid intensifier with peak injection pressures of 47 to 69 MPa. Reduced exhaust emissions were demonstrated with an increasing rate of injection followed by a fast cutoff of injection. The reduction in emissions is more responsive to the rate of injection and injection timing than to high peak injection pressure.

Mcfadden, J. J.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Characterization Testing of the Teledyne Passive Breadboard Fuel Cell Powerplant

NASA's Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) is tasked with the development of enabling and enhancing technologies for NASA's exploration missions. As part of that initiative, the return to the Moon requires a reliable, efficient, and lightweight fuel cell powerplant system to provide power to the Altair Lunar Lander and for lunar surface systems. Fuel cell powerplants are made up of two basic parts; the fuel cell itself and the supporting ancillary subsystem. This subsystem is designed to deliver reactants to the fuel cell and remove product water and waste heat from the fuel cell. Typically, fuel cell powerplant ancillary subsystems rely upon pumps and active water separation techniques to accomplish these tasks for closed hydrogen/oxygen systems. In a typical system, these components are the largest contributors to the overall parasitic power load of the fuel cell powerplant. A potential step towards the development of an efficient lightweight power system is to maximize the use of "passive" or low-power ancillary components as a replacement to these high-power load components

Loyselle, Patricia↗

NASA NTRS1993

Characterizing droplet combustion of pure and multi-component liquid fuels in a microgravity environment

The importance of understanding the effects of fuel composition, length scales, and other parameters on the combustion of liquid fuels has motivated the examination of simple flames which have easily characterized flow fields and hence, the potential of being modeled accurately. One such flame for liquid fuel combustion is the spherically symmetric droplet flame which can be achieved in an environment with sufficiently low gravity (i.e., low buoyancy). To examine fundamental characteristics of spherically symmetric droplet combustion, a drop tower facility has been employed to provide a microgravity environment to study droplet combustion. This paper gives a brief review of results obtained over the past three years under NASA sponsorship (grant NAG3-987).

Jackson, Gregory S.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Mach 2 combustion characteristics of hydrogen/hydrocarbon fuel mixtures

The combustion of H2/CH4 and H2/C2H4 mixtures containing 10-70 vol pct hydrocarbon at cumbustor inlet Mach number 2 and temperatures 2000-4000 R is investigated experimentally, applying direct-connect test hardware and techniques similar to those described by Diskin and Northam (1987) in the facilities of the NASA Langley Hypersonic Propulsion Branch. The experimental setup, procedures, and data-reduction methods are described; and the results are presented in extensive tables and graphs and characterized in detail. Fuel type and mixture are found to have little effect on the wall heating rate measured near the combustor exit, but H2/C2H4 is shown to burn much more efficiently than H2/CH4, with no pilot-off blowout at equivalence ratios greater than 0.5. It is suggested that H2/hydrocarbon mixtures are feasible fuels (at least in terms of combustion efficiency) for scramjet SSTO vehicles operating at freestream Mach numbers above 4.

Diskin, Glenn S.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Mach 2 combustion characteristics of hydrogen/hydrocarbon fuel mixtures

The combustion of H2/CH4 and H2/C2H4 mixtures containing 10 to 70 vol pct hydrocarbon at combustor inlet Mach number 2 and temperatures 2000 to 4000 R is investigated experimentally, applying direct-connect test hardware and techniques similar to those described by Diskin and Northam (1987) in the facilities of the NASA Langley Hypersonic Propulsion Branch. The experimental setup, procedures, and data-reduction methods are described; and the results are presented in extensive tables and graphs and characterized in detail. Fuel type and mixture are found to have little effect on the wall heating rate measured near the combustor exit, but H2/C2H4 is shown to burn much more efficiently than H2/CH4, with no pilot-off blowout equivalence ratios greater than 0.5. It is suggested that H2/hydrocarbon mixtures are feasible fuels (at least in terms of combustion efficiency) for scramjet SSTO vehicles operating at freestream Mach numbers above 4.

Diskin, Glenn S.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Ablating Pellets for Areal Density Symmetry Control in Indirectly Driven Inertial Confinement Fusion Target Designs

Asymmetry of the compressed fusion fuel configuration, as characterized by a variation in areal density, in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions is a known performance limitation. While ignition has been achieved on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), implosion symmetry was not perfect, and subsequent experiments that have extended fusion performance still struggle with symmetry control and would, in principle, perform much better if the areal density uniformity of the fuel was improved by eliminating thin regions in the DT (Deuterium-Tritium) fuel that develop by the time of peak compression. In indirect drive (IDD), altering the time-dependent laser cone fraction and cross-beam energy transfer are the usual tactics for controlling implosion asymmetry in IDD target designs, but it may be that those tools have been pushed to their limits. In this Letter, we present a new tactic for controlling the implosion using satellite ablating pellets to manipulate the time-dependent x-ray field around an ICF capsule. In theory and in simulations the action of these pellets is quite effective at reducing the swing of x-ray drive from waist hot to pole hot, thus achieving a more one-dimensional fuel configuration at peak compression. Simulations show that a factor of ∼2 in yield performance can be obtained via this technique, when applied to past record implosions on the NIF. As a result, some speculative alternate uses of the proposed target concept are also mentioned in the conclusion of this Letter.

Implosion symmetry↗

DOE OSTI2024

Rare Earth Carbide (Nd-C and Ce-C) Synthesis and Characterization to Inform Phase Equilibrium in Advanced Nuclear Fuels

As advances are being made regarding the performance of nuclear fuels, uranium carbides, and composites, such as (U,Zr)C and UO2 + UCx, have recently gained significant interest for deployment in nuclear space propulsion and high temperature gas-cooled reactors, respectively. However, the phase equilibria of several fission products in carbide systems remain unknown and may impact the overall fuel performance, specifically for particle nuclear fuels that are designed for commercial nuclear energy. Furthermore, comprehensive thermodynamic data on Rare Earth (RE) carbides, such as the Nd-C and Ce-C binary systems, remain limited. Presented in this study are the synthesis methods and characterizations of several Nd-C and Ce-C compositions. The findings from this research provide insights on the stability of RE-C binaries that form in irradiated nuclear fuels and address a critical knowledge gap in the current state of thermodynamics for two key RE-C systems.

Cavazos, Steven J. (ORCID:0009000130329363)↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

“Cold-Flow” Experiments Supporting CFD of Mixing Flowfields for High-Speed Fuel Injectors for Scramjet Applications

Recent flight demonstrations of supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) vehicles prove their increasing promise for military (rapid response and strike capability on global scale), aerospace (safer and more affordable access to space), and civil aviation (hypersonic point-to-point transport) applications. Currently, these technologies are still in their early development stages with commercial interest and investment at only a fraction of that of government organizations such as NASA and DoD. To advance hypersonic air-breathing propulsion technologies to the technology readiness levels necessary for access to space or widespread commercialization, further government investments and university engagement are needed over the next decade and likely beyond. This is because designing scramjet propulsion devices capable of robust high-speed air-breathing operation, characterized by rapid fuel and air mixing, short combustion times, and ensuring stable flame, has proven difficult. In this presentation, after a brief engineering-level introduction to scramjets technology, we will discuss one of the key challenges in high-speed propulsion design, namely the fuel injector design. Attempts at improving fuel injection to enhance fuel-air mixing while simultaneously reducing engine thrust losses have received a great deal of attention over the years. Although some amount of loss is thermodynamically unavoidable and occurs due to the desired effect of molecular mixing of fuel and air, any losses beyond this minimum required amount reduces the thrust potential of the engine. The Enhanced Injection and Mixing Project (EIMP) at NASA Langley Research Center aims at addressing this design challenge by analyzing the performance of a number of baseline and novel fuel injectors for high-speed applications. The project leverages computational and experimental capabilities with the goal to investigate scramjet fuel injection and mixing physics, improve our understanding of the underlying physical process, and develop enhancement strategies relevant to hypersonic flight Mach numbers. The talk will discuss the current computational and experimental research approaches using one of the baseline injectors considered by the EIMP as an example.

Scramjet↗

DOE OSTI2024

Formation of uranium nitride nanoparticles via mechanical alloying of uranium-molybdenum alloy fuels in gaseous nitrogen

Uranium-molybdenum (U-Mo) alloys show promise as a nuclear fuel system due to their high thermal conductivity and fuel loading capability. However, U-Mo systems are susceptible to irradiation induced swelling ultimately affecting the cladding via mechanical and chemical interactions. To address these shortcomings, this research investigated the formation of uranium mononitride (UN) nanoparticles within a 90 wt% U/10 wt% Mo (U-10Mo) matrix to act as a prospective defect sink for fission products at nanometric hetero-interfaces. To promote the formation of UN, U-10Mo powders were mechanically alloyed under a high purity nitrogen atmosphere. Variations of the milling process investigated included media size, duration of milling, and number of times the milling jar was re-aerated with nitrogen gas. Characterization of the fuel microstructure was completed using light element analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission-electron microscopy, electron energy loss spectroscopy, and atom probe tomography. UN nanoparticles measuring 1–5 nm in radius were observed in the U-Mo matrix as early as 1 h into the mechanical alloying process. Milling time in excess of 10 h was found to lead to deleterious effects induced by the stainless-steel milling media.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2025

NDMAS

Overview of Current ART-GCR Data: Fuel Fabrication, Irradiation Monitoring (Fuel & Graphite – near real-time for HDG-1), Post-Irradiation Examination (Fuel & Graphite), Graphite Characterization (Baseline and Irradiated), High Temperature Metals Mechanical Tests, Design, Methods, and Validation Data, Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s High Temperature Test Reactor (HTTR), Argonne National Laboratory’s Natural convection Shutdown heat removal Test Facility (NSTF), Oregon State University’s High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF), Generation IV International VHTR Materials Handbook, Additional related data, and Advanced Test Reactor operations (near real-time).

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enabling Nuclear and Solar Thermal Propulsion with the Computational Laboratory: Faster and Cheaper Materials Characterization

Nuclear and solar thermal propulsion offer enhanced efficiencies for in-space travel which may open up the outer Solar System to both crewed and automated craft. However, these advanced propulsion systems require cutting-edge materials which are often not easily tested in the laboratory. Ab initio thermodynamics and other computational methods offer a way to test materials at high pressures and temperatures more quickly, and with reduced cost. Here, several case studies are presented which highlight the utility of modern simulation techniques. First, an extensive thermodynamic study was performed at the ab initio level to elucidate the role of hot hydrogen flow on the erosion of four refractory carbides to examine their appropriateness for use as channel coatings. A detailed analysis of reaction products informs estimates of erosion which are validated in comparison with heritage NERVA data. Specific material suggestions are made for both nuclear and solar designs. Secondly, we examined the mechanical behavior and chemical stability of various components of an idealized nuclear cermet core design using techniques spanning from the atomic to microscale. Next, the mechanical and chemical behavior of tungsten (a potential matrix material) and the stability of uranium mononitride (a potential ceramic fuel element), are characterized in the presence of hydrogen and at elevated temperatures with ab initio thermodynamics. Finally, the mechanical response and failure of tungsten under tensile strain is simulated at the micron scale with a combined finite element and dislocation dynamics approach. The resultant stress-strain data agrees well with experiments and leads to a workflow which can incorporate ab initio thermodynamic data into micron-scale simulations and thus provide real-world relevant estimates of erosion and stress-strain behavior. The power of this framework and our plans to use it in the future will be discussed.

William C Tucker↗