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NASA NTRS2002

Reliability and Productivity Modeling for the Optimization of Separated Spacecraft Interferometers

As technological systems grow in capability, they also grow in complexity. Due to this complexity, it is no longer possible for a designer to use engineering judgement to identify the components that have the largest impact on system life cycle metrics, such as reliability, productivity, cost, and cost effectiveness. One way of identifying these key components is to build quantitative models and analysis tools that can be used to aid the designer in making high level architecture decisions. Once these key components have been identified, two main approaches to improving a system using these components exist: add redundancy or improve the reliability of the component. In reality, the most effective approach to almost any system will be some combination of these two approaches, in varying orders of magnitude for each component. Therefore, this research tries to answer the question of how to divide funds, between adding redundancy and improving the reliability of components, to most cost effectively improve the life cycle metrics of a system. While this question is relevant to any complex system, this research focuses on one type of system in particular: Separate Spacecraft Interferometers (SSI). Quantitative models are developed to analyze the key life cycle metrics of different SSI system architectures. Next, tools are developed to compare a given set of architectures in terms of total performance, by coupling different life cycle metrics together into one performance metric. Optimization tools, such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms, are then used to search the entire design space to find the "optimal" architecture design. Sensitivity analysis tools have been developed to determine how sensitive the results of these analyses are to uncertain user defined parameters. Finally, several possibilities for the future work that could be done in this area of research are presented.

Kenny, Sean↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-14834-DND

A recent spin-off from flight deck adaptive automation research at NASA Langley Research Center is a biocybernetic invention referred to informally as MindShift. When using the MindShift technology, a person is able to play off-the-shelf Nintendo Wii games enhanced with biofeedback, which is used to improve self-regulation of physiological functioning. Therefore, the user experiences the challenge of regulating their physiological responses during gameplay in addition to the intended challenges presented in the video game. The research projects being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Alan Pope and Chad Stephens at NASA Langley Research Center examine the effects of interacting with the MindShift invention technology on subjects' self-regulation of heart rate and brainwave activity, performance in the games, performance on cognitive tasks, and subjective experience of effort (i.e., workload). The MindShift invention's effects are being compared to the effects of interacting with the games without the MindShift technology and to the effects of interacting with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, specifically the Mattel Mind Flex and the Uncle Milton Star Wars Force Trainer. A 32-channel electroencephalograph system is used to record subjects' brainwave and electrocardiographic activity. The potential for biofeedback game system applications is wide-ranging - from a more engaging form of clinical biofeedback training to a new challenge for avid gamers. Consequently, research needs to be conducted to fully understand the effects that these new games have on a person's physiological and psychological functioning. Biocybernetic technology like MindShift developed from the idea that operators of critical systems such as aerospace systems could hone their stress management and attention skills in biofeedback-augmented leisure activities while off-the-job in order to positively affect their on-the-job performance. This human performance enhancement technology is applicable to skill training on manually controlled critical tasks, such as unmanned aerial vehicle teleoperation, thus enabling the training of cognitive skills to be concurrent with manual skills. Furthermore, this type of technology can apply to medical and clinical uses of biofeedback by serving as an additional form of clinical biofeedback training that may be particularly useful for those with ADHD.

Brittany N Neilson↗

DOE OSTI2024

Hydrogen Storage System Modeling: Public Access, Maintenance, and Enhancements

The overall vision of this project is to provide ownership and support for maintaining existing material-based hydrogen storage systems models. This includes making models accessible to the research community through a public web page and updating and enhancing storage systems models to support material developers in assessing their materials relative to DOE vehicle-level targets. Key elements for FY24: Continue to update and enhance existing models for broader application and user-friendliness. Develop tools to evaluate the performance of hydrogen storage materials developed under HyMARC activities or other fundamental hydrogen storage materials discovery research. Expand the application of current hydrogen storage models beyond light-duty vehicles to include medium-, heavy-duty, and mining vehicles and stationary application(s). Develop models for alternatives, such as LOHCs, to material-based systems (liquefied & gaseous H2) and compare for various mobile and stationary use cases.

ENERGY STORAGE,HYDROGEN↗

DOE OSTI2024

X-ray-based technologies in emerging fuel cell research

The workshop titled `X-ray-based technologies in emerging fuel cell research', organized by Vivian Stojanoff from Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and Narayanasami Sukumar from Cornell University/Advanced Photon Source-Northeastern Collaborative Access Team, was a notable segment of the National Synchrotron Light Source II and Center for Functional Nanomaterials Users' Meeting held 13–17 May 2024. This one-day event, on 13 May 2024, at BNL in New York, aimed to bring together researchers, beamline scientists, management and developers to propel fuel cell technology forward using model systems inspired by natural photosynthesis and redox enzymes. Furthermore, this summary encapsulates the key discussions, advancements and future implications of the workshop.

Xray↗

DOE OSTI2024

Solar Energy Technical Publications Catalog: Solar Thermal Technology

The research and development described in these documents was conducted within the U.S . Department of Energy's (DOE) Solar Thermal Technology Program. The goal of this program is to advance the engineering and scientific understanding of solar thermal technology and to establish the technology base from which private industry can develop solar thermal power production options for introduction into the competitive energy market. Solar thermal technology concentrates the solar flux using tracking mirrors or lenses onto a receiver where the solar energy is absorbed as heat and converted into electricity or incorporated into products as process heat. The two primary solar thermal technologies, central receivers and distributed receivers, employ various point and line-focus optics to concentrate sunlight. Current central receiver systems use fields of heliostats (two-axis tracking mirrors) to focus the sun's radiant energy onto a single, tower- mounted receiver. Point focus concentrators up to 17 meters in diameter track the sun in two axes and use parabolic dish mirrors or Fresnel lenses to focus radiant energy onto a receiver. Troughs and bowls are line-focus tracking reflectors that concentrate sunlight onto receiver tubes along their focal lines. Concentrating collector modules can be used alone or in a multimodule system. The concentrated radiant energy absorbed by the solar thermal receiver is transported to the conversion process by a circulating work fluid. Receiver temperatures range from l00 degrees C in low-temperature troughs to over 1500 degrees C in dish and central receiver systems. The Solar Thermal Technology Program is directing efforts to advance and improve each system concept through solar thermal materials, components, and subsystems research and development and by testing and evaluation. These efforts are carried out with the technical direction of DOE and its network of field laboratories that works with private industry. Together they have established a comprehensive, goal-directed program to improve performance and provide technically proven options for eventual incorporation into the nation's energy supply. To successfully contribute to an adequate energy supply at reasonable cost, solar thermal energy must be economically competitive with a variety of other energy sources. The Solar Thermal Technology Program has developed components and system-level performance targets as quantitative program goals. These targets are used in planning research and development activities, measuring progress, assessing alternative technology options, and developing optimal components. These targets are pursued vigorously to ensure a successful program. This catalog represents part of an effort to provide information on publications about solar thermal research and development activities conducted by DOE's laboratories. Publications listed include technical and research reports and special publications. The following national laboratories are represented in this edition: Sandia National Laboratories, Solar Energy Research Institute, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This catalog is a product of the DOE Solar Technical Information Program, which is dedicated to providing information to scientific and industrial users in ways most convenient and useful to them. This catalog focuses on solar thermal technologies, and its purpose is to keep the scientific and industrial communities informed of the latest developments in federally sponsored research in this technology.

140000* -- Solar Energy↗

DOE OSTI2024

WTK-LED: The WIND Toolkit Long-Term Ensemble Dataset

To satisfy a wide group of stakeholders across various wind energy disciplines, including but not limited to stakeholders in the distributed and utility scale wind industry, the new emerging airborne wind energy field, grid integration, power systems modeling, environmental modeling, and researchers in academia, and to close some of the gaps that current public datasets have, we aimed at developing an updated version of the meteorological WIND Toolkit, named WIND Toolkit Long-term Ensemble Dataset (WTK-LED), which is a meteorological dataset providing time series every 5 min and 2 km, including model uncertainty of wind speed at every modeling grid point so that users are provided with a range of possible wind speeds every 2 km. The data were produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The vertical grid used in WTK-LED includes many vertical layers in the atmospheric boundary layer to provide information of atmospheric quantities across the rotor layer of utility scale and distributed wind turbines. The WTK-LED includes: 1) Numerical simulations covering the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii, with high-resolution data being available for 3 years (2018-2020). 2) Climate simulations from Argonne National Laboratories covering the North American continent, including Alaska, Canada, and most of Mexico and the Caribbean Islands. These simulations complement the new WTK-LED to offer a 4-km dataset covering 20 years, from 2001-2020. 3) Specific long-term,high-resolution offshore simulations have been conducted separately for the US coasts, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes, leading to the 2023 National Offshore Wind data set. This report focuses on a description of the land-based WTK-LED for CONUS, Hawaii, and Alaska, for the 3-year 2-km/5-min dataset and the 20-year 4-km/hourly dataset, as well as the uncertainty quantification method. We also provide limited validation results. Based on our results to date, we suggest use cases and applications for each dataset of the WTK-LED.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

PARET/ANL v7.7 User Guide

PARET was originally created in 1969 at what is now Idaho National Laboratory (INL), to analyze reactivity insertion events in research and test reactor cores cooled by light or heavy water, with fuel composed of either plates or pins. The use of PARET is also appropriate for fuel assemblies with curved fuel plates when their radii of curvatures are large with respect to the fuel plate thickness. The PARET/ANL version of the code has been developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Energy/NNSA since the inception of the Reactor Conversion Program. Since Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) began in 1978, PARET/ANL has been benchmarked to experimental data including SPERT testing, and used to determine the expected transient behavior of many reactors both inside and outside the Reactor Conversion Program. This document provides the pertinent information for the use of PARET/ANL v7.7.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

NASA NTRS1977

Disseminating technological information on remote sensing to potential users

The Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing developed materials and programs which range from short tutorial brochures to post-doctoral research programs which may span several years. To organize both the content and the instructional techniques, a matrix of instructional materials was conceptualized. Each row in the matrix represents a subject area in remote sensing and each column in the matrix represents a different type media or instructional strategy.

Russell, J. D.↗

NASA NTRS1977

Disseminating technological information on remote sensing to potential users

Russell, J. D.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Conference Summary

Celebrations and special events were in order this year as the Minority University-Space Interdisciplinary Network (MU-SPIN) Program and NASA's Minority University Research and Education Division (MURED) both reached their 10th anniversaries. In honor of this occasion, the 2000 Annual Users' Conference held at Morris Brown College (MBC) in Atlanta, Georgia, September 11-15, 2000, was the first to be jointly hosted by MU-SPIN and MURED. It was particularly fitting that this anniversary should fall in the year 2000. The start of the new millennium propelled us to push bold new ideas and renew our commitment to minority university participation in all areas of NASA. With the theme 'Celebrating Our Tenth Year With Our Eyes on the Prize,' the conference provided a national forum for showcasing successful MU-SPIN and MURED Program (MUREP) experiences to enhance faculty/student development in areas of scientific and technical research and education. Our NASA-relevant conference agenda resulted in a record-breaking 220 registered attendees. Using feedback from past participants, we designed a track of student activities closely tailored to their interests. The resulting showcase of technical assistance and best practices set a new standard for our conferences in the years to come. This year's poster session was our largest ever, with over 50 presentations from students, faculty, and teachers. Posters covered a broad range of NASA activities from 'A Study of the Spiral Galaxy M101' to 'Network Cabling Characteristics.'

Harrington, James L., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS2013

ESO Commercial Microgravity Case Study 1: Novice Commercial Users (Medical) Vivo Biosciences Inc. - A Small Business Perspective

This case study was conducted in FY 2013 by the Emerging Space Office (ESO) to begin characterizing the kinds of opportunities and challenges encountered by small high-tech businesses who have never done RD in space and who serve terrestrial versus space markets, but who have legitimate business reasons for considering space research and development for generating novel or improved products. Vivo Biosciences Inc. (VBI) is an award winning company with a customer base that includes major pharmaceutical companies. However, despite a continuing series of successes, VBI believes that they are about at the limit of the performance their product can achieve on Earth and gravity is the problem. This Case Study documented VBI's experience as the novice company attempted its first steps in the process of conducting research and development in space. The report presents insights applicable to commercial suppliers of microgravity services as well as ISS support of new commercial users, especially small businesses interested in using space for product development.

Harper, Lynn D.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Servicing costs for representative service missions

User cost for three satellite services were assessed. The three missions are: advanced X-ray astrophysics facility (AXAF) revisit; upper atmosphere research satellite (UARS) revisit: and solar maximum mission (SMM) Earth return. Service scenarios for the missions to identify service equipment needs and on orbit usage were developed. The AXAF revisit is a service mission involving a contamination sensitive satellite. Following servicing and checkout, the spacecraft is redeployed from the orbiter. The total user charges for revisit missions is from 5 to 10% less than the cost to build and relaunch a replacement satellite. It is indicated that satellite servicing from the Orbiter is cost effective.

Mockovciak, J., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Motorized Beam Alignment of a Commercial X-ray Diffractometer

X-ray diffraction (XRD) is a powerful analysis method that allows researchers to noninvasively probe the crystalline structure of a material. This includes the ability to determine the crystalline phases present, quantify surface residual stresses, and measure the distribution of crystallographic orientations. The Structures and Materials Division at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) heavily uses the on-site XRD lab to characterize advanced metal alloys, ceramics, and polymers. One of the x-ray diffractometers in the XRD lab (Bruker D8 Discover) uses three different x-ray tubes (Cu, Cr, and Mn) for optimal performance over numerous material types and various experimental techniques. This requires that the tubes be switched out and aligned between experiments. This alignment maximizes the x-ray tube s output through an iterative process involving four set screws. However, the output of the x-ray tube cannot be monitored during the adjustment process due to standard radiation safety engineering controls that prevent exposure to the x-ray beam when the diffractometer doors are open. Therefore, the adjustment process is a very tedious series of blind adjustments, each followed by measurement of the output beam using a PIN diode after the enclosure doors are shut. This process can take up to 4 hr to perform. This technical memorandum documents an in-house project to motorize this alignment process. Unlike a human, motors are not harmed by x-ray radiation of the energy range used in this instrument. Therefore, using motors to adjust the set screws will allow the researcher to monitor the x-ray tube s output while making interactive adjustments from outside the diffractometer. The motorized alignment system consists of four motors, a motor controller, and a hand-held user interface module. Our goal was to reduce the alignment time to less than 30 min. The time available was the 10-week span of the Lewis' Educational and Research Collaborative Internship Project (LERCIP) summer internship program and the budget goal was $1200. In this report, we will describe our motorization design and discuss the results of its implementation.

Van Zandt, Noah R.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Space Station Freedom capabilities for users

Space Station Freedom's major objectives are to prepare for human space exploration by providing a long-duration, continuously habitable spacecraft in low earth orbit for physiology studies and for development of systems to support human presence in space and to enable laboratory and observational research in space. As a result of restructuring and the preliminary design review, designs of Space Station Freedom architecture and systems have progressed to the point where the accommodations for users can be well described. These capabilities are enumerated, covering such important resources as power and cooling, rack volume and external accommodations, crew time, data and command rates, and acceleration environment. Related items such as total energy, data management systems, and interfaces, station attitude, payload transportation, and on board and ground facilities are considered.

Taylor, William W. L.↗

NASA NTRS2017

NASA Earthdata Forums: An Interactive Venue for Discussions of NASA Data and Earth Science

We demonstrate how students and teachers can register to use the NASA Earthdata Forums. The NASA Earthdata forums provide a venue where registered users can pose questions regarding NASA Earth science data in a moderated forum, and have their questions answered by data experts and scientific subject matter experts connected with NASA Earth science missions and projects. Since the forums are also available for research scientists to pose questions and discuss pertinent topics, the NASA Earthdata Forums provide a unique opportunity for students and teachers to gain insight from expert scientists and enhance their knowledge of the many different ways that NASA Earth observations can be used in research and applications.

user foru↗

NASA NTRS1988

LARCMACS: A TEX macro set for typesetting NASA reports

This LARCMACS user's manual describes the February 1988 version of LARCMACS, the TEX macro set used by the Technical Editing Branch (TEB) at NASA Langley Research Center. These macros were developed by the authors to facilitate the typesetting of NASA formal reports. They are also useful, however, for informal NASA reports and other technical documents such as meeting papers. LARCMACS are distributed by TEB for the convenience of the Langley TEX user community. LARCMACS contain macros for obtaining the standard double-column format for NASA reports, for typesetting tables in the ruled format traditional in NASA reports, and for typesetting difficult mathematical expressions. Each macro is described and numerous examples are included. Definitions of the LARCMACS macros are also included.

Woessner, Linda H.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Thinking Beyond the Default User: The Impact of Gender, Stereotypes, and Modality on Interpretation of User Needs

Throughout the mechanical design process, designers, the majority of whom are men, often fail to consider the needs of women, resulting in consequences ranging from inconvenience to increased risk of serious injury or death. Although these biases are well studied in other fields of research, the mechanical design field lacks formal investigation into this phenomenon. In this study, engineering students (n = 301) took a survey in which they read a Persona describing a student makerspace user and a Walkthrough describing the user’s interaction with the makerspace while completing a project. During the Walkthrough, the user encountered various obstacles or Pain Points. Participants were asked to recall and evaluate the Pain Points that the user encountered and then evaluated their perceptions of the makerspace and user. Furthermore, the independent variables under investigation were the gender of the user Persona (woman, gender-neutral, or man), the Walkthrough room case (crafting or woodworking makerspace), and the modality of the Persona and Walkthrough (text- or audio-based). Results showed that participants from the Text-based modality were better able to recall Pain Points compared to participants from the Audio-based modality. Pain Points were assessed as more severe when they impacted women users, potentially stemming from protective paternalism. In addition to finding that the gender of a user impacted the way a task environment was perceived, results confirmed the presence of androcentrism, or “default man” assumptions, in the way designers view end users of unknown gender. Promisingly, providing user Persona information in an audio modality significantly reduced this bias compared to text-based modalities, indicating that providing richer detail in user personas has the capability to reduce gender bias in designers.

cognitive-based design↗

NASA NTRS2006

Numerical Propulsion System Simulation

The NASA Glenn Research Center, in partnership with the aerospace industry, other government agencies, and academia, is leading the effort to develop an advanced multidisciplinary analysis environment for aerospace propulsion systems called the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS). NPSS is a framework for performing analysis of complex systems. The initial development of NPSS focused on the analysis and design of airbreathing aircraft engines, but the resulting NPSS framework may be applied to any system, for example: aerospace, rockets, hypersonics, power and propulsion, fuel cells, ground based power, and even human system modeling. NPSS provides increased flexibility for the user, which reduces the total development time and cost. It is currently being extended to support the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Fundamental Aeronautics Program and the Advanced Virtual Engine Test Cell (AVETeC). NPSS focuses on the integration of multiple disciplines such as aerodynamics, structure, and heat transfer with numerical zooming on component codes. Zooming is the coupling of analyses at various levels of detail. NPSS development includes capabilities to facilitate collaborative engineering. The NPSS will provide improved tools to develop custom components and to use capability for zooming to higher fidelity codes, coupling to multidiscipline codes, transmitting secure data, and distributing simulations across different platforms. These powerful capabilities extend NPSS from a zero-dimensional simulation tool to a multi-fidelity, multidiscipline system-level simulation tool for the full development life cycle.

Naiman, Cynthia↗