Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Inflatable”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,441 records · Page 80
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2015

Pyrotechnically Actuated Gas Generator Utilizing Aqueous Methanol

A gas-generating device was developed to supplement the ram-air inflation of a supersonic ballute. The device is designed to initially pressurize the ballute following deployment, exposing and orienting its ram-air inlets to free-stream air for complete inflation. The supplemental pressurization decreases the total inflation time, and increases the likelihood of a successful inflation. The device contains a reservoir filled with an aqueous mixture of methanol that, when released in to the interior of the ballute, rapidly vaporizes due to the low ambient pressure. Upon activation of the device, a pair of redundant ring mechanisms initiate pyrotechnic charges that pressurize and rupture the reservoir, resulting in ejection of the methanol in to the ballute. In addition to its role in inflation, the device serves as the structural connection to the ballute. Analytical models were developed for the inflation capability of the device, which were verified using vacuum chamber testing of developmental hardware. Static, deployment, and environmental testing demonstrated the functionality of the ring mechanism and reservoir under several temperature and pressure conditions. Finally, the device was successfully operated during the first Supersonic Flight Dynamics Test (SFDT) of NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project. The design architecture is scalable to accommodate different quantities of gas generation, can be adjusted to operate in a variety of temperature and atmospheric pressure regimes, and provides a robust device that may be installed with minimal risk to personnel or hardware.

IA↗
DOE OSTI2023

Savior curvatons and large non-Gaussianity

Abstract Curvatons are light (compared to the Hubble scale during inflation) spectator fields during inflation that potentially contribute to adiabatic curvature perturbations post-inflation. They can alter CMB observables such as the spectral indexn s , the tensor-to-scalar ratior, and the local non-Gaussianity$$ {f}_{\textrm{NL}}^{\left(\textrm{loc}\right)} $$ f NL loc . We systematically explore the observable space of a curvaton with a quadratic potential. We find that when the underlying inflation model does not satisfy then s androbservational constraints but can be made viable with a significant contribution from what we call a savior curvaton, a large$$ \left|{f}_{\textrm{NL}}^{\left(\textrm{loc}\right)}\right| $$ f NL loc >0.05, such that the model is distinguishable from single-field inflation, is inevitable. On the other hand, when the underlying inflation model already satisfies then s androbservational constraints, so significant curvaton contribution is forbidden, a large$$ \left|{f}_{\textrm{NL}}^{\left(\textrm{loc}\right)}\right| $$ f NL loc >0.05 is possible in the exceptional case when the isocurvature fluctuation in the curvaton fluid is much greater than the global curvature fluctuation.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2013

Vulnerability of larval and juvenile white sturgeon to barotrauma: can they handle the pressure?

Techniques were developed to determine which life stages of fish are vulnerable to barotrauma from expansion of internal gases during decompression. Eggs, larvae and juvenile hatchery-reared white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus; up to 91 days post hatch; dph), were decompressed to assess vulnerability to barotrauma and identify initial swim bladder inflation. Barotrauma related injury and mortality were first observed 9 dph, on the same day as initial exogenous feeding. However, barotrauma related injury did not occur again until swim bladder inflation 75 dph (visible from necropsy and x-ray radiographs). Swim bladder inflation was not consistent among individuals, with only 44% being inflated 91 dph. Additionally, swim bladder inflation did not appear to be size dependent among fish ranging in total length from 61-153 mm at 91 dph. The use of a combination of decompression tests and x-ray radiography was validated as a method to determine initial swim bladder inflation and vulnerability to barotrauma. Extending these techniques to other species and life history stages would help to determine fish susceptibility to hydroturbine passage and aid in fish conservation.

barotrauma↗
DOE OSTI2021

Wires, Solitons and the Big Bang. Final report

The overarching aim of the project was to improve our understanding of inflation and its end. The following were the main goals of the project: 1. Develop a novel statistical framework to understand particle production during inflation and reheating in scenarios with many poorly constrained components and calculate potential observational signatures. The goal was to be achieved in the following steps (i) Develop the theoretical framework (ii) Apply the framework to inflation and reheating 2. Develop analytical and numerical tools to explore the end of inflation and the energy transfer from inflation to daughter fields during reheating. The goal was to be achieved in two steps: (i) Characterize the eq. of state at the end of inflation using non-perturbative techniques and lattice simulations. (ii) Develop a novel numerical algorithm for gauge fields in a cosmological setting.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2004

Einstein Inflationary Probe (EIP)

I will discuss plans to develop a concept for the Einstein Inflation Probe: a mission to detect gravity waves from inflation via the unique signature they impart to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization. A sensitive CMB polarization satellite may be the only way to probe physics at the grand-unified theory (GUT) scale, exceeding by 12 orders of magnitude the energies studied at the Large Hadron Collider. A detection of gravity waves would represent a remarkable confirmation of the inflationary paradigm and set the energy scale at which inflation occurred when the universe was a fraction of a second old. Even a strong upper limit to the gravity wave amplitude would be significant, ruling out many common models of inflation, and pointing to inflation occurring at much lower energy, if at all. Measuring gravity waves via the CMB polarization will be challenging. We will undertake a comprehensive study to identify the critical scientific requirements for the mission and their derived instrumental performance requirements. At the core of the study will be an assessment of what is scientifically and experimentally optimal within the scope and purpose of the Einstein Inflation Probe.

Hinshaw, Gary↗
DOE OSTI2020

Predictive valve control system

A pressure control system may include a plurality of inflatable objects, each of the inflatable objects having a respective pressure sensor and a respective inflation valve, wherein each of the inflation valves has a behavior profile predictive of an amount of current used by the valve when operated. A valve controller of the system may have a pressure management circuit that receives information from the pressure sensors and is configured to automatically maintain a respective selected pressure in each of the inflatable objects by issuing commands to operate the inflation valves. An electrical current management circuit of the valve controller may be configured to predict, based on the valve behavior profiles, what effect the command would have on a total current usage, when executed, and automatically prevent any command that would cause the total current usage to exceed a maximum allowable current.

Piraner, Alexander↗
DOE OSTI2018

The LiteBIRD Satellite Mission: Sub-Kelvin Instrument

Inflation is the leading theory of the first instant of the universe. Inflation, which postulates that the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion an instant after its birth, provides convincing explanation for cosmological observations. Recent advancements in detector technology have opened opportunities to explore primordial gravitational waves generated by the inflation through “B-mode” (divergent-free) polarization pattern embedded in the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. If detected, these signals would provide strong evidence for inflation, point to the correct model for inflation, and open a window to physics at ultra-high energies. LiteBIRD is a satellite mission with a goal of detecting degree-and-larger-angular-scale B-mode polarization. LiteBIRD will observe at the second Lagrange point with a 400 mm diameter telescope and 2622 detectors. It will survey the entire sky with 15 frequency bands from 40 to 400 GHz to measure and subtract foregrounds. The US LiteBIRD team is proposing to deliver sub-Kelvin instruments that include detectors and readout electronics. A lenslet-coupled sinuous antenna array will cover low-frequency bands (40–235 GHz) with four frequency arrangements of trichroic pixels. An orthomode-transducer-coupled corrugated horn array will cover high-frequency bands (280–402 GHz) with three types of single frequency detectors. The detectors will be made with transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers cooled to a 100 milli-Kelvin base temperature by an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator. The TES bolometers will be read out using digital frequency multiplexing with Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) amplifiers. Up to 78 bolometers will be multiplexed with a single SQUID amplifier. Lastly, we report on the sub-Kelvin instrument design and ongoing developments for the LiteBIRD mission.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Quantifying the 'naturalness' of the curvaton model

We investigate the probability of obtaining an observable curvature perturbation, using as an example the minimal curvaton-higgs (MCH) model. We determine ''probably observable'' and ''probably excluded'' regions of parameter space assuming generic initial conditions and applying a stochastic approach for the curvaton's evolution during inflation. Inflation is assumed to last longer than the N{sub obs} ≅ 55 observable e-folds, and the total number of e-folds of inflation determines the particular ranges of parameters that are probable. For the MCH model, these ''probably observable'' regions always lie within the range 8 × 10{sup 4} GeV ≤ m{sub σ} ≤ 2 × 10{sup 7} GeV, where m{sub σ} is the curvaton mass, and the Hubble scale at horizon exit is chosen as H{sub *} = 10{sup 10} GeV. Because the ''probably observable'' region depends on the total duration of inflation, information on parameters in the Lagrangian from particle physics and from precision CMB observations can therefore provide information about the total duration of inflation, not just the last N{sub obs} e-folds. This method could also be applied to any model that contains additional scalar fields to determine the probability that these scalar fields contribute to the curvature perturbation.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS2009

Mars Balloon Flight Test Results

This paper describes a set of four Earth atmosphere flight test experiments on prototype helium superpressure balloons designed for Mars. Three of the experiments explored the problem of aerial deployment and inflation, using the cold, low density environment of the Earth's stratosphere at an altitude of 30-32 km as a proxy for the Martian atmosphere. Auxiliary carrier balloons were used in three of these test flights to lift the Mars balloon prototype and its supporting system from the ground to the stratosphere where the experiment was conducted. In each case, deployment and helium inflation was initiated after starting a parachute descent of the payload at 5 Pa dynamic pressure, thereby mimicking the conditions expected at Mars after atmospheric entry and high speed parachute deceleration. Upward and downward looking video cameras provided real time images from the flights, with additional data provided by onboard temperature, pressure and GPS sensors. One test of a 660 cc pumpkin balloon was highly successful, achieving deployment, inflation and separation of the balloon from the flight train at the end of inflation; however, some damage was incurred on the balloon during this process. Two flight tests of 12 m diameter spherical Mylar balloons were not successful, although some lessons were learned based on the failure analyses. The final flight experiment consisted of a ground-launched 12 m diameter spherical Mylar balloon that ascended to the designed 30.3 km altitude and successfully floated for 9.5 hours through full noontime daylight and into darkness, after which the telemetry system ran out of electrical power and tracking was lost. The altitude excursions for this last flight were +/-75 m peak to peak, indicating that the balloon was essentially leak free and functioning correctly. This provides substantial confidence that this balloon design will fly for days or weeks at Mars if it can be deployed and inflated without damage.

deployment↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Integration of Advanced Structures and Materials Technologies for a Robust Lunar Habitat

NASA’s Artemis program plans to have a sustainable lunar base deployed on the Moon by 2028. The base calls for a foundation surface habitat that can support a crew of four members for a minimum mission duration of 28-days. The lack of a magnetic field and significant lunar atmosphere extends the lifetime of secondary radiation emitted from metallic structures, which is a health hazard for exposed astronauts. Integration of non-metallic structural materials into surface habitat design may alleviate some of these concerns. Additionally, it is favorable for the structure to be collapsible for transportation to optimize payload volume, mass efficiency, and monetary constraints. As a result, inflatable structures are being investigated due to their improved packing efficiency at launch, optimal mass-to-volume ratio, and large surface area that can efficiently disperse structural loads and heat. Currently, only two inflatable airlocks have been deployed in space. Thus, there is a significant need to advance technologies associated with inflatable structures to provide greater options for future missions, i.e., Artemis and beyond. This study focused on the inflatable lunar habitat applications of emerging NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) technologies and their required development steps to become space qualified. The Bowling Habitat architecture was generated from 13 of these NASA LaRC technologies, five of which were deemed critical, five determined as enhancing technologies, and three were classified as transformational technologies for the Artemis program. To address the payload constraints, the study also considered a tentative timeline that aligned with the current Artemis schedule for transporting the Bowling Habitat to the Moon. Ultimately, the Bowling Habitat mainly addressed the structural needs of an inflatable lunar habitat, meaning that major areas pertaining to the life-style aspects of the habitat must be improved. Areas include, but are not limited to, hard connection points, the monitoring of human health, and extra radiation protection for solar proton events.

Inflatable Habitat↗
DOE OSTI2019

Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons

We present a new mechanism to relax the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion and raise the cosmological bound on the axion decay constant. The QCD axion receives a contribution from small UV instantons during inflation, which raises its mass to the inflationary Hubble scale. This makes the axion start rolling down its potential early on. In the scenario, the standard model Yukawa couplings of quarks are dynamical, being of order one during the inflationary era and reducing to their standard model values once it ends. This means that after inflation the contribution of the small instantons is suppressed, and the axion potential reduces to the standard one from the usual IR instantons. As a result, when the axion starts to oscillate again after inflation, the initial misalignment angle is suppressed due to the dynamics during inflation. While the general idea of dynamical axion misalignment has been discussed in the literature before, we present in detail the major bottleneck on the mismatching between the minima of the axion potentials during and after inflation, and how it is circumvented in our scenario via the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism. Taking into account of all the constraints, we find that the axion decay constant could be raised to the GUT scale, 10 15 GeV, in our scenario.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

A non-Gaussian landscape

Primordial perturbations with wavelengths greater than the observable universe shift the effective background fields in our observable patch from their global averages over the inflating space. This leads to a landscape picture where the properties of our observable patch depend on its location and may significantly differ from the expectation values predicted by the underlying fundamental inflationary model. We show that if multiple fields are present during inflation, this may happen even if our horizon exit would be preceded by only a few e-foldings of inflation. Non-Gaussian statistics are especially affected: for example models of local non-Gaussianity predicting |f{sub NL}{sup 0}| >> 10 over the entire inflating volume can have a probability up to a few tens of percent to generate a non-detectable bispectrum in our observable patch |f{sub NL}{sup obs.}|∼<10. In this work we establish systematic connections between the observable local properties of primordial perturbations and the global properties of the inflating space which reflect the underlying high energy physics. We study in detail the implications of both a detection and non-detection of primordial non-Gaussianity by Planck, and discover novel ways of characterising the naturalness of different observational configurations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Warming up for Planck

The recent Planck results and future releases on the horizon present a key opportunity to address a fundamental question in inflationary cosmology of whether primordial density perturbations have a quantum or thermal origin, i.e. whether particle production may have significant effects during inflation. Warm inflation provides a natural arena to address this issue, with interactions between the scalar inflaton and other degrees of freedom leading to dissipative entropy production and associated thermal fluctuations. In this context, we present relations between CMB observables that can be directly tested against observational data. In particular, we show that the presence of a thermal bath warmer than the Hubble scale during inflation decreases the tensor-to-scalar ratio with respect to the conventional prediction in supercooled inflation, yielding r < 8|n{sub t}|, where n{sub t} is the tensor spectral index. Focusing on supersymmetric models at low temperatures, we determine consistency relations between the observables characterizing the spectrum of adiabatic scalar and tensor modes, both for generic potentials and particular canonical examples, and which we compare with the WMAP and Planck results. Finally, we include the possibility of producing the observed baryon asymmetry during inflation through dissipative effects, thereby generating baryon isocurvature modes that can be easily accommodated by the Planck data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Inflationary magnetogenesis without the strong coupling problem

The simplest gauge invariant models of inflationary magnetogenesis are known to suffer from the problems of either large backreaction or strong coupling, which make it difficult to self-consistently achieve cosmic magnetic fields from inflation with a field strength larger than 10{sup −32}G today on the Mpc scale. Such a strength is insufficient to act as seed for the galactic dynamo effect, which requires a magnetic field larger than 10{sup −20}G. In this paper we analyze simple extensions of the minimal model, which avoid both the strong coupling and back reaction problems, in order to generate sufficiently large magnetic fields on the Mpc scale today. First we study the possibility that the coupling function which breaks the conformal invariance of electromagnetism is non-monotonic with sharp features. Subsequently, we consider the effect of lowering the energy scale of inflation jointly with a scenario of prolonged reheating where the universe is dominated by a stiff fluid for a short period after inflation. In the latter case, a systematic study shows upper bounds for the magnetic field strength today on the Mpc scale of 10{sup −13}G for low scale inflation and 10{sup −25}G for high scale inflation, thus improving on the previous result by 7-19 orders of magnitude. These results are consistent with the strong coupling and backreaction constraints.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Mixed inflaton and spectator field models after Planck

We investigate the possibility that the primordial perturbation has two sources: the inflaton and a spectator field, which is not dynamically important during inflation but which after inflation can contribute to the curvature perturbation. We derive the constraints on the model by using recent Planck results on the spectral index, tensor-to-scalar ratio and nonlinearity parameters f{sub NL} and τ{sub NL} for the cases with and without specifying the inflation and spectator models. If one chooses the spectator to be the curvaton with a quadratic potential, non-Gaussianities can be computed and imply restrictions on possible values of the ratio of the spectator-to-inflaton power R. We also consider a mixed curvaton and chaotic inflation model and show that even quartic chaotic inflation is still feasible in the context of mixed models even with Planck data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Domain wall and isocurvature perturbation problems in axion models

Axion models have two serious cosmological problems, domain wall and isocurvature perturbation problems. In order to solve these problems we investigate the Linde's model in which the field value of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) scalar is large during inflation. In this model the fluctuations of the PQ field grow after inflation through the parametric resonance and stable axionic strings may be produced, which results in the domain wall problem. We study formation of axionic strings using lattice simulations. It is found that in chaotic inflation the axion model is free from both the domain wall and the isocurvature perturbation problems if the initial misalignment angle θ{sub a} is smaller than O(10{sup −2}). Furthermore, axions can also account for the dark matter for the breaking scale v ≅ 10{sup 12−16} GeV and the Hubble parameter during inflation H{sub inf}∼<10{sup 11−12} GeV in general inflation models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The ALP miracle: unified inflaton and dark matter

We propose a scenario where both inflation and dark matter are described by a single axion-like particle (ALP) in a unified manner. In a class of the minimal axion hilltop inflation, the effective masses at the maximum and mimimum of the potential have equal magnitude but opposite sign, so that the ALP inflaton is light both during inflation and in the true vacuum. After inflation, most of the ALPs decay and evaporate into plasma through a coupling to photons, and the remaining ones become dark matter. We find that the observed CMB and matter power spectrum as well as the dark matter abundance point to an ALP of mass m {sub φ} = O(0.01) eV and the axion-photon coupling g {sub φ} {sub γ} {sub γ} = O(10{sup −11}) GeV{sup −1}: the ALP miracle . The suggested parameter region is within the reach of the next generation axion helioscope, IAXO, and high-intensity laser experiments in the future. Furthermore, thermalized ALPs contribute to hot dark matter and its abundance is given in terms of the effective number of extra neutrino species, Δ N {sub eff} ≅ 0.03, which can be tested by the future CMB and BAO observations. We also discuss a case with multiple ALPs, where the coupling to photons can be enhanced in the early Universe by an order of magnitude or more, which enlarges the parameter space for the ALP miracle. The heavy ALP plays a role of the waterfall field in hybrid inflation, and reheats the Universe, and it can be searched for in various experiments such as SHiP.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The stochastic spectator

We study the stochastic distribution of spectator fields predicted in different slow-roll inflation backgrounds. Spectator fields have a negligible energy density during inflation but may play an important dynamical role later, even giving rise to primordial density perturbations within our observational horizon today. During de-Sitter expansion there is an equilibrium solution for the spectator field which is often used to estimate the stochastic distribution during slow-roll inflation. However slow roll only requires that the Hubble rate varies slowly compared to the Hubble time, while the time taken for the stochastic distribution to evolve to the de-Sitter equilibrium solution can be much longer than a Hubble time. We study both chaotic (monomial) and plateau inflaton potentials, with quadratic, quartic and axionic spectator fields. We give an adiabaticity condition for the spectator field distribution to relax to the de-Sitter equilibrium, and find that the de-Sitter approximation is never a reliable estimate for the typical distribution at the end of inflation for a quadratic spectator during monomial inflation. The existence of an adiabatic regime at early times can erase the dependence on initial conditions of the final distribution of field values. In these cases, spectator fields acquire sub-Planckian expectation values. Otherwise spectator fields may acquire much larger field displacements than suggested by the de-Sitter equilibrium solution. We quantify the information about initial conditions that can be obtained from the final field distribution. Our results may have important consequences for the viability of spectator models for the origin of structure, such as the simplest curvaton models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗