Results for “Lab Testing” — Page 83

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Hazard Perception & Avoidance (HPA), Assured Vehicle Automation 1 Simulation (AVA-1h) Results Outbrief

In late 2022, the Human Autonomy Teaming Lab (NASA Ames Research Center) conducted a manned, human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation. This HITL was the lab’s second Hazard Perception and Avoidance (HPA) technical work under NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), Automated Flight and Contingency Management (AFCM) Sub-Project. The goals were to assess detect and avoid technology for manned, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. This simulation tested Resolution Advisory (RA) responses and return-to-course (RTC) maneuvers for the second version of the Airborne Collision Avoidance System’s (ACAS) rotary-wing (Xr) variant. This was conducted at the center's Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS), on a motion-based platform, and was configured to fly eVTOL aircraft while maneuvering for intruding traffic. Variables for this study included ACAS Xr modes (i.e., TA/RA and DAA) and phases of flight (i.e., Cruise, Hover, and Approach). The data collected included response times, losses of well clear, and pilots' noncompliances to alerts and guidance as well as subjective ratings like acceptability and perceived workload. Additional details and future anticipations are also discussed.

ACAS Xr↗

DOE OSTI2021

Advancements of On-Line Monitoring and Real-Time Characterization of Actual Low-Level Hanford Tank-Waste Samples

Waste and process stream characterization is essential to the safe, efficient, and cost-effective processing of Hanford Site materials. The demand for materials characterization including chemical, radionuclide, and physical attributes during waste management, transfer, and staging operations in the Hanford tank farms is expected to significantly increase as the U.S. Department of Energy River Protection Project progresses toward Hanford waste treatment and immobilization. Our past work has applied Raman on-line monitoring and chemometric modeling to the supernate of Hanford tank 241-AP-105 and has demonstrated the quantitative measurement of nine analytes within this waste. To demonstrate broader applicability, this method has now been expanded to waste from two additional Hanford tanks, AW-102 and AP-107, and the offgas condensate from lab-scale melter runs of actual-tank waste feeds. To enhance the performance of the Raman method, instruments with various excitation wavelengths were compared, since it is known that the Raman response is enhanced by shorter wavelength excitation. The laser excitations for the three systems tested were 404 nm, 532 nm, and 671 nm. In addition to laser wavelength selection, the laser power, measurement integration times, and signal averaging techniques were also investigated to determine their effect on detection limits for oxy-anion analytes within tank wastes. These advancements in Raman capability are compared with past standards and will be presented.

Bryan, Samuel A.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Development of vegetative oil sorghum: From lab‐to‐field

Summary Biomass crops engineered to accumulate energy‐dense triacylglycerols (TAG or ‘vegetable oils’) in their vegetative tissues have emerged as potential feedstocks to meet the growing demand for renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Unlike oil palm and oilseed crops, the current commercial sources of TAG, vegetative tissues, such as leaves and stems, only transiently accumulate TAG. In this report, we used grain (Texas430 or TX430) and sugar‐accumulating ‘sweet’ (Ramada) genotypes of sorghum, a high‐yielding, environmentally resilient biomass crop, to accumulate TAG in leaves and stems. We initially tested several gene combinations for a ‘push‐pull‐protect’ strategy. The top TAG‐yielding constructs contained five oil transgenes for a sorghum WRINKLED1 transcription factor (‘push’), a Cuphea viscosissima diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT; ‘pull’), a modified sesame oleosin (‘protect’) and two combinations of specialized Cuphea lysophosphatidic acid acyltransferases and medium‐chain acyl‐acyl carrier protein thioesterases. Though intended to generate oils with medium‐chain fatty acids, engineered lines accumulated oleic acid‐rich oil to amounts of up to 2.5% DW in leaves and 2.0% DW in stems in the greenhouse, 36‐fold and 49‐fold increases relative to wild‐type (WT) plants, respectively. Under field conditions, the top‐performing event accumulated TAG to amount to 5.5% DW in leaves and 3.5% DW in stems, 78‐fold and 58‐fold increases, respectively, relative to WT TX430. Transcriptomic and fluxomic analyses revealed potential bottlenecks for increased TAG accumulation. Overall, our studies highlight the utility of a lab‐to‐field pipeline coupled with systems biology studies to deliver high vegetative oil sorghum for SAF and renewable diesel production.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Large-Scale Inverter Integration in Bulk Power Grids Using Heterogeneous Grid-Forming Control Strategies

The conventional generation within the grid is gradually being replaced by inverter based resources. However, the integration of inverters into realistic transmission grid models has not been thoroughly explored. To address this gap, this work develops an automation framework aimed at facilitating the integration of a large number of inverter-based resources into a large-scale grid. Two types of grid-forming controlled inverters—namely droop-controlled inverters and virtual synchronous machine-controlled inverters—are developed for use in positive-sequence simulation packages. Various penetration levels ranging from 23% to 100% of grid-forming inverters are tested in a grid setup in the US Western Interconnection. The dynamic performance of inverters under different control schemes is compared in response to various disturbances.

Lyu, Xue [BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)]↗

DOE OSTI2025

Tailoring Nitinol for elastocaloric application

This study focuses on tailoring commercial Nitinol, the most commonly used elastocaloric material, for near-room-temperature cooling applications. Short heat treatments near 500 °C were used to fine-tune the material’s transition temperature, resulting in austenite finish temperatures ranging from 6.0 to 25.5°C and altered superelastic and elastocaloric properties. Plateau stresses decreased while temperature changes rose from 21.5°C up to 27.9°C at 6% strain. Significant variability in the Nitinol response when testing below its austenite finish temperature was observed. In conclusion, the effect of mechanical cycling on transition temperatures was also evaluated, demonstrating an increase for all the samples.

Efficiency↗

DOE OSTI2026

Conduction-Cooled Operation of an SRF Multi-Cell Cavity

The development of compact, SRF-based accelerators for applications beyond research is experiencing notable advancements due to the use of cryocoolers for conduction-cooling instead of traditional liquid cryogens. Following the successful demonstration of a single-cell cavity operated through conduction cooling with three two-stage cryocoolers, Jefferson Lab (JLab) has made strides in the operation of a multi-cell resonator. This milestone paves the way for high-energy applications of compact, conduction-cooled SRF machines. The demonstration, carried out in collaboration with General Atomics, will take place in a dedicated horizontal test cryostat (HTC) at their San Diego facility. This presentation will highlight the technological developments, the latest results, and valuable lessons learned.

Vennekate, J. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerat↗

NASA NTRS1994

Determining F-factor using ground-based Doppler radar: Validation and results

Using a two-dimensional linear least-squares method applied to Doppler radar data, we test the viability of determining F-factor remotely. The ultimate application of such an algorithm will be supplying real-time F-factor maps, derived from ground-based Doppler radars to air traffic control personnel and pilots. Data from NASA deployments to the MIT/Lincoln Lab TDWR testbed radar in Orlando in 1991 and 1992 along with NASA deployments to the NCAR TDWR testbed radar in Denver are examined. Preliminary analyses show that the two-dimensional method correlates reasonably well with in situ measurements. Several effects, independent of the method used, act to reduce the correlation to less than one. These include time differences between radar and aircraft data, vertical misalignment between the aircraft and the radar beam, different spatial resolution scales between aircraft and radar data, inhomogeneous radar beam filling, noise in radar data that eludes filtering, and phase lag between time and space due to low pass filtering of the aircraft data. In the final assessment, it appears that a shear-based F-factor algorithm is preferable to the currently implemented TDWR algorithms which lack any local shear estimates.

Elmore, K. L.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Computational strategies for three-dimensional flow simulations on distributed computer systems

This research effort is directed towards an examination of issues involved in porting large computational fluid dynamics codes in use within the industry to a distributed computing environment. This effort addresses strategies for implementing the distributed computing in a device independent fashion and load balancing. A flow solver called TEAM presently in use at Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company was acquired to start this effort. The following tasks were completed: (1) The TEAM code was ported to a number of distributed computing platforms including a cluster of HP workstations located in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech; a cluster of DEC Alpha Workstations in the Graphics visualization lab located at Georgia Tech; a cluster of SGI workstations located at NASA Ames Research Center; and an IBM SP-2 system located at NASA ARC. (2) A number of communication strategies were implemented. Specifically, the manager-worker strategy and the worker-worker strategy were tested. (3) A variety of load balancing strategies were investigated. Specifically, the static load balancing, task queue balancing and the Crutchfield algorithm were coded and evaluated. (4) The classical explicit Runge-Kutta scheme in the TEAM solver was replaced with an LU implicit scheme. And (5) the implicit TEAM-PVM solver was extensively validated through studies of unsteady transonic flow over an F-5 wing, undergoing combined bending and torsional motion. These investigations are documented in extensive detail in the dissertation, 'Computational Strategies for Three-Dimensional Flow Simulations on Distributed Computing Systems', enclosed as an appendix.

Sankar, Lakshmi N.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Simulation of MC-1 Engine on Real-Time Station

The MC-1 rocket engine is a new, 60,000-pound-thrust engine designed to boost small spacecraft carrying payloads weighing up to 500 pounds. The engine was designed in-house at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, and built by SUMMA Technology, Inc. A vital part of the success of the engine development was the verification of the Propulsion System Controller (PSC) used to control the MC-1 engine during development testing at test facilities in Mississippi and California. The MC-1 engine simulation software was developed on the Applied Dynamics, Inc.'s Real-Time Station (RTS) computer system (ESL) to verify the PSC's hardware and software performance in the Marshall Avionics System Testbed's (MAST) Engine Simulation Lab at the MSFC. The engine model includes the simulation of pressure transducers, thermocouple sensors and valve-positions.

Ly, William↗

NASA NTRS2021

Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE)

NASA has partnered with Advanced Space to develop and build the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission which will serve as a pathfinder for Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NHRO) operations around the Moon. The NHRO, (Perilune = 3,200 km; Apolune = 70,000 km) will be the intended orbit for the NASA’s Artemis Gateway lunar orbital platform. The CAPSTONE mission will validate simulations and confirm operational planning for Gateway while also validating performance of navigation and station-keeping requirements for the Power and Propulsion Element. Thus, this mission will provide operational experience to NASA, commercial, and international missions for operations in a demanding orbital regime. The baseline for CAPSTONE is to fly a 12U cubesat developed, integrated, and tested by Tyvak Nanosatellite Systems carrying a payload communications system capable of cross-link ranging with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a dedicated payload flight computer for software demonstration, and a camera. The launch, coordinated by NASA Launch Services Program, will be provided by a Rocket Lab launch vehicle utilizing their new Proton upper stage to deploy the CAPSTONE spacecraft into the lunar orbit. The CAPSTONE mission is targeting a launch no earlier than September 23, 2021. Upon launch, the spacecraft will traverse a highly efficient transfer taking approximately three months to enter a primary demonstration phase in an NRHO for six months followed by a twelve month technology enhancement operations phase. The CAPSTONE Project is lead by Advanced Space, LLC of Boulder Colorado. Spacecraft development and mission operations will be conducted by Tyvak Nanosatellite Systems of Irvine, California. Noted objectives for the CAPSTONE mission will be to demonstrate the accessibility of NHROs, validate key operational concepts in the NHRO environment, lay a foundation for commercial support of future lunar operations and accelerate the availability of peer-to-peer navigation capabilities provided by the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS). The CAPSTONE mission is funded through NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program (SSTP), which is one of several programs in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. SSTP is chartered to develop and demonstrate technologies to enhance and expand the capabilities of small spacecraft with a particular focus on enabling new mission architectures through the use of small spacecraft, expanding the reach of small spacecraft to new destinations, and augmenting future missions with supporting small spacecraft. The launch for the CAPSTONE Mission is provided by Human Exploration & Operations Missions Directorate Advanced Exploration Systems Division. Coordination and Acquisition of the Launch is managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program. The CAPSTONE Mission and project status will be presented.

CAPSTONE↗

NASA NTRS2021

Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) Mission

NASA has partnered with Advanced Space to develop and build the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission which will serve as a pathfinder for Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NHRO) operations around the Moon. The NHRO, (Perilune = 3,200 km; Apolune = 70,000 km) will be the intended orbit for the NASA’s Artemis Gateway lunar orbital platform. The CAPSTONE mission will validate simulations and confirm operational planning for Gateway while also validating performance of navigation and station-keeping requirements for the Power and Propulsion Element. Thus, this mission will provide operational experience to NASA, commercial, and international missions for operations in a demanding orbital regime. The baseline for CAPSTONE is to fly a 12U cubesat developed, integrated, and tested by Tyvak Nanosatellite Systems carrying a payload communications system capable of cross-link ranging with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a dedicated payload flight computer for software demonstration, and a camera. The launch, coordinated by NASA Launch Services Program, will be provided by a Rocket Lab launch vehicle utilizing their new Proton upper stage to deploy the CAPSTONE spacecraft into the lunar orbit. The CAPSTONE mission is targeting a launch no earlier than September 23, 2021. Upon launch, the spacecraft will traverse a highly efficient transfer taking approximately three months to enter a primary demonstration phase in an NRHO for six months followed by a twelve month technology enhancement operations phase. The CAPSTONE Project is lead by Advanced Space, LLC of Boulder Colorado. Spacecraft development and mission operations will be conducted by Tyvak Nanosatellite Systems of Irvine, California. Noted objectives for the CAPSTONE mission will be to demonstrate the accessibility of NHROs, validate key operational concepts in the NHRO environment, lay a foundation for commercial support of future lunar operations and accelerate the availability of peer-to-peer navigation capabilities provided by the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS). The CAPSTONE mission is funded through NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program (SSTP), which is one of several programs in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. SSTP is chartered to develop and demonstrate technologies to enhance and expand the capabilities of small spacecraft with a particular focus on enabling new mission architectures through the use of small spacecraft, expanding the reach of small spacecraft to new destinations, and augmenting future missions with supporting small spacecraft. The launch for the CAPSTONE Mission is provided by Human Exploration & Operations Missions Directorate Advanced Exploration Systems Division. Coordination and Acquisition of the Launch is managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program. The CAPSTONE Mission and project status will be presented.

CAPSTONE↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lunar Regolith: Small Scale Robotic Site Preparation and Geotechnical Experiments with Scoops

- NASA’s Moon-To-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) project seeks to research, develop, and demonstrate lunar surface construction capabilities. - Quantification of lunar regolith’s geotechnical properties allows for effective prediction of forces and displacement during excavation and construction and is critical to facilitating regolith sintering capabilities all of which benefit lunar infrastructure plans. - Knowledge of shear strength, Mohr-Coulomb cohesion, angle of internal friction, bearing strength, bulk density, etc. is needed. - The use of ground-based testing of various lunar simulants with relevant hardware (e.g., robotic arm tools) enables validation of technology choices, tool paths, and lunar surface construction activities. - In addition, the use of Taguchi methods [1] will minimize the number of needed experiments to explore critical input parameters. - The Jet Propulsion Lab is preparing to fly the COLDarm payload on a CLPS lunar mission with a geotechnical measurement scoop

Regolith↗

NASA NTRS2026

Assessing the Adhesion of Nanofibrous PVDF-HFP as Passive Thermal Control Coatings for the Extraterrestrial Storage of Cryogenic Propellants

Cryogenic propellant passive thermal management techniques in space are essential complements to active thermal management methods, helping reduce absolute dependence on the latter. Particularly, materials with superior optical properties (high solar reflectance and infrared emittance) would be beneficial for passive thermal control to reject most of the incident solar radiation and enhance thermal emission from the storage tank, leading to self-cooling. We developed a nanofibrous, porous passive thermal control material by electrospinning polyvinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP) co-polymer onto an aluminum foil substrate. The material exhibits a very high solar reflectance (>99%) and infrared emittance (~86%) when characterized in the ultraviolet-visible-near infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths. This study focuses on the adhesion of the nanofibrous PVDF-HFP to the substrate. We incorporated in-lab fabricated and commercial adhesives, under normal room conditions, between the nanofibers and the aluminum foil substrate to improve their adhesion. Some samples were also exposed to space-like conditions – vacuum and thermal cycling, to investigate their effects on the strengths of adhesives. Subsequently, adhesion peel tests were conducted on all the samples to assess the peel strengths of the bonds. Peel test strengths after space environment conditioning of the adhesives were generally higher than those observed in the pristine, unaged samples. The results are discussed in this study.

Chieloka Ibekwe↗

DOE OSTI2025

Conduction-Cooled Operation of an SRF Multi-Cell Cavity

The development of compact, SRF-based accelerators for applications beyond research is experiencing notable advancements due to the use of cryocoolers for conduction-cooling instead of traditional liquid cryogens. Following the successful demonstration of a single-cell cavity operated through conduction cooling with three two-stage cryocoolers, Jefferson Lab (JLab) has made strides in the operation of a multi-cell resonator. This milestone paves the way for high-energy applications of compact, conduction-cooled SRF machines. The demonstration, carried out in collaboration with General Atomics, will take place in a dedicated horizontal test cryostat (HTC) at their San Diego facility. This presentation will highlight the technological developments, the latest results, and valuable lessons learned.

Vennekate, J. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerat↗

DOE OSTI2022

Sample IEEE123 Bus system for OEDI SI

Time series load and PV data from an IEEE123 bus system. An example electrical system, named the OEDI SI feeder, is used to test the workflow in a co-simulation. The system used is the IEEE123 test system, which is a well studied test system (see link below to IEEE PES Test Feeder), but some modifications were made to it to add some solar power modules and measurements on the system. The aim of this project is to create an easy-to-use platform where various types of analytics can be performed on a wide range of electrical grid datasets. The aim is to establish an open-source library of algorithms that universities, national labs and other developers can contribute to which can be used on both open-source and proprietary grid data to improve the analysis of electrical distribution systems for the grid modeling community. OEDI Systems Integration (SI) is a grid algorithms and data analytics API created to standardize how data is sent between different modules that are run as part of a co-simulation. The readme file included in the S3 bucket provides information about the directory structure and how to use the algorithms. The sensors.json file is used to define the measurement locations.

123 bus↗

DOE OSTI2025

Spatial Mapping of Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity in Chiral Perovskite via Spin-Schottky Junction

Chiral halide perovskite (c-HP) semiconductors exhibit on average a large chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect. Nevertheless, the microscopic details of CISS and its integration in opto-spintronic constructs remain nascent. Reliable reporting of CISS performance characteristics represents a significant challenge in providing the necessary design rules. We show a Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) method that can quantitatively evaluate and spatially map the chirality-dependent surface contact potential difference resulting from the formation of a spin-Schottky junction. We revealed inhomogeneity in the CISS response, where low-CISS regions in the c-HP films reduce the overall macroscopic average, likely serving as a key factor in optimizing macroscopic performance. We also observed that although c-HP films made from higher precursor concentrations lead to thicker films and higher carrier concentrations with subsequent larger barrier heights in the Schottky junction, stronger spin relaxation due to non-ideal film quality reduces spin polarization.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Optimizing the Weather Research and Forecasting Model with OpenMP Offload and Codee

Currently, the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) utilizes shared memory (OpenMP) and distributed memory (MPI) parallelisms. To take advantage of GPU resources on the Perlmutter supercomputer at NERSC, we port parts of the computationally expensive routine Fast Spectral Bin Microphysics (FSBM) to NVIDIA GPUs using OpenMP device offloading directives. To facilitate this process, we explore a workflow for optimization which uses both runtime profilers and a static code inspection tool Codee to refactor the subroutine. We observe an 2.24x overall speedup for the CONUS-12km storm test case.

Wichitrnithed, Chayanon (Namo) [Odin Institute]↗

DOE OSTI2023

CI/CD Pipeline and DevSecOps Integration for Security and Load Testing

Dominic D’Onofrio is currently a Junior studying Information and Technology at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. He recently secured an Internship with NMCCoE, where he is involved with the TracerFIRE 12 project. Additionally, he is contributing to the load and security testing team by researching ways to implement pipelining and DevSecOps; this is his main project while he is at part time capacity for TracerFIRE 12. He is doing these projects to enhance his knowledge as a system administrator and gain a deeper understating of cybersecurity practices within national labs.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗