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Results for “Critical experiment design”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 163 records · Page 9

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1972

Preparative electrophoresis experiment design

A multifaceted study supporting the NASA programs to develop a space electrophoresis capability has been conducted. The study involved principally the technique of continuous free electrophoresis. It comprised a critical review of the art, study of new techniques for enhancing resolution and stability, and construction and initial testing of a high resolution cell. The effort resulted in a significant advance in free electrophoresis technique. It has provided also a much improved base for developments exploiting the added advantages of a zero-gravity environment.

Thiehler, A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Engineering Strategies for the Design of Plant Nutrient Delivery Systems for Use in Space: Approaches to Countering Microbiological Contamination

Microbiological contamination of crops within space-based crop growth research chambers has been postulated as a potentially significant problem. Microbial infestations; fouling of Nutrient Delivery System (NDS) fluid loops; and the formation of biofilms, have been suggested as the most obvious and important manifestations of the problem. Strict sanitation and quarantine procedures will reduce, but not eliminate, microbial species introduced into plant growing systems in space habitats. Microorganisms transported into space will most likely occur as contaminants on spacecraft components, equipment, the crew, and plant-propagative materials. Illustrations of the potential magnitude of the microbiological contamination issue will be drawn from the literature and from documentation of laboratory and commercial field experience. Engineering strategies for limiting contamination and for the development of countermeasures will be described. Microbiological control technologies and NDS hardware will be discussed. Configurations appropriate for microgravity research facilities, as well as anticipated bio-regenerative life support system implementations, will be explored. An efficiently designed NDS, capable of adequately meeting the environmental needs of crop plants in space, is considered to be critical in both the research and operational domains. Recommended experiments, tests and technology developments, structured to allow the development of prudent engineering solutions, will also be presented.

Gonzales, A. A.↗

NASA NTRS2016

SIG: Multiple Views on Safety-Critical Automation: Aircraft, Autonomous Vehicles, Air Traffic Management and Satellite Ground Segments Perspectives

This SIG focuses on the engineering of automation in interactive critical systems. Automation has already been studied in a number of (sub-) disciplines and application fields: design, human factors, psychology, (software) engineering, aviation, health care, games. One distinguishing feature of the area we are focusing on is that in the field of interactive critical systems properties such as reliability, dependability, fault tolerance are as important as usability, user experience or overall acceptance issues. The SIG targets at two problem areas: first the engineering of the user interaction with (partly-) autonomous systems: how to design, build and assess autonomous behavior, especially in cases where there is a need to represent on the user interface both autonomous and interactive objects. An example of such integration is the representation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (where no direct interaction is possible), together with aircrafts (that have to be instructed by an air traffic controller to avoid the UAV). Second the design and engineering of user interaction in general for autonomous objects/systems (for example a cruise control in a car or an autopilot in an aircraft). The goal of the SIG is to raise interest in the CHI community on the general aspects of automation and to identify a community of researchers and practitioners interested in those increasingly prominent issues of interfaces towards (semi)-autonomous systems. The expected audience should be interested in addressing the issues of integration of mainly unconnected research domains to formulate a new joint research agenda.

human-automation interaction↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Parametric Study of Federated Conflict Resolution for UAM Operations

This work presents a federated conflict resolution algorithm and its parametric study for UAM operations. A federated speed-control-based conflict resolution algorithm is introduced first, including its rules of the road, data exchange requirement, and critical parameters. Two experiments were set up for the parametric study. The first investigates five parameters: look ahead time, resolution update interval, maximum allowed speed reduction, traffic flow interval, and crossing angle. The second experiment studies the uncertainty of departure time. Metrics associated with safety, efficiency, and conflict resolution effort were measured for each scenario. A Design Of Experiment (DOE) analysis was used to perform the multi-factor analysis for the first experiment. It revealed that the crossing angle and flow interval were the most critical parameters across all three metrics, followed by maximum allowed speed reduction. Look ahead time and resolution update interval were of minor significance to safety and conflict resolution effort, but had little to no effect on efficiency. The analysis of the second experiment showed that, given a flow rate, the fluctuation in departure time was absorbed by the conflict resolution algorithm, which resulted in a relatively small fluctuation in airborne delay.

Urban air mobility↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Parametric Study of Federated Conflict Resolution for UAM Operations using DOE Analysis

Urban air mobility↗

NASA NTRS2001

Microwave Remote Sensing and the Cold Land Processes Field Experiment

The Cold Land Processes Field Experiment (CLPX) has been designed to advance our understanding of the terrestrial cryosphere. Developing a more complete understanding of fluxes, storage, and transformations of water and energy in cold land areas is a critical focus of the NASA Earth Science Enterprise Research Strategy, the NASA Global Water and Energy Cycle (GWEC) Initiative, the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), and the GEWEX Americas Prediction Project (GAPP). The movement of water and energy through cold regions in turn plays a large role in ecological activity and biogeochemical cycles. Quantitative understanding of cold land processes over large areas will require synergistic advancements in 1) understanding how cold land processes, most comprehensively understood at local or hillslope scales, extend to larger scales, 2) improved representation of cold land processes in coupled and uncoupled land-surface models, and 3) a breakthrough in large-scale observation of hydrologic properties, including snow characteristics, soil moisture, the extent of frozen soils, and the transition between frozen and thawed soil conditions. The CLPX Plan has been developed through the efforts of over 60 interested scientists that have participated in the NASA Cold Land Processes Working Group (CLPWG). This group is charged with the task of assessing, planning and implementing the required background science, technology, and application infrastructure to support successful land surface hydrology remote sensing space missions. A major product of the experiment will be a comprehensive, legacy data set that will energize many aspects of cold land processes research. The CLPX will focus on developing the quantitative understanding, models, and measurements necessary to extend our local-scale understanding of water fluxes, storage, and transformations to regional and global scales. The experiment will particularly emphasize developing a strong synergism between process-oriented understanding, land surface models and microwave remote sensing. The experimental design is a multi-sensor, multi-scale (1-ha to 160,000 km ^ {2}) approach to providing the comprehensive data set necessary to address several experiment objectives. A description focusing on the microwave remote sensing components (ground, airborne, and spaceborne) of the experiment will be presented.

Kim, Edward J.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Tank Pressure Control Experiment on the Space Shuttle

The tank pressure control experiment is a demonstration of NASA intent to develop new technology for low-gravity management of the cryogenic fluids that will be required for future space systems. The experiment will use freon as the test fluid to measure the effects of jet-induced fluid mixing on storage tank pressure and will produce data on low-gravity mixing processes critical to the design of on-orbit cryogenic storage and resupply systems. Basic data on fluid motion and thermodynamics in low gravity is limited, but such data is critical to the development of space transfer vehicles and spacecraft resupply facilities. An in-space experiment is needed to obtain reliable data on fluid mixing and pressure control because none of the available microgravity test facilities provide a low enough gravity level for a sufficient duration to duplicate in-space flow patterns and thermal processes. Normal gravity tests do not represent the fluid behavior properly; drop-tower tests are limited in length of time available; aircraft low-gravity tests cannot provide the steady near-zero gravity level and long duration needed to study the subtle processes expected in space.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2016

Multiple Views on Safety-Critical Automation: Aircraft, Autonomous Vehicles, Air Traffic Management and Satellite Ground Segments Perspectives

This SIG focuses on the engineering of automation in interactive critical systems. Automation has already been studied in a number of (sub-) disciplines and application fields: design, human factors, psychology, (software) engineering, aviation, health care, games. One distinguishing feature of the area we are focusing on is that in the field of interactive critical systems properties such as reliability, dependability, fault-tolerance are as important as usability, user experience or overall acceptance issues. The SIG targets at two problem areas: first the engineering of the user interaction with (partly-) autonomous systems: how to design, build and assess autonomous behavior, especially in cases where there is a need to represent on the user interface both autonomous and interactive objects. An example of such integration is the representation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (where no direct interaction is possible), together with aircrafts (that have to be instructed by an air traffic controller to avoid the UAV). Second the design and engineering of user interaction in general for autonomous objects systems (for example a cruise control in a car or an autopilot in an aircraft). The goal of the SIG is to raise interest in the CHI community on the general aspects of automation and to identify a community of researchers and practitioners interested in those increasingly prominent issues of interfaces towards (semi)-autonomous systems. The expected audience should be interested in addressing the issues of integration of mainly unconnected research domains to formulate a new joint research agenda.

safety-critical automation↗

NASA NTRS1983

Current and future technology in radial and axial gas turbines

Design approaches and flow analysis techniques currently employed by aircraft engine manufacturers are assessed. Studies were performed to define the characteristics of aircraft and engines for civil missions of the 1990's and beyond. These studies, coupled with experience in recent years, identified the critical technologies needed to meet long range goals in fuel economy and other operating costs. Study results, recent and current research and development programs, and an estimate of future design and analytic capabilities are discussed.

Rohlik, H. E.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Design Process of Flight Vehicle Structures for a Common Bulkhead and an MPCV Spacecraft Adapter

Design and manufacturing space flight vehicle structures is a skillset that has grown considerably at NASA during that last several years. Beginning with the Ares program and followed by the Space Launch System (SLS); in‐house designs were produced for both the Upper Stage and the SLS Multipurpose crew vehicle (MPCV) spacecraft adapter. Specifically, critical design review (CDR) level analysis and flight production drawing were produced for the above mentioned hardware. In particular, the experience of this in‐house design work led to increased manufacturing infrastructure for both Marshal Space Flight Center (MSFC) and Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF), improved skillsets in both analysis and design, and hands on experience in building and testing (MSA) full scale hardware. The hardware design and development processes from initiation to CDR and finally flight; resulted in many challenges and experiences that produced valuable lessons. This paper builds on these experiences of NASA in recent years on designing and fabricating flight hardware and examines the design/development processes used, as well as the challenges and lessons learned, i.e. from the initial design, loads estimation and mass constraints to structural optimization/affordability to release of production drawing to hardware manufacturing. While there are many documented design processes which a design engineer can follow, these unique experiences can offer insight into designing hardware in current program environments and present solutions to many of the challenges experienced by the engineering team.

Aggarwal, Pravin↗

NASA NTRS2026

Thermal Considerations for 2039 Opposition Class Nuclear Electric Propulsion/Chemical Propulsion Crewed Mars Mission

The high specific impulse (Isp) of Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) technology offers the potential for advanced space mission capabilities. However, the five critical technology elements of NEP vehicles have yet to prove technical maturity levels for consideration into mission design. In response to the critical reviews by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion (SNP) project created an NEP Technology Maturation Plan (TMP) for focused development of NEP technology. The TMP called for a coordinated set of technology development efforts to meet this objective. The Modular Assembled Radiators for NEP VehicLes (MARVL) Early Career Initiative (ECI) project was initiated to develop a portion of the fifth Critical Technology Element (CTE) of the NEP vehicle: the Primary Heat Rejection Subsystem (PHRS). A target application of a 2039 human-rated Mars mission was outlined in the TMP. For the outlined mission, a NEP vehicle will experience several thermal environments which will impact the design and operation of the PHRS. To maintain radiator temperatures within the required effective temperature range, the effect of natural, induced, and NEP internally generated heat loads on the radiator panel must be well understood. Furthermore, this analysis is critical for analyzing the influence of various orientations and positions of the NEP vehicle relative to nearby celestial bodies throughout the mission. This study conducted a complete enveloping analysis of the thermal environments influencing the NEP vehicle throughout the mission. Thermal analysis was conducted for the radiator panels based on the defined mission environments. This thermal analysis concludes with the selection of ideal radiator orientations for the NEP vehicle, and the identification of worst case hot and cold environmental sink temperatures throughout the mission. For the target application, the environmental sink temperature while the reactor is powered OFF or powered ON ranges from 30 K to 353 K and 2.7 K to 243 K respectively. When considering interplanetary space, the minimum environmental sink temperature when the reactor is powered OFF and the radiators are oriented “edge to Sun” is 2.7 K. The environmental thermal models generated in this study will be used for future studies with the full vehicle system model. The environmental sink temperature curves generated will be used for future radiator and component analysis to predict transient performance in the space environment. The environmental sink temperature and heat rejection capability curves will inform the trade between commissioning orbits that are in consideration. The model may also serve as a useful tool as reference for future crewed space missions, missions involving radiators or temperature sensitive equipment, or other missions requiring analysis of natural orbital thermal environments.

Nuclear Electric Propulsion↗

NASA NTRS1983

Experimental Experience at Calspan

A partial list of controllers; multiple means of generating forces and moments available; control power requirements; new aircraft design vs existing configuration; critical technology areas; parameter identification; and types of failure or emergency for reconfiguration are considered.

Ryanski, E. G.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Workshop on Science and the Human Exploration of Mars

The exploration of Mars will be a multi-decadal activity. Currently, a scientific program is underway, sponsored by NASA's Office of Space Science in the United States, in collaboration with international partners France, Italy, and the European Space Agency. Plans exist for the continuation of this robotic program through the first automated return of Martian samples in 2014. Mars is also a prime long-term objective for human exploration, and within NASA, efforts are being made to provide the best integration of the robotic program and future human exploration missions. From the perspective of human exploration missions, it is important to understand the scientific objectives of human missions, in order to design the appropriate systems, tools, and operational capabilities to maximize science on those missions. In addition, data from the robotic missions can provide critical environmental data - surface morphology, materials composition, evaluations of potential toxicity of surface materials, radiation, electrical and other physical properties of the Martian environment, and assessments of the probability that humans would encounter Martian life forms. Understanding of the data needs can lead to the definition of experiments that can be done in the near-term that will make the design of human missions more effective. This workshop was convened to begin a dialog between the scientific community that is central to the robotic exploration mission program and a set of experts in systems and technologies that are critical to human exploration missions. The charge to the workshop was to develop an understanding of the types of scientific exploration that would be best suited to the human exploration missions and the capabilities and limitations of human explorers in undertaking science on those missions.

Duke, M. B.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Neural Architectures for Control

The cerebellar model articulated controller (CMAC) neural architectures are shown to be viable for the purposes of real-time learning and control. Software tools for the exploration of CMAC performance are developed for three hardware platforms, the MacIntosh, the IBM PC, and the SUN workstation. All algorithm development was done using the C programming language. These software tools were then used to implement an adaptive critic neuro-control design that learns in real-time how to back up a trailer truck. The truck backer-upper experiment is a standard performance measure in the neural network literature, but previously the training of the controllers was done off-line. With the CMAC neural architectures, it was possible to train the neuro-controllers on-line in real-time on a MS-DOS PC 386. CMAC neural architectures are also used in conjunction with a hierarchical planning approach to find collision-free paths over 2-D analog valued obstacle fields. The method constructs a coarse resolution version of the original problem and then finds the corresponding coarse optimal path using multipass dynamic programming. CMAC artificial neural architectures are used to estimate the analog transition costs that dynamic programming requires. The CMAC architectures are trained in real-time for each obstacle field presented. The coarse optimal path is then used as a baseline for the construction of a fine scale optimal path through the original obstacle array. These results are a very good indication of the potential power of the neural architectures in control design. In order to reach as wide an audience as possible, we have run a seminar on neuro-control that has met once per week since 20 May 1991. This seminar has thoroughly discussed the CMAC architecture, relevant portions of classical control, back propagation through time, and adaptive critic designs.

Peterson, James K.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Experimental study of external fuel vaporization

The fuel properties used in the design of a flash vaporization system for aircraft gas turbine engines were evaluated in experiments using a flowing system to determine critical temperature and pressure, boiling points, dew points, heat transfer coefficients, deposit formation rates, and deposit removal. Three fuels were included in the experiments: Jet-A, an experimental referree broad specification fuel, and a premium No. 2 diesel fuel. Engine conditions representing a NASA Energy Efficient Engine at sea-level take-off, cruise, and idle were simulated in the vaporization system and it was found that single phase flow was maintained in the heat exchanger and downstream of the throttle. Deposits encountered in the heat exchanger represented a thermal resistance as high as 1300 sq M K/watt and a deposit formation rate over 1000 gC/sq cm hr.

Szetela, E. J.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Fiber optic experiment for the Shuttle long-duration exposure facility

The present investigation is concerned with an active fiber-optic data transmission experiment which has been under development for a planned orbital exposure on the Shuttle Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) and subsequent recovery for laboratory evaluation. The LDEF is a space shuttle payload which is designed to carry a large number of independent tray-mounted experiments into low earth orbit for exposure to the space environment. The LDEF is then to be recovered by a later shuttle flight for postflight examination. Data is stored on a tape recorder within the experiment tray; no telemetry is provided. A description is given of two independent experiment trays which are being prepared. The experiments are to be conducted to gain experience in the design of a complete fiber link for the space environment and to confirm that the effects of the critical environments in space, in particular particle radiation and temperature extremes, are not detrimental to satisfactory link operation.

Johnston, A. R.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Protecting spacecraft from atomic oxygen

Findings are reported from Space Shuttle flights STS-3, 4, 5, and 8 regarding the degradation of materials exposed to atomic oxygen in low earth orbit. Atomic oxygen, a strong oxidizing agent, is present in low concentrations at such altitudes, and a spacecraft can sweep up considerable volumes of it at orbital velocities of 5 miles/s, especially if mission lifetimes are measured in years or decades. Material loss has been found to be a function of the fluence (the number of oxygen atoms striking a unit area of surface over a given period); fluence is proportional to atmospheric density, orbital velocity, surface attitude relative to velocity vector, and duration of exposure. Atmospheric density depends first on altitude and second on the phase of the 11-year solar activity cycle. Metals, in the experiments, reacted less than nonmetals. Graphs and a table are included, permitting calculation of how far a surface of various organic materials will recede on a spacecraft in low earth orbit. The limited data base on atomic oxygen interactions with materials, using both Shuttle flight experiments and ground-based facilities must be augmented. Space Station design is imminent, and the understanding of such interactions is critical to the success of that design.

Leger, L. J.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Space Station design integration

This paper discusses the top Program level design integration process which involves the integration of a US Space Station manned base that consists of both US and international Elements. It explains the form and function of the Program Requirements Review (PRR), which certifies that the program is ready for preliminary design, the Program Design Review (PDR), which certifies the program is ready to start the detail design, and the Critical Design Review (CDR), which certifies that the program is completing a design that meets the Program objectives. The paper also discusses experience, status to date, and plans for continued system integration through manufacturing, testing and final verification of the Space Station system performance.

Carlisle, Richard F.↗