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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 sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

A Review of New and Developing Technology to Significantly Improve Mars Sample-Return Missions

A JPL development activity was initiated in FY 1999 for the purpose of examining and evaluating technologies that could materially improve future (i.e., beyond the 2005 launch) Mars sample return missions. The scope of the technology review was comprehensive and end-to-end; the goal was to improve mass, cost, risk, and scientific return. A specific objective was to assess approaches to sample return with only one Earth launch. While the objective of the study was specifically for sample-return, in-situ missions can also benefit from using many of the technologies examined.

Carsey, F.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Wireless Technology Use Case Requirement Analysis for Future Space Applications

This report presents various use case scenarios for wireless technology -including radio frequency (RF), optical, and acoustic- and studies requirements and boundary conditions in each scenario. The results of this study can be used to prioritize technology evaluation and development and in the long run help in development of a roadmap for future use of wireless technology. The presented scenarios cover the following application areas: (i) Space Vehicles (manned/unmanned), (ii) Satellites and Payloads, (iii) Surface Explorations, (iv) Ground Systems, and (v) Habitats. The requirement analysis covers two parallel set of conditions. The first set includes the environmental conditions such as temperature, radiation, noise/interference, wireless channel characteristics and accessibility. The second set of requirements are dictated by the application and may include parameters such as latency, throughput (effective data rate), error tolerance, and reliability. This report provides a comprehensive overview of all requirements from both perspectives and details their effects on wireless system reliability and network design. Application area examples are based on 2015 NASA Technology roadmap with specific focus on technology areas: TA 2.4, 3.3, 5.2, 5.5, 6.4, 7.4, and 10.4 sections that might benefit from wireless technology.

Abedi, Ali↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ventilator Testbed

A number of open-source ventilator designs have been published online since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. These ventilator designs have been created and released to help address the limitations in manufacturing and distribution timelines, and to help drive availability of more cost efficient ventilators. Many of these ventilators have been designed to be relatively simple to build and to use components that can be easily-sourced and acquired in large numbers from local suppliers. A test bed for evaluating the performance of these open-source ventilators was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of the Technology Evaluation and Demonstration program.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS1987

Progress towards autonomous, intelligent systems

An aggressive program has been initiated to develop, integrate, and implement autonomous systems technologies starting with today's expert systems and evolving to autonomous, intelligent systems by the end of the 1990s. This program includes core technology developments and demonstration projects for technology evaluation and validation. This paper discusses key operational frameworks in the content of systems autonomy applications and then identifies major technological challenges, primarily in artificial intelligence areas. Program content and progress made towards critical technologies and demonstrations that have been initiated to achieve the required future capabilities in the year 2000 era are discussed.

Lum, Henry↗
NASA NTRS2008

QuEST: Qualifying Environmentally Sustainable Technologies

This is an exciting new chapter for the NASA Technology Evaluation for Environmental Risk Mitigation Principal Center (TEERM). The Principal Center's past successes have created new opportunities for partnership and technology implementation. TEERM is continuing to support the current NASA Programs while reaching out and offering our assistance and experience to Constellation. NASA has also assumed Chairmanship responsibility of the Joint Group on Pollution Prevention (JG-PP) and Chairmanship of the JG-PP Working Group (WG). Both JG-PP and TEERM strive to improve mission readiness and reduce risk to personnel and assets by solving joint problems through cooperation. JG-PP and TEERM not only show our commitment to environmental stewardship, but also our commitment to fiscal responsibility.

Lewis, Pattie↗
NASA NTRS2013

A Motor Drive Electronics Assembly for Mars Curiosity Rover: An Example of Assembly Qualification for Extreme Environments

This paper describes the technology development and infusion of a motor drive electronics assembly for Mars Curiosity Rover under space extreme environments. The technology evaluation and qualification as well as space qualification of the assembly are detailed and summarized. Because of the uncertainty of the technologies operating under the extreme space environments and that a high level reliability was required for this assembly application, both component and assembly board level qualifications were performed.

Kolawa, Elizabeth↗
DOE OSTI2024

Field Validation of a Pilot-scale Black Liquor Membrane for Water Removal at Ahlstrom-Munksjö Paper Mill in Mosinee, WI

Project Background: The Industrial Technology Validation (ITV) program aims to identify and demonstrate the performance of new, emerging, and underutilized technologies in the industrial sector to help inform decisions towards accelerating commercialization and deployment. Pulp and paper is considered one of the most energy-intensive industries in the manufacturing sector. There are several methodologies for converting wood into pulp in the paper-making industry. The kraft process is a chemical method for producing wood pulp. The kraft process generates black liquor as a byproduct of pulp production. Traditionally, water is evaporated from the liquor by a set of multi-effect evaporators (MEEs), which concentrate weak black liquor (WBL) into strong black liquor (SBL) to support efficient combustion in a recovery boiler. Concentrating black liquor is an energy-intensive step in recovering pulping chemicals and generating high-pressure steam from dissolved wood solids. About 7% of pulp and paper energy usage, or nearly 164 trillion Btu, is used to remove water from black liquor in U.S. kraft pulp mills per year. The U.S. DOE’s IEDO is interested in the black liquor membrane technology evaluated in this report because it offers the potential for a more energy-efficient and less carbon-intensive kraft pulping process across 99 kraft pulp mills in 24 states (Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance 2016). This ITV project validates an innovative black liquor membrane technology for kraft pulp mills to understand its impact and benefits. Via Separations is a technology vendor that developed a graphene oxide membrane system to remove water from WBL before entering the evaporator set. High-pressure positive displacement (HPR) pumps move the black liquor through membranes that separate water and create a more concentrated black liquor. The vendor claims their pre-commercial technology reduces evaporator steam consumption by dewatering WBL before entering the evaporators. They also claim their technology has non-energy benefits such as enhanced soap collection and improved pulp throughput. This evaluation focuses on validating the energy and carbon dioxide (CO 2 e) emissions benefits associated with the membrane system.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2001

Integrated Components Technology Demonstrations Overview

Integrated Components Technology Demonstrations (ICTD) is a project under the Ultra-Efficient Engine Technology Program (UEET) as designated in the UEET Program Commitment Agreement. The ICTD Project will provide the opportunity to conduct technology demonstration tests of advanced turbine engine components (e.g., combustor, compressor, turbine, and materials) as part of an integrated system (TRL 6). Initially, the major objectives of the Integrated Components Technology Demonstrations project are to Conduct component technology evaluation and system studies to determine, and prioritize, the most promising propulsion concepts, cycle, and architecture for a propulsion system with a Technology Availability Date of approximately 2010 and Entry Into Service of 2015. Determine the most attractive, cost-effective approaches for conducting the needed demonstration tests. Conduct demonstration tests of selected component technologies (i.e.,2200 F CMC combustor liner and aspirating seal) in partnership with industry.

Long-Davis, Mary Jo↗
NASA NTRS2016

Emerging Technologies for Airplane State Awareness and Prediction

Loss of control in flight (LOC-I) is consistently the leading cause of fatal aircraft accidents. A study of LOC accidents and incidents, commissioned by the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) identified a growing trend in loss of Airplane State Awareness (ASA) by the flight crew. This has led to recommended safety enhancements that include flight deck technologies with the potential of enhancing flight crew awareness of airplane energy state. The goal of this research is to develop and evaluate technologies that predict and assess the future aircraft energy state and auto-flight configuration, and provide appropriate alerting to anticipated problematic auto-flight inputs, with the aim of enhancing pilots situational awareness.

Aircraft Safety↗
NASA NTRS1994

Dual-Use Space Technology Transfer Conference and Exhibition

This is the second volume of papers presented at the Dual-Use Space Technology Transfer Conference and Exhibition held at the Johnson Space Center February 1-3, 1994. Possible technology transfers covered during the conference were in the areas of information access; innovative microwave and optical applications; materials and structures; marketing and barriers; intelligent systems; human factors and habitation; communications and data systems; business process and technology transfer; software engineering; biotechnology and advanced bioinstrumentation; communications signal processing and analysis; medical care; applications derived from control center data systems; human performance evaluation; technology transfer methods; mathematics, modeling, and simulation; propulsion; software analysis and decision tools; systems/processes in human support technology; networks, control centers, and distributed systems; power; rapid development; perception and vision technologies; integrated vehicle health management; automation technologies; advanced avionics; and robotics technologies.

Krishen, Kumar↗
NASA NTRS2020

Prospects for Interstellar Propulsion

In recognition of the increasing prospects for Earth-like exoplanet discoveries and its significance for spurring future interstellar voyages of discovery, the United States Congress recently directed NASA to undertake an interstellar mission technology assessment report. In response to this legislative charge to action, NASA has undertaken a series of extramural interstellar workshops aimed at identifying and evaluating technology concepts for enabling an interstellar scientific probe mission, associated technical challenges, technology readiness level assessments, risks, potential near-term milestones, and funding requirements. This paper summarizes these activities and discusses the scientific and technical rationale for a long-term program consisting of incremental, staged technical developments that are extensible for interstellar travel to a nearby star system over many decades.

Litchford, Ronald J.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Technical Characterization and Benefit Evaluation of 5G-Enabled Grid Data Transport and Applications

This report summarizes the Year 1 work of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) 5G Fabricated Resource and Asset Management Encompassment for energy infrastructure (Energy FRAME) project funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program. 5G is a breakthrough technology that enables a fully mobile and connected society, and a 5G-enabled digital continuum will be one of the critical foundations for a clean energy economy and grid modernization. In collaboration with PNNL’s Advanced Wireless Communication team and Center for Advanced Technology Evaluation team, the project team has been evaluating the system performance of 5G testbeds in the PNNL 5G Innovation Studio, and has formulated a co-simulation test case of power system transmission, distribution, and communication (T&D&C) networks considering 5G technology and high penetration of distributed energy resources. The methodology developed in the 5G Energy FRAME project can be customized to fit different future grid scenarios to evaluate multiple (dynamic) configurations (computing, sensing, communication, environment) for different stakeholders. In summary, our main technical highlights in project Year 1 are as follows: 1) Technical characterization of 5G standalone architectures, 2) Formulation of co-simulation test case of T&D&C networks embedded with 5G, 3) Initial benefit evaluation of 5G communication platform for grid use cases, and 4) Additional extended discussions on edge computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and high-performance computing and cloud computing adoptions. In addition, a collection of system performance data is shared through the publicly available weblink, https://www.pnnl.gov/projects/5g-energy-frame/publications

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Remaining Life Determination

This project developed and demonstrated the capability of nondestructive evaluation methods for detecting early stage fatigue damage in grey cast iron metal. Non-collinear ultrasonic wave mixing and laser speckle differentiation were the primary technologies evaluated on custom fatigue specimens having properties specified by Caterpillar, Inc. The ultrasonic method showed the greatest potential for estimating the remaining fatigue life in grey cast iron, which may provide remanufacturers with a level of confidence when fielding used component cores in high-stress applications. While successes were realized during this project, there are still follow-on research tasks required to prove the commercial applicability of the methods. The following report sections document the steps completed during the project and an assessment of the technologies applied.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Strategies Toward Lunar Dust Adhesion Mitigation

Recently, the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate solicited feedback to prioritize shortfalls, which were defined as technology areas needed to enable future exploration missions. Lunar dust mitigation emerged as a critical area and is cross-cutting with many of the highest ranked shortfalls with passive dust mitigation technologies being directly ranked in the top 50. Hazards associated with lunar dust are ubiquitous across all aspects of long duration lunar surface missions, whether crewed or robotic, due to the abrasive, electrostatically charged, and chemically reactive properties of lunar dust. Compounding the issue, lunar dust moves across the lunar surface due to levitation, twilight craters, and plume-surface interactions, which can result in particle velocities exceeding 1 km/h. To address lunar dust challenges, NASA is developing active and passive adhesion mitigation technologies to address specific mission needs, including electrodynamic dust screens, piezoelectric materials, biomimetic engineered surfaces, among many others. Additionally, abrasion-resistant materials are being evaluated for applications for use near landing sites and in surface manipulation and excavation equipment. These approaches, as well as test methodologies both in the laboratory and on the lunar surface to evaluate technology efficacy, will be described.

Dust Mitigation↗
DOE OSTI2024

Geothermal Power Systems Analysis: Outcome of Industry Stakeholders Workshop: Preprint

Geothermal cost and performance evaluation implemented via technoeconomic assessment (TEA) modeling is critical for the Department of Energy (DOE) and other geothermal industry stakeholders in assessing the current state of geothermal technologies and to identify existing hurdles to commercially viable geothermal development. The Geothermal Electricity Technology Evaluation Model (GETEM) is a major TEA tool used in estimating the economic feasibility and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of conventional hydrothermal systems and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). Since 2021, GETEM has been transitioning from an intricate spreadsheet model to a user-friendly tool within the System Advisor Model (SAM) developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Apart from enabling an expanded visibility of the geothermal model among other renewable resources, having GETEM in SAM has the advantage of simulation automation, better usability, updates tracking, active user inputs/feedback, and extended financial modeling. GETEM is used in developing supply curves for the Annual Technology Baseline (ATB). The ATB data are inputs to the Renewable Energy Potential (reV) and the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) models. The geothermal module in NREL’s reV model assesses the geothermal energy potential in the conterminous United States by defining the geospatial intersection of geothermal resources with existing grid infrastructure within the constraint of land use characteristics. The ReEDS model is a capacity expansion model used for simulating the long-term build-out and operation of the US generation and transmission system based on current energy costs and policies. To ensure enhanced representation of current industry trends in our model transitions and development, we organized a two-day virtual workshop to elicit geothermal industry stakeholder input and recommendations on our current approaches and assumptions on technoeconomic, resource assessment, and deployment scenarios modeling of geothermal technologies. Participants included developers, operators, investors, regulatory agencies, system modelers, national laboratory researchers, consultants, and other stakeholders. In this workshop, we gained stakeholder insights on current geothermal plant performance (i.e., capacity factors), updated drilling costs and learning curves, and next generation technologies such as closed loop and superhot rock geothermal. Other outcomes from this workshop and its impact on future geothermal development feasibility, resource availability, and capacity expansion studies are compiled and discussed.

Annual Technology Baseline↗
NASA NTRS2014

ExMC Technology Watch

The Technology Watch (Tech Watch) project is directed by the NASA Human Research Programs (HRP) Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) element, and primarily focuses on ExMC technology gaps. The project coordinates the efforts of multiple NASA centers, including the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Glenn Research Center (GRC), Ames Research Center (ARC), and the Langley Research Center (LaRC). The objective of Tech Watch is to identify emerging, high-impact technologies that augment current NASA HRP technology development efforts. Identifying such technologies accelerates the development of medical care and research capabilities for the mitigation of potential health issues encountered during human space exploration missions. The aim of this process is to leverage technologies developed by academia, industry and other government agencies and to identify the effective utilization of NASA resources to maximize the HRP return on investment. The establishment of collaborations with these entities is beneficial to technology development, assessment and/or insertion, and advance NASAs goal to provide a safe and healthy environment for human exploration. In fiscal year 2013, the Tech Watch project maintained student project activity aimed at specific ExMC gaps, completed the gap report review cycle for all gaps through a maturated gap report review process, and revised the ExMC Tech Watch Sharepoint site for enhanced data content and organization. Through site visits, internships and promotions via aerospace journals, several student projects were initiated and completed this past year. Upon project completion, the students presented their results via telecom or WebEx to the ExMC Element as a whole. The upcoming year will continue to forge strategic alliances and student projects in the interest of technology and knowledge gap closure. Through the population of Sharepoint with technologies assessed by the gap owners, the database expansion will develop a more comprehensive technology set for each gap. By placing such data in Sharepoint, the gap report updates in fiscal year 2014 are anticipated to be streamlined since the evaluated technologies will be readily available to the gap owners in a sortable archive, and may be simply exported into the final gap report presentation.

Technology gaps↗
NASA NTRS2014

ExMC Technology Watch

The Technology Watch (Tech Watch) project is directed by the NASA Human Research Program's (HRP) Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) element, and primarily focuses on ExMC technology gaps. The project coordinates the efforts of multiple NASA centers, including the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Glenn Research Center (GRC), Ames Research Center (ARC), and the Langley Research Center (LaRC). The objective of Tech Watch is to identify emerging, high-impact technologies that augment current NASA HRP technology development efforts. Identifying such technologies accelerates the development of medical care and research capabilities for the mitigation of potential health issues encountered during human space exploration missions. The aim of this process is to leverage technologies developed by academia, industry and other government agencies and to identify the effective utilization of NASA resources to maximize the HRP return on investment. The establishment of collaborations with these entities is beneficial to technology development, assessment and/or insertion, and advance NASA's goal to provide a safe and healthy environment for human exploration. In fiscal year 2013, the Tech Watch project maintained student project activity aimed at specific ExMC gaps, completed the gap report review cycle for all gaps through a maturated gap report review process, and revised the ExMC Tech Watch Sharepoint site for enhanced data content and organization. Through site visits, internships and promotions via aerospace journals, several student projects were initiated and completed this past year. Upon project completion, the students presented their results via telecom or WebEx to the ExMC Element as a whole. The upcoming year will continue to forge strategic alliances and student projects in the interest of technology and knowledge gap closure. Through the population of Sharepoint with technologies assessed by the gap owners, the database expansion will develop a more comprehensive technology set for each gap. By placing such data in Sharepoint, the gap report updates in fiscal year 2014 are anticipated to be streamlined since the evaluated technologies will be readily available to the gap owners in a sortable archive, and may be simply exported into the final gap report presentation

Exploration Medical Capability↗
DOE OSTI2022

Pathways to a Sustainable Aviation Ecosystem: Flight DNA: An Anonymized Aviation Data Tool and Repository

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has deep experience developing secure, national data repositories, which it augments with analysis, technology and market expertise, high-performance computing, and innovative data visualization. By adapting the architecture of existing mobility databases (i.e., Fleet DNA, the Transportation Secure Data Center, the National Fuel Cell Technology Evaluation Center), NREL can build a powerful aviation data clearinghouse - Flight DNA - that helps stakeholders navigate the web of pitfalls and possibilities generated by new aviation technologies.

aviation↗