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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

De-Risking Megawatt-Scale Charging

Part of Session 9 of the 2025 Airport Energy Management Symposium: Energy Technology Futures - When Technology is Changing Faster than Planning, How Do You Prepare? This session will look at the current state of novel technologies and how airports might prepare to just the right amount to be prepared for the uncertainties. This presentation will focus on de-risking megawatt-scale charging for airport and aviation applications.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Data Analytics and Visualization of Energy Systems for Critical Infrastructure Insights

Modernization of energy systems including transportation facilities provides opportunities for increased efficiency, expansion of commerce and meeting industry and federal goals. A significant increase in electrical demand is projected to meet these needs, which concentrates at facilities such as airports. For example, Xcel Energy working with two airports in their service area recently published information projecting an up to fivefold increase in electricity demand in the next 25 years [1]. Concurrently, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently surveyed 30 commercial service airports identifying more than 300 outages of more than 5 minutes between 2015 and 2022 [2]. Power, reliability, and resilience planning becomes more important to safely maintain operations and the flow of commerce with fewer energy carriers providing necessary energy to safely move passengers and goods. NREL proposes to develop methodologies to allow owners, utilities, and federal agencies to dynamically analyze, forecast, and manage energy loads at airports, focused upon maintaining the flow of commerce in an efficient, sustainable, and resilient way. To address these energy challenges, a suite of technologies and methodologies can be leveraged to validate concepts, inform design, de-risk solutions and optimize energy management during deployment. These technologies include digitalization of energy systems, microgrid methodologies, and related energy technologies for building and vehicle loads. [1] Electrifying Airport Ecosystems - https://www.enterprisemobility.com/content/dam/enterpriseholdings/marketing/innovation-in-mobility/vehicle-innovation/airport-electrification-study-full-report-2024.pdf [2] Airport Infrastructure: Selected Airport's Efforts to Enhance Electrical Resilience https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105203.

critcal infrastructure↗
DOE OSTI2020

Quantifying Airport Employee Commuting and Related Energy Use: A Comparison of Six US Airports

There has been growing research interest in understanding the energy signatures of airport access and egress as air travel continues to grow. However, these findings generally focus on airport access from the perspective of air travelers rather than ground access modes by airport employees. Using a data set of employment records, this paper uses residential location data of airport employees to estimate the energy implications of employee commuting at six major US airports based on commuting mode choice information from the US Census. This analysis reveals a high degree of variance in commuting energy usage by employees between different airports.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Air Passengers' Joint Decisions about Ground Access and Parking

With increasing air travel demand, it is important for airports to evaluate infrastructure investment and demand management solutions to curb traffic congestion and minimize landside energy consumption. Understanding the decisions and choices air passengers make about their ground access modes is important for both developing infrastructure planning strategies and assessing the impacts of emerging modes on airport revenues, particularly from parking. But parking choice is often overlooked in the modeling of airport ground access choices. To address this gap, NREL's Athena team developed a nested multinomial logit regression model based on a passenger survey conducted at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in 2015. This fact sheet is an overview of the approach and its impact.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

A modeling framework for designing and evaluating curbside traffic management policies at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

Emerging mobility technologies are changing the transportation system landscape. This is especially evident at airports, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). Without careful analysis, these changes could lead to inefficient and costly airport operations. This paper presents a modeling framework that integrates travel mode encoding, demand projection, and microsimulation to enable airports to develop, simulate, and evaluate curbside traffic managements policies and measure their impact. Here, the framework is utilized to analyze several traffic scenarios and policies for DFW: a baseline scenario which represents DFW traffic pattern as observed in 2018 and projected to 2045, a transit network company (TNC) electrification policy, a TNC queuing policy, a policy that increased transit ridership, a bus-only policy which considers the use of only buses inside DFW, an autonomous vehicle (AV) policy which investigates the impact of autonomous vehicle (AV) adoption on airport operations, and an example COVID-19 scenario which models the impact of the COVID19 pandemic. The simulations’ results demonstrate that: increasing the DFW transit ridership postpones the need for airport curbside expansion the most; encouraging shared-mobility with the bus-only policy produces the most savings in curbside congestion delays; automation and electrification for all passenger vehicle trips to/from DFW generates the most saving in fuel consumption and emissions; and uncontrolled AV adoption incurs the highest increase in fuel consumption, delay, and emissions and could require immediate airport capacity extension. Without policy intervention or investment in additional infrastructure capacity, these results predict the current operations would face significant congestion on high demand days starting as early as 2028. While derived in close partnership with DFW, the methodology presented here can be generalized to any airport.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

A general spatial-temporal framework for short-term building temperature forecasting at arbitrary locations with crowdsourcing weather data

Weather forecasting has been a critical component to predict and control building energy consumption for better building energy management. Without accessibility to other data sources, the onsite observed temperatures or the airport temperatures are used in forecast models. In this paper, we present a novel approach by utilizing the crowdsourcing weather data from neighboring personal weather stations (PWS) to improve the weather forecast accuracy around buildings using a general spatial-temporal modeling framework. The final forecast is based on the ensemble of local forecasts for the target location using neighboring PWSs. Our approach is distinguished from existing literature in various aspects. First, we leverage the crowdsourcing weather data from PWS in addition to public data sources. In this way, the data is at much finer time resolution (e.g., at 5-minute frequency) and spatial resolution (e.g., arbitrary location vs grid). Second, our proposed model incorporates spatial-temporal correlation information of weather variables between the target building and a set of neighboring PWSs so that underlying correlations can be effectively captured to improve forecasting performance. Here, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed framework by comparing to the benchmark models on temperature forecasting for a building located at an arbitrary location at San Antonio, Texas, USA. In general, the proposed model framework equipped with machine learning technique such as Random Forest can improve forecasting by 50% compares with persistent model and has 90% chance to outperform airport forecast in short-term forecasting. In a real-time setting, the proposed model framework can provide more accurate temperature forecasting results compared with using airport temperature forecast for most forecast horizon. Moreover, we analyze the sensitivity of model parameters to gain insights on how crowdsourcing data from the neighboring personal weather stations impacts forecasting performance. Finally, we implement our model in other cities such as Syracuse and Chicago to test the model's performance in different landforms and climate types.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Power Management Solution for Growing Loads at Airport Rental Facilities

Growing electrical loads across airport facilities could expand beyond local grid capacities. Coordinating flexible loads with generation and storage assets can reduce coincident peaks, mitigate costly upgrades, and reduce electricity costs. This report outlines how The Athena Team has developed a suite of tools, resources, and solutions to leverage load flexibility with energy assets to harness this value potential.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Reliability of emergency and standby diesel generators: Impact on energy resiliency solutions

Emergency diesel generators are the most common form of backup power for critical loads when the grid fails and are most often deployed as stand-alone generators (<2000 kW) tied to individual buildings for hospitals, emergency services, military bases, ports, airports, industries, and commercial facilities. Understanding the finite reliability of emergency diesel generators during continuous operation is critical for energy planners, managers, and end-users. A new analysis of two large non-public emergency diesel generator operational data sets shows that commonly used reliability metrics are inadequate to predict the performance during a grid outage. Additional metrics addressing the likelihood of an emergency diesel generator to be available at the time an outage starts, successfully start and carry load, and constantly run for the duration of the outage are needed to predict the continuous run-time reliability of emergency diesel generators during a grid outage. This is the first analysis of the reliability of modern generators that follow standard maintenance protocols commonly used for backup power and these new metrics are shown to be dependent on the level of emergency diesel generator maintenance with values that can vary by more than an order of magnitude. Even using the new metrics for well-maintained emergency diesel generators, the analysis shows that the single emergency diesel generators configurations are only 80% likely to provide power for the duration of a two-week grid outage.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY,POWER TRANSMI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hydrogen Transportation and Distributed Energy Systems Risk Assessment for Airport Facilities (CRADA 555) (Final Report)

Portland International Airport (PDX), Oregon, operated by the Port of Portland (Port) is exploring the possibility of operating a fleet of 28 fuel cell electric buses and developing a distributed energy system to support airport operations during various operating modes including large-scale power outages. This study investigates the compatibility of these two missions, which will be key to resilience management at PDX. This study also investigated the risks associated with deploying a hydrogen system that could support bus operations and be utilized during an emergency to ensure continued operation of the airport. This will be a key innovation for the deployment of hydrogen systems at airports. Utilizing the unique benefits of hydrogen infrastructure for multiple roles will aid adopters in justifying new projects and serve to demonstrate the versatility of hydrogen as an energy-carrier to a wider market.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Route Optimization for Energy Efficient Airport Shuttle Operations - A Case Study from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport

Air travel and requisite surface traffic supporting passenger arrival/departure constitutes a significant portion of travel and emissions in cities with large airports. An airport trip can segment into three parts namely: i) travel from a location in the city to the airport; ii) travel from a parking lot or rental car center to the terminal (i.e., within the airport premises), and iii) travel inside the terminal. Depending on the airport access mode all or a part of these legs comprise a traveler’s journey to the airport. The priority of airport ground transport management teams is to provide passengers with a seamless travel experience within the airport, so it is understandable that within airport shuttle routes might not be optimized for minimizing energy consumption. Solutions that meet the dual objective of reducing energy consumption from airport shuttle operations without compromising on passenger travel experience are key to improving system efficiency. There is currently a dearth of research and tools that can inform airports in making such decisions. Addressing this need, this research effort puts forth an optimization model that generates optimal shuttle routes for a given set of constraints, and a discrete-event simulator that evaluates the optimal solutions in a stochastic environment to understand the tradeoffs between passenger wait times, and within airport shuttle energy consumption. The proposed set of tools are tested in the context of optimizing airport shuttles routes within the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). In addition to shuttle spatial positioning, and passenger demand information, high-fidelity vehicle data was collected using data loggers installed on DFW shuttles. Results show that 20% energy reduction in shuttle operations is possible with a modest two-minute increase in average passenger wait times. The tools developed in this research effort are designed to be generalizable and can help optimize shuttle operations planning at any major airport.

air travel↗
NASA NTRS1990

A conflict analysis of 4D descent strategies in a metered, multiple-arrival route environment

A conflict analysis was performed on multiple arrival traffic at a typical metered airport. The Flow Management Evaluation Model (FMEM) was used to simulate arrival operations using Denver Stapleton's arrival route structure. Sensitivities of conflict performance to three different 4-D descent strategies (clear-idle Mach/Constant AirSpeed (CAS), constant descent angle Mach/CAS and energy optimal) were examined for three traffic mixes represented by those found at Denver Stapleton, John F. Kennedy and typical en route metering (ERM) airports. The Monte Carlo technique was used to generate simulation entry point times. Analysis results indicate that the clean-idle descent strategy offers the best compromise in overall performance. Performance measures primarily include susceptibility to conflict and conflict severity. Fuel usage performance is extrapolated from previous descent strategy studies.

Izumi, K. H.↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Multi-Dimensional Benefit Assessment of Automated Mobility Platforms (AMP) for Large Facilities: Mobility, Energy, Equity, and Facility Management & Design

The goal of the automated mobility platforms (AMPs) initiative is to raise the bar of service regarding equity and sustainability for public mobility systems that are crucial to large facilities, and doing so using electrified, energy efficient technology. Using airports as an example, the rapid growth in air travel demand has led to facility expansions and congested terminals, which directly impacts equity (e.g., increased challenges for Passengers with Reduced Mobility [PRMs]) and sustainability - both of which are important metrics often overlooked during the engineering design process. Therefore, to evaluate systems and inform critical near- and long-term decisions more effectively, a holistic evaluation framework is proposed focused on four key areas: (1) mobility, with emphasis on travel time and accessibility within an airport, (2) environment, focused on energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with intra-airport mobility, (3) equity, specifically to the PRM community, but with an eye to the whole of society, and (4) built environment, or the fundamental changes in building design enabled by different mobility systems for larger and more flexible, functional, and energy-efficient structures. Below, AMPs are defined, and each metric is discussed further, all with a focus on airport mobility.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Digital Twin Technology (“Morpheus”) for Optimized Building Operations [SWR-22-74]

The electrification of buildings is an important step to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across all industries. The management of increasingly electrified buildings is a complex pursuit, and there remains a need for cost-effective software capable of handling the computational burden required of such complexity. Through a partnership with Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Airport, researchers at NREL have developed a digital twin modeling framework to optimize building operations, called Morpheus. Pairing predictive control with automatic fault detection and diagnostics, Morpheus decreases energy expenditures, costs, and faults for large facilities. Additionally, Morpheus employs artificial intelligence to continuously improve its performance using information provided by sensor systems, human experts with deep industry domain knowledge, and even from other similar machines or fleets of machines. Coupling this novel energy-management software with other digital twins, such as NREL’s Athena software for mobility operations, enables robust decision-making for asset and space management. The implementation of Morpheus at DFW has resulted in significantly improved HVAC system operations and reduced both peak power and overall energy consumption. This enhanced functionality comes at a more affordable price than previously developed digital twins and can be customized for other facilities’ geometries to provide optimal, individualized control of a facility’s energy consumption.

Chinde, Venkatesh↗
DOE OSTI2022

Addressing Electric Aviation Infrastructure Cybersecurity Implementation

This technical report evaluates key considerations of cybersecurity systems in preparation for the electrification of both legacy and new aviation services. The objectives are to consider the landscape of components and interconnections, review sensitivities and the criticality of data and operations, and aim to understand the applicability of existing best practices or the need for new ones associated with the cybersecurity of electric charging systems for the aviation sector. Given the early stages of electric aviation deployment, developers have the opportunity to plan and integrate cybersecurity strategies into the complete electric aviation system during the initial stages of design and procurement and will benefit from employing a framework for continuous cybersecurity monitoring. This paper presents initial considerations of key cybersecurity strategies and their application to forthcoming electric aviation systems.

airports↗
DOE OSTI2021

AMS / BARC Joint Survey Addendum Technical Report

This report details the data analysis results from data collected during the September-October 2019 joint survey series between the Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Aerial Measuring System (AMS) asset, and the Government of India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). This joint survey series took place at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), areas of public land in Southern Nevada, and at the DOE Office of Legacy Management (LM) Large Area Calibration Pads (LACP) at the Grand Junction Regional Airport in Grand Junction, CO. The data detailed in this report were gathered at the LACP. More details regarding the setup of these surveys and personnel involvement can be found in the AMS / BARC Joint Survey Summary Report. The data from the LACP collected by AMS are consistent with past data collection campaigns at the LACP. The AMS Bell 412 (B412) helicopter, equipped with both the standard AMS thallium-doped sodium iodide (NaI(Tl)) 2"x4"x16" 12-detector system and a subset of the BARC Aerial Gamma Spectroscopy System (AGSS) consisting of two independent 3"x3"cylindrical NaI(Tl) detectors, measured each of the five calibration pads for a minimum of 10 minutes. After the helicopter measurements, a pressurized ion chamber (PIC) was used to directly measure radiation exposure rates on each of the pads for a period 5 minutes. The geophysical calibration procedure published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (Erdi-Krausz et al. 2003) was used to determine the spectral stripping sensitivity matrix for naturally occurring radiological material (NORM). The sensitivity matrix is consistent with the AMS long term average. Additionally, the PIC data was used to calibrate the AMS system for exposure rate. The results of the exposure rate analysis are also consistent with AMS long-term averages.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Maximizing Solar and Transportation Synergies

This report considers the technological and market pathways that will enable better use of photovoltaic (PV) electricity as fuel for future transportation demand. Most of the pathways identified will require collaborative research and development (R&D) efforts to improve the capabilities of multiple technologies, including PV, energy storage, vehicles, electrolyzers, electrofuels, and infrastructure. For plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), technologies that enable wide-scale managed and coordinated charging are among the highest priorities for continued research, development, and deployment in the near term. Furthermore, managed and coordinated charging capabilities are foundational for future vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functionality in the long term. For hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), the use of PV electricity for electrolysis provides an opportunity to increase PV deployment. For rail, air, and maritime transportation, the feasibility of increased PV use varies in the near term; opportunities for synergies with solar include the electrification of rail, increased reliability from airport microgrids, and switching from heavy fuel oil to clean maritime electrofuels made from PV-based hydrogen. Over the longer term, battery swap stations for electric airplanes and the co-location of solar with hydrogen fueling stations at shipping ports may enable greater synergies between PV and transportation.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2009

Spinoff 2009

Topics covered include: Image-Capture Devices Extend Medicine's Reach; Medical Devices Assess, Treat Balance Disorders; NASA Bioreactors Advance Disease Treatments; Robotics Algorithms Provide Nutritional Guidelines; "Anti-Gravity" Treadmills Speed Rehabilitation; Crew Management Processes Revitalize Patient Care; Hubble Systems Optimize Hospital Schedules; Web-based Programs Assess Cognitive Fitness; Electrolyte Concentrates Treat Dehydration; Tools Lighten Designs, Maintain Structural Integrity; Insulating Foams Save Money, Increase Safety; Polyimide Resins Resist Extreme Temperatures; Sensors Locate Radio Interference; Surface Operations Systems Improve Airport Efficiency; Nontoxic Resins Advance Aerospace Manufacturing; Sensors Provide Early Warning of Biological Threats; Robot Saves Soldier's Lives Overseas (MarcBot); Apollo-Era Life Raft Saves Hundreds of Sailors; Circuits Enhance Scientific Instruments and Safety Devices; Tough Textiles Protect Payloads and Public Safety Officers; Forecasting Tools Point to Fishing Hotspots; Air Purifiers Eliminate Pathogens, Preserve Food; Fabrics Protect Sensitive Skin from UV Rays; Phase Change Fabrics Control Temperature; Tiny Devices Project Sharp, Colorful Images; Star-Mapping Tools Enable Tracking of Endangered Animals; Nanofiber Filters Eliminate Contaminants; Modeling Innovations Advance Wind Energy Industry; Thermal Insulation Strips Conserve Energy; Satellite Respondent Buoys Identify Ocean Debris; Mobile Instruments Measure Atmospheric Pollutants; Cloud Imagers Offer New Details on Earth's Health; Antennas Lower Cost of Satellite Access; Feature Detection Systems Enhance Satellite Imagery; Chlorophyll Meters Aid Plant Nutrient Management; Telemetry Boards Interpret Rocket, Airplane Engine Data; Programs Automate Complex Operations Monitoring; Software Tools Streamline Project Management; Modeling Languages Refine Vehicle Design; Radio Relays Improve Wireless Products; Advanced Sensors Boost Optical Communication, Imaging; Tensile Fabrics Enhance Architecture Around the World; Robust Light Filters Support Powerful Imaging Devices; Thermoelectric Devices Cool, Power Electronics; Innovative Tools Advance Revolutionary Weld Technique; Methods Reduce Cost, Enhance Quality of Nanotubes; Gauging Systems Monitor Cryogenic Liquids; Voltage Sensors Monitor Harmful Static; and Compact Instruments Measure Heat Potential.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2004

Design and Testing of a Low Noise Flight Guidance Concept

A flight guidance concept was developed to assist in flying continuous descent approach (CDA) procedures designed to lower the noise under the flight path of jet transport aircraft during arrival operations at an airport. The guidance consists of a trajectory prediction algorithm that was tuned to produce a high-efficiency, low noise flight profile with accompanying autopilot and flight display elements needed by the flight control system and pilot to fly the approach. A key component of the flight guidance was a real-time display of energy error relative to the predicted flight path. The guidance was integrated with the conventional Flight Management System (FMS) guidance of a modern jet transport airplane and tested in a high fidelity flight simulation. A charted arrival procedure, which allowed flying conventional arrivals, CDA arrivals with standard guidance, and CDA arrivals with the new low noise guidance, was developed to assist in the testing and evaluation of the low noise guidance concept. Results of the simulation testing showed the low noise guidance was easy to use by airline pilot test subjects and effective in achieving the desired noise reduction. Noise under the flight path was reduced by at least 2 decibels in Sound Exposure Level (SEL) at distances from about 3 nautical miles out to about 17.5 nautical miles from the runway, with a peak reduction of 8.5 decibels at about 10.5 nautical miles. Fuel consumption was also reduced by about 17% for the LNG conditions compared to baseline runs for the same flight distance. Pilot acceptance and understanding of the guidance was quite high with favorable comments and ratings received from all test subjects.

Williams, David H.↗