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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 217 records · Page 12

Space shuttle main engine monitoring experience and advanced monitoring systems development

Advanced space transportation systems must provide improved availability, reliability, safety, and reduced cost in order to make a new, more vigorous level of space activity economically feasible. Earth-to-Orbit (ETO) propulsion monitoring systems are a major factor in progress toward these improvements, and in the success of current systems. Operational experience with the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), the first reusable ETO rocket engine, is valuable for examining current rocket engine monitoring capability and technology developments. Here, Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) monitoring practice and experience are surveyed. Unique aspects of rocket engine mission requirements are highlighted to provide improved understanding of engine monitoring practices and technology needs. Current ETO engine transportation systems mission needs are outlined. With this foundation, the techniques and components addressed within current technology programs are discussed to complete a picture of ETO propulsion monitoring status and development.

Cikanek, Harry A.↗

On the invertibility of linear multivariable systems

Some results concerning invertibility of a class of linear, time-invariant systems are presented. It is shown that by an appropriate factorization of the transfer matrix of such a system, the problem of checking its invertibility can be reduced to that of checking the invertibility of a lower-order system. A sufficient condition for invertibility is also obtained.

Patel, R. V.↗

Heart Pump Design for Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Through a Lewis CommTech Program project with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, the NASA Lewis Research Center is playing a key role in the design and development of a permanently implantable, artificial heart pump assist device. Known as the Innovative Ventricular Assist System (IVAS), this device will take on the pumping role of the damaged left ventricle of the heart. The key part of the IVAS is a nonpulsatile (continuous flow) artificial heart pump with centrifugal impeller blades, driven by an electric motor. Lewis is part of an industry and academia team, led by the Ohio Aerospace Institute (OAI), that is working with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation to make IVAS a reality. This device has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives each year, since 80 percent of heart attack victims suffer irreversible damage to the left ventricle, the part of the heart that does most of the pumping. Impeller blade design codes and flow-modeling analytical codes will be used in the project. These codes were developed at Lewis for the aerospace industry but will be applicable to the IVAS design project. The analytical codes, which currently simulate the flow through the compressor and pump systems, will be used to simulate the flow within the blood pump in the artificial heart assist device. The Interdisciplinary Technology Office heads up Lewis' efforts in the IVAS project. With the aid of numerical modeling, the blood pump will address many design issues, including some fluid-dynamic design considerations that are unique to the properties of blood. Some of the issues that will be addressed in the design process include hemolysis, deposition, recirculation, pump efficiency, rotor thrust balance, and bearing lubrication. Optimum pumping system performance will be achieved by modeling all the interactions between the pump components. The interactions can be multidisciplinary and, therefore, are influenced not only by the fluid dynamics of adjacent components but also by thermal and structural effects. Lewis-developed flow-modeling codes to be used in the pump simulations will include a one-dimensional code and an incompressible three-dimensional Navier-Stokes flow code. These codes will analyze the prototype pump designed by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. With an improved understanding of the flow phenomena within the prototype pump, design changes to improve the performance of the pump system can be verified by computer prior to fabrication in order to reduce risks. The use of Lewis flow modeling codes during the design and development process will improve pump system performance and reduce the number of prototypes built in the development phase. The first phase of the IVAS project is to fully develop the prototype in a laboratory environment that uses a water/glycerin mixture as the surrogate fluid to simulate blood. A later phase of the project will include testing in animals for final validation. Lewis will be involved in the IVAS project for 3 to 5 years.

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Functional implications of component commonality in operational systems

The application of commonality in a system represents an attempt to reduce costs by reducing the number of unique components. Research in this area has primarily addressed a significant benefit of commonality, the reduction of parts inventories in assemble-to-order manufacturing systems. Likewise, in an operational system subject to component failures, spares inventories are reduced through the increased commonality of components. However, commonality tends to degrade system performance parameters, a degradation that can preclude commonality in resource-constrained systems such as spacecraft. The functional impacts of component commonality on a system is addressed in a manner that allows inclusion in a commonality analysis.

Thomas, Lawrence D.↗

Minimum-fuel control of high-order systems

The minimum-fuel control problem is of special interest in various space systems. To date, solutions of minimum-fuel control problems have been carried out for relatively low-order systems. Space structures, however, are generally characterized by a large number of degrees of freedom, so that minimum-fuel control of such systems requires a new approach. In the independent modal-space control (IMSC) method, the control laws are designed in the modal space for each mode independently. The minimum-fuel problem reduces to that of a set of independent second-order systems, so that minimum-fuel control is possible. This paper shows how the IMSC method can be used to control a space structure with a minimum amount of fuel. A numerical example is presented.

Shenhar, J.↗

Enhancing Interlayer Charge Transport of Two-Dimensional Perovskites by Structural Stabilization via Fluorine Substitution

Two-dimensional lead-halide perovskites provide a more robust alternative to three-dimensional perovskites in solar energy and optoelectronic applications due to increased chemical stability afforded by interlayer ligands. At the same time, the ligands create barriers for interlayer charge transport, reducing device performance. Using a recently developed ab initio simulation methodology, we demonstrate that ligand fluorination can enhance both hole and electron mobility by 1–2 orders of magnitude. The simulations show that the enhancement arises primarily from improved structural order and reduced thermal atomic fluctuations in the system rather than increased interlayer electronic coupling. Arising from stronger hydrogen bonding and dipolar interactions, the higher structural stability decreases the reorganization energy that enters the Marcus formula and increases the charge transfer rate. The detailed atomistic insights into the electron and hole transfer in layered perovskites indicate that the use of interlayer ligands that make the overall structure more robust is beneficial simultaneously for chemical stability and charge transport, providing an important guideline for the design of new, efficient materials.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

The equilibrium and stability of the gaseous component of the galaxy, 3

The stability of a self-gravitating, nonrotating, isothermal gas layer threaded by a one-dimensional equipartition magnetic field, immersed in a rigid isothermal layer of stars, is considered with respect to waves with motions in and perpendicular to the X plane, where X is the equilibrium magnetic and gravitational field vectors. When motions are perpendicular to the X plane, the magnetic field hinders gravitational instability, increasing the minimum length necessary to produce instability by the factor (1 + alpha) to the 1/2 power, where alpha is the ratio of magnetic pressure to gas pressure. When motions are in the plane, no such simple analytical solution is found. However, the resulting system of equations reduces to a single fourth order differential equation in the perturbed gas potential that defines an eigenvalue problem for the marginally unstable state when the four appropriate boundary conditions are considered.

Kellman, S. A.↗

Space shuttle phase B extension, volume 1

In order to define a system which would significantly reduce payload delivery costs, activities were extended to modifications of the reusable space shuttle design concept. Considered were systems using orbiters with external propellant tanks and an interim expendable booster which allowed phased development of the usable orbiter and booster. Analyzed were: Merits of internal and external propellant tanks and the impact of external LH2 compared to L02 and LH2; impact of cargo bay size; impact abort; merit of expendable booster options; and merit of a phased development program. Studies showed that external L02/LH2 and the continued use of the J-2S engine on the orbiter reduced program cost and risk.

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Roll-modulated lifting entry optimization.

Equations of lifting entry are considered for fixed-angle-of-attack vehicular motion with path control for roll modulation of lift. Attention is directed to relocation and its consequences for the fixed-angle-of-attack atmospheric entry problem. Two reduced-order methods for working with the resulting system of equations are briefly examined. The methods are deemed to warrant further study.

Kelley, H. J.↗

Utility-interactive photovoltaic power conditioners - Effects of transformerless design and dc injection

It is shown that the use of isolation transformers to eliminate dc injection into the utility in utility-interactive photovoltaic (PV) systems can reduce the overall efficiency of the system. In order to improve PV efficiency, a transformerless power conditioning subsystem (PCS) is proposed for a grounded PV array having two and three connections to a utility. An additional transformerless PCS configuration is proposed for an ungrounded PV array. A detailed schematic drawing of the interconnections between the elements of a transformerless PCS is provided.

Das, R.↗

An interactive editor for definition of touch-sensitive zones for a graphic display

In the continuing effort to develop more efficient man-machine communications methods, touch displays have shown potential as straightforward input systems. The development of software necessary to handle such systems, however, can become tedious. In order to reduce the need for redundant programming, a touch editor has been developed which allows a programmer to interactively define touch-sensitive areas for a graphic display. The information produced during the editing process is written to a data file, which can be accessed easily when needed by an application program. This paper outlines the structure, logic, and use of the editor, as well as the hardware with which it is presently compatible.

Monroe, Burt L., III↗

Microgravity and its effects on residual motions in fluids

The primary reason for conducting many materials science experiments in space is to minimize or eliminate undesirable effects that might result owing to convective motions in fluids that are driven by buoyancy effects. Of particular concern are the low frequency accelerations caused by the Earth's gravity gradient field, spacecraft attitude motions, and atmospheric drag. In order to gain a limited understanding of the effects of these accelerations, researchers calculated the Stokes' motion of a spherical particle in a fluid for various types of spacecraft attitudes. Researchers assessed the effect of slowly rotating the experimental system relative to the spacecraft in order to reduce the rate at which the particles accumulate against the container wall.

Alexander, J. Iwan D.↗

Segmented multigrid domain decomposition procedure for incompressible viscous flows

In this paper, the Navier-Stokes (NS) equations are approximated with a reduced NS system, that represents the lowest-order terms in an asymptotic Re expansion. This system allows for simplified boundary conditions, more generality in the location of the outflow boundary, and insures mass conservation in all subdomain grid interfaces, and also at the outflow boundary. The higher-order NS diffusion terms are included through a deferred corrector, in chosen subdomains, when required.

Srinivasan, Kumar↗

Mars Equipment Transport System

Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project 1 (ME4182) is a part of the NASA/University Advanced Design Program. Under this program, NASA allocates money and resources to students to be used in design work for a specified topic. The current topic is the exploration and colonization of Mars. The specific area in which we are to work is the transportation of the modules in which astronauts will live while on Mars. NASA is concerned about the weight of the module transferring system, as the shipping cost to Mars is quite expensive. NASA has specified that the weight of the system is to be minimized in order to reduce the shipping costs.

Sorrells, Cindy↗

The oscillations of superfluid neutron stars

The effects of superfluid hydrodynamics on the oscillations of neutron stars are investigated. The equations describing the small-amplitude pulsations of a neutron star's neutron-proton superfluid mixture are reduced to a system of three second-order equations for three scalar potentials. A variational principle is developed from which the frequencies of the modes of these superfluid oscillations may be estimated. These pulsations are studied by finding analytical solutions to the equations for simple uniform models of nonrotating neutron stars and numerical solutions for realistic models (including rotation). These solutions reveal that the lowest frequency modes are almost indistinguishable from those based on ordinary-fluid hydrodynamics. The analytical solutions also reveal the existence of a new set of modes having no ordinary-fluid counterpart.

Lindblom, Lee↗

Wavelet and Multiresolution Analysis for Finite Element Networking Paradigms

This paper presents a final report on Wavelet and Multiresolution Analysis for Finite Element Networking Paradigms. The focus of this research is to derive and implement: 1) Wavelet based methodologies for the compression, transmission, decoding, and visualization of three dimensional finite element geometry and simulation data in a network environment; 2) methodologies for interactive algorithm monitoring and tracking in computational mechanics; and 3) Methodologies for interactive algorithm steering for the acceleration of large scale finite element simulations. Also included in this report are appendices describing the derivation of wavelet based Particle Image Velocity algorithms and reduced order input-output models for nonlinear systems by utilizing wavelet approximations.

Kurdila, Andrew J.↗

Displacement Damage Effects in Solar Cells: Mining Damage From the Microelectronics and Photonics Test Bed Space Experiment

The objective is to develop an improved space solar cell radiation response analysis capability and to produce a computer modeling tool which implements the analysis. This was accomplished through analysis of solar cell flight data taken on the Microelectronics and Photonics Test Bed experiment. This effort specifically addresses issues related to rapid technological change in the area of solar cells for space applications in order to enhance system performance, decrease risk, and reduce cost for future missions.

Hardage, Donna↗

SOI N-Channel Field Effect Transistors, CHT-NMOS80, for Extreme Temperatures

Extreme temperatures, both hot and cold, are anticipated in many of NASA space exploration missions as well as in terrestrial applications. One can seldom find electronics that are capable of operation under both regimes. Even for operation under one (hot or cold) temperature extreme, some thermal controls need to be introduced to provide appropriate ambient temperatures so that spacecraft on-board or field on-site electronic systems work properly. The inclusion of these controls, which comprise of heating elements and radiators along with their associated structures, adds to the complexity in the design of the system, increases cost and weight, and affects overall reliability. Thus, it would be highly desirable and very beneficial to eliminate these thermal measures in order to simplify system's design, improve efficiency, reduce development and launch costs, and improve reliability. These requirements can only be met through the development of electronic parts that are designed for proper and efficient operation under extreme temperature conditions. Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based devices are finding more use in harsh environments due to the benefits that their inherent design offers in terms of reduced leakage currents, less power consumption, faster switching speeds, good radiation tolerance, and extreme temperature operability. Little is known, however, about their performance at cryogenic temperatures and under wide thermal swings. The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of a new commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) SOI parts over an extended temperature range and to determine the effects of thermal cycling on their performance. The results will establish a baseline on the suitability of such devices for use in space exploration missions under extreme temperatures, and will aid mission planners and circuit designers in the proper selection of electronic parts and circuits. The electronic part investigated in this work comprised of a CHT-NMOS80 high temperature N-channel MOSFET (metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor) device that was manufactured by CISSOID. This high voltage, medium-power transistor is fabricated using SOI processes and is designed for extreme wide temperature applications such as geothermal well logging, aerospace and avionics, and automotive industry. It has a high DC current capability and is specified for operation in the temperature range of -55 C to +225 C

Patterson, Richard L.↗