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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 235 records · Page 13
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Advanced Manufactured Strain Sensors for Extreme Environments

Experimentation at irradiation test facilities are essential for reducing the innovation time of developmental fuels, fuel cladding, and structural materials employed in next-generation nuclear reactors. However, due to the harsh conditions generated in such reactors and limited instrumentation space, the evaluation of a material’s mechanical properties is often limited to characterization after the materials have been removed from reactor conditions, or post-irradiation examination. These experiments are costly, time-consuming, and fail to capture the critical time-evolving phenomena that occur during the irradiation experiments. Advanced manufactured digital image correlation patterns and strain sensor devices serve as two promising technologies that can be deployed in the confined and challenging orientations of these irradiation experiments while also providing key insight on salient materials phenomena (i.e., mechanical properties).To guide the development of the printed strain sensors prior to their deployment in critical experiments, the adhesion strength between the substrate and printed film interface is measured via tensile testing and a non-contact laser-induced spallation technique. The establishment of these process control steps helped guide the successful fabrication and testing of direct-write strain sensing devices discussed in this work. The fabrication process controls are necessary for enabling the sustained operation of these strain sensing device through experimentation and minimize the potential for premature failure.

36 - MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Advancements in Crosscutting Capabilities to Enable Science & Exploration

As NASA looks beyond Human Lunar Return and towards Foundational Exploration, there are several crosscutting capabilities necessary to achieve these goals. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has worked with internal and external stakeholders to make advancements in the areas of dust mitigation, extreme environments, extreme access, interoperability, and lunar simulants.

K K John↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Cryobotics: Extreme Cold Environment Testing

The extreme cold environment test chamber was designed to conduct research in cryobotics; an area of study that focuses on robotic systems and rotating machinery operating in extreme cold environments including Earth, low Earth orbit, Mars, Moon, asteroids, Solar orbit, planetary orbit, or those encountered during travel among these destinations. The test chamber incorporates a modular dynamometer, consisting of a variety of brakes, torque sensors and motors to be easily interchanged between tests. Each test employs a unique test profile that incorporates different setpoints of applied torques and velocities for a given period or number of revolutions. The modularity of the dynamometer setup allows for any combination of motor, gearbox to be tested. The chamber has been used to run tests for various projects including Bulk Metallic Glass Gears (BMGG), Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), Intelligent Payload Experiment (IPEX), and Pilot Excavator. Various upgrades have been made to the extreme cold environment test chamber for the use of cryobotic research. These upgrades greatly increased the autonomous capabilities of the test set up by providing redundancies in the hardware and software. The redundancies were primarily added to protect the integrity of the cryohead. A new strapping and insulation method was performed to create the thermal conductive path from the actuators to the cryohead. The software was upgraded to include temperature setpoint control, further increasing the autonomous capabilities of the test. This paper goes into detail regarding the upgrades made to the extreme cold environment test chamber, as well as highlights the results from a COLDArm acceptance test.

Jonathan Drew Smith↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enabling Planetary In-Situ and Sample Return Missions: NASA Developed 3-D Woven Thermal Protection / Heatshield Technology for Extreme Entry Environment

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) and 3-D Mid-Density Carbon-Phenolic (3MDCP) are two variants of 3-D Woven. TPS funded by STMD and SMD. HEEET was matured to TRL 6 in 2019, and SMD offered it as incentivized technology. Mars Sample Return Earth Entry System has baselined a seamless 3MDCP heatshield, and it will reach TRL 6 by 2025. HEEET and 3MDCP have been tested to withstand entry peak heat-flux ~ 4500 W/sq.cm, pressure ~ 6.5 atm, and shear ~ 4000 Pa. Bally Ribbon Mills and T.E.A.M. Inc developed looms and demonstrated their capability to weave HEEET and 3MDCP respectively. F.M.I. has demonstrated capability to form and resin infuse the preforms, and machine the TPS for final assembly. Expertise to integrate the parts reside at NASA, and NASA can transfer the knowhow to interested parties via technology transfer.

Ethiraj Venkatapathy↗
NASA NTRS2010

Investigation of Loop Heat Pipe Survival and Restart After Extreme Cold Environment Exposure

NASA plans human exploration near the South Pole of the Moon, and other locations where the environment is extremely cold. This paper reports on the heat transfer performance of a loop heat pipe (LHP) exposed to extreme cold under the simulated reduced gravitational environment of the Moon. A common method of spacecraft thermal control is to use a LHP with ammonia working fluid. Typically, a small amount of heat is provided either by electrical heaters or by environmental design, such that the LHP condenser temperature never drops below the freezing point of ammonia. The concern is that a liquid-filled, frozen condenser would not restart, or that a thawing condenser would damage the tubing due to the expansion of ammonia upon thawing. This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation of a novel approach to avoid these problems. The LHP compensation chamber (CC) is conditioned such that all the ammonia liquid is removed from the condenser and the LHP is nonoperating. The condenser temperature is then reduced to below that of the ammonia freezing point. The LHP is then successfully restarted.

Golliher, Eric↗
NASA NTRS2011

Electro-Mechanical Systems for Extreme Space Environments

Exploration beyond low earth orbit presents challenges for hardware that must operate in extreme environments. The current state of the art is to isolate and provide heating for sensitive hardware in order to survive. However, this protection results in penalties of weight and power for the spacecraft. This is particularly true for electro-mechanical based technology such as electronics, actuators and sensors. Especially when considering distributed electronics, many electro-mechanical systems need to be located in appendage type locations, making it much harder to protect from the extreme environments. The purpose of this paper to describe the advances made in the area of developing electro-mechanical technology to survive these environments with minimal protection. The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), the Glenn Research Center (GRC), the Langley Research Center (LaRC), and Aeroflex, Inc. over the last few years have worked to develop and test electro-mechanical hardware that will meet the stringent environmental demands of the moon, and which can also be leveraged for other challenging space exploration missions. Prototype actuators and electronics have been built and tested. Brushless DC actuators designed by Aeroflex, Inc have been tested with interface temperatures as low as 14 degrees Kelvin. Testing of the Aeroflex design has shown that a brushless DC motor with a single stage planetary gearbox can operate in low temperature environments for at least 120 million cycles (measured at motor) if long life is considered as part of the design. A motor control distributed electronics concept developed by JPL was built and operated at temperatures as low as -160 C, with many components still operational down to -245 C. Testing identified the components not capable of meeting the low temperature goal of -230 C. This distributed controller is universal in design with the ability to control different types of motors and read many different types of sensors. The controller form factor was designed to surround or be at the actuator. Communication with the slave controllers is accomplished by a bus, thus limiting the number of wires that must be routed to the extremity locations. Efforts have also been made to increase the power capability of these electronics for the ability to power and control actuators up to 2.5KW and still meet the environmental challenges. For commutation and control of the actuator, a resolver was integrated and tested with the actuator. Testing of this resolver demonstrated temperature limitations. Subsequent failure analysis isolated the low temperature failure mechanism and a design solution was negotiated with the manufacturer. Several years of work have resulted in specialized electro-mechanical hardware to meet extreme space exploration environments, a test history that verifies and finds limitations of the designs and a growing knowledge base that can be leveraged by future space exploration missions.

Mojarradi, Mohammad M.↗
NASA NTRS2019

High Temperature Vaporization into Different Environments

Materials in extreme environments are often negatively affected by the process of vaporization. The maximum vaporization rate is determined by calculating a flux from the equilibrium vapor pressure(s) of each component. However, this maximum vaporization flux is decreased by the vaporization coefficient and the atmosphere above the material. This paper discusses each of these factors for common oxides, using SiO2 as an example. Vaporization into a vacuum is an ideal starting point, as the basic mechanisms for vaporization have been derived from these studies. Imposing an over-pressure of a static gas changes the vaporization rates from both a thermodynamic and kinetic aspect. Finally, a flowing gas is the most common situation encountered in many extreme environments. Laminar and turbulent flow effects are be treated with both analytical transport expressions and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The example of a vaporizing SiO2 coupon in a laboratory furnace is examined with both the analytical expressions and with CFD.

Jacobson, Nathan↗
NASA NTRS2011

Astrobiology Field Research in Moon/Mars Analogue Environments: Preface

Extreme environments on Earth often provide similar terrain conditions to landing/operation sites on Moon and Mars. Several field campaigns (EuroGeoMars2009 and DOMMEX/ILEWG EuroMoonMars from November 2009 to March 2010) were conducted at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah. Some of the key astrobiology results are presented in this special issue on Astrobiology field research in Moon/Mars analogue environments relevant to investigate the link between geology, minerals, organics and biota. Preliminary results from a multidisciplinary field campaign at Rio Tinto in Spain are presented.

Foing, B. H.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Evaluation of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Electronics for Extreme Cold Environments

Deep space and Icy Moon missions (Titan, Enceladus, Ceres, Europa, & Ganymede) will need qualified extreme environment capable components for electronic systems located in extremities of their rovers and spacecraft. Commercial off the shelf (COTS) components would be advantageous to use for some aspects of such projects, given that they are easier to procure and offer a broad range of functionalities. Furthermore, theoretical and experimental data suggest that many COTS parts are capable of operation, and not just storage, at temperatures well beyond the manufacturer specified temperature limits. To help address the challenges presented at near cryogenic temperatures, a COTS selection knowledge base is being developed to estimate the performance of COTS components within cold environments. The knowledge base captures queries from a range of information sources such as cold functionality test results for part types and families, theoretical and experimental literature reviews and key findings are summarized here. In addition, a selection of components are planned to be examined for their performance to near cryogenic temperatures to generate a methodology for identification and verification of the COTS candidates. As the qualification of COTS parts for extreme environments can be very costly, this knowledge base can serve to reduce qualification time and cost by pre-selecting and limiting candidates.

Mojarradi, Mohammad↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

All-Metal Antennas for Applications in Extreme Space Environments

The feasibility of an all-metal antenna for transmission of science data by spacecraft, landers, and rovers operating in the extreme environment of space is investigated. The all-metal antenna is of the short backfire type with a waveguide feed and generates a linearly polarized radiation. The investigation includes the modeling, design, fabrication, and characterization of the antenna. The paper summarizes the preliminary results. Potential applications of an all-metal antenna include communication systems required to operate in the extreme hot environment of Mercury and Venus, extreme cold and high radiation environment of Jupiter’s icy moon, and Artemis missions that involve human/robotic exploration and long-term presence on the Moon.

Extreme Environment↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

All-Metal Antennas for Applications in Extreme Space Environments

The feasibility of an all-metal antenna for transmission of science data by spacecraft, landers, and rovers operating in the extreme environment of space is investigated. The all-metal antenna is of the short backfire type with a waveguide feed and generates a circularly polarized radiation. The investigation includes the modeling, design, fabrication, and characterization of the antenna. The paper summarizes the preliminary results. Potential applications of an all-metal antenna include communication systems required to operate in the extreme hot environment of Venus and in the extreme cold and high radiation environment of Jupiter’s icy moon.

Antennas↗
NASA NTRS2005

Re-Configurable Electronics Characterization under Extreme Thermal Environment

The need for reconfigurable electronics is driven by requirements to survive longer missions and harsher environments. It is possible to compensate for degradations in Extreme Environments (EE). EE has effect on electronics: circuits are designed to exploit device characteristics and when a certain temperature or radiation range is exceeded the circuit function gradually degrades. It is possible to employ Hardening by reconfiguration (HBR) to mitigate drifts, degradation, or damage on electronic devices in EE by using reconfigurable devices and an adaptive self-reconfiguration of circuit topology. In this manner degraded components can be salvaged, and completely damaged components can be bypassed. The challenge of conventional design is replaced with that of designing a recover process that automatically performs the (re) design in place of the designer. The objective of testing a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) under the extreme temperatures was to determine the lowest temperature at which the DAP can operate. The objective of testing a Xilinx VirtexII Pro FPGA board was to initially find our whether the evaluation board and the FPGA would survive and continue at temperature ranges from -180 C, and 120 C. The Virtex II functioned correctly at the temperatures tested. The next test was done on the GM-C filter building block using the same temperature range as the Virtex II. The current lower and upper limits were shown to be reduced as the temperature gets lower. The device function can be recovered by increasing the Vb from .08V to .85V. The negative and positive saturation voltages increases as the temperature gets higher. The function of the device can be recovered by decreasing the Vb from .8V to around .75V. The next test was performed to test the recovery of the GmC low pass filter through Vb in a filter circuit. The test indicate that bias voltage control adjustment is an efficient mechanism for circuit recovery at extreme temperatures.

reliability↗
NASA NTRS2013

Wireless Sensor Applications in Extreme Aeronautical Environments

NASA aeronautical programs require rigorous ground and flight testing. Many of the testing environments can be extremely harsh. These environments include cryogenic temperatures and high temperatures (greater than 1500 C). Temperature, pressure, vibration, ionizing radiation, and chemical exposure may all be part of the harsh environment found in testing. This paper presents a survey of research opportunities for universities and industry to develop new wireless sensors that address anticipated structural health monitoring (SHM) and testing needs for aeronautical vehicles. Potential applications of passive wireless sensors for ground testing and high altitude aircraft operations are presented. Some of the challenges and issues of the technology are also presented.

Wilson, William C.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Development Status

The Heat shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Project is a NASA STMD and SMD co-funded effort. The goal is to develop and mission infuse a new ablative Thermal Protection System that can withstand extreme entry. It is targeted to support NASAs high priority missions, as defined in the latest decadal survey, to destinations such as Venus and Saturn in-situ robotic science missions. Entry into these planetary atmospheres results in extreme heating. The entry peak heat-flux and associated pressure are estimated to be between one and two orders of magnitude higher than those experienced by Mars Science Laboratory or Lunar return missions. In the recent New Frontiers community announcement NASA has indicated that it is considering providing an increase to the PI managed mission cost (PIMMC) for investigations utilizing the Heat Shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) and in addition, NASA is considering limiting the risk assessment to only their accommodation on the spacecraft and the mission environment. The HEEET ablative TPS utilizes 3D weaving technology to manufacture a dual layer material architecture. The 3-D weaving allows for flat panels to be woven. The dual layer consists of a top layer designed to withstand the extreme external environment while the inner or insulating layer by design, is designed to achieve low thermal conductivity, and it keeps the heat from conducting towards the structure underneath. Both arc jet testing combined with material properties have been used to develop thermal response models that allows for comparison of performance with heritage carbon phenolic. A 50 mass efficiency is achieved by the dual layer construct compared to carbon phenolic for a broad range of missions both to Saturn and Venus. The 3-D woven flat preforms are molded to achieve the shape as they are compliant and then resin infusion with curing forms a rigid panels. These panels are then bonded on to the aeroshell structure. Gaps exist between the panels and these gaps have to be filled with seams. The seam material then has to be bonded on to adjacent panels and also to the structure. The heat-shield assembly is shown in Figure 1. One of the significant challenges we have overcome recently is the design, development and testing of the seam. HEEET material development and the seam concept development have utilized some of the unique test capabilities available in the US. The various test facilities utilized in thermal testing along with the entry environment for Saturn and Venus missions are shown in Figure 2. The HEEET project is currently in its 3rd year of a four-year development. Figure 3 illustrates the key accomplishments to date and the challenges yet to be overcome before the technology is ready for mission infusion. This proposed presentation will cover both progress that has been made in the HEEET project and also the challenges to be overcome that is highlighted in Figure 3. Objective of the HEEET project is to mature the system in time to support the next New Frontiers opportunity and we believe we are well along the way to mission infuse HEEET.

Thermal Protection System↗
NASA NTRS2016

Heat-shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Development Status

The Heat shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Project is a NASA STMD and SMD co-funded effort. The goal is to develop and mission infuse a new ablative Thermal Protection System that can withstand extreme entry. It is targeted to support NASA's high priority missions, as defined in the latest decadal survey, to destinations such as Venus and Saturn in-situ robotic science missions. Entry into these planetary atmospheres results in extreme heating. The entry peak heat-flux and associated pressure are estimated to be between one and two orders of magnitude higher than those experienced by Mars Science Laboratory or Lunar return missions. In the recent New Frontiers community announcement NASA has indicated that it is considering providing an increase to the PI managed mission cost (PIMMC) for investigations utilizing the Heat Shield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) and in addition, NASA is considering limiting the risk assessment to only their accommodation on the spacecraft and the mission environment. The HEEET ablative TPS utilizes 3D weaving technology to manufacture a dual layer material architecture. The 3-D weaving allows for flat panels to be woven. The dual layer consists of a top layer designed to withstand the extreme external environment while the inner or insulating layer by design, is designed to achieve low thermal conductivity, and it keeps the heat from conducting towards the structure underneath. Both arc jet testing combined with material properties have been used to develop thermal response models that allows for comparison of performance with heritage carbon phenolic. A 50% mass efficiency is achieved by the dual layer construct compared to carbon phenolic for a broad range of missions both to Saturn and Venus. The 3-D woven flat preforms are molded to achieve the shape as they are compliant and then resin infusion with curing forms a rigid panels. These panels are then bonded on to the aeroshell structure. Gaps exist between the panels and these gaps have to be filled with seams. The seam material then has to be bonded on to adjacent panels and also to the structure. The heat-shield assembly is shown in Figure 1. One of the significant challenges we have overcome recently is the design, development and testing of the seam. HEEET material development and the seam concept development have utilized some of the unique test capabilities available in the US. The various test facilities utilized in thermal testing along with the entry environment for Saturn and Venus missions are shown in Figure 2. The HEEET project is currently in it's 3rd year of a four-year development. Figure 3 illustrates the key accomplishments to-date and the challenges yet to be overcome before the technology is ready for mission infusion. This proposed presentation will cover both progress that has been made in the HEEET project and also the challenges to be overcome that is highlighted in Figure 3. Objective of the HEEET project is to mature the system in time to support the next New Frontiers opportunity and we believe we are well along the way to mission infuse HEEET.

TPS↗
NASA NTRS2016

Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Development Status

The Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) Project is a NASA STMD (Space Technology Mission Directorate) and SMD (Science Mission Directorate) co-funded effort. The goal is to develop and mission infuse a new ablative Thermal Protection System that can withstand extreme entry. It is targeted to support NASA's high priority missions, as defined in the latest decadal survey, to destinations such as Venus and Saturn in-situ robotic science missions. Entry into these planetary atmospheres results in extreme heating. The entry peak heat-flux and associated pressure are estimated to be between one and two orders of magnitude higher than those experienced by Mars Science Laboratory or Lunar return missions. In the recent New Frontiers community announcement NASA has indicated that it is considering providing an increase to the PI (Principal Investigator) managed mission cost (PIMMC) for investigations utilizing the Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) and in addition, NASA is considering limiting the risk assessment to only their accommodation on the spacecraft and the mission environment.

Thermal Protection System↗
NASA NTRS2018

Overview of Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET)

The Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) projects objective is to mature a 3-D Woven Thermal Protection System (TPS) to Technical Readiness Level (TRL) 6 to support future NASA missions to destinations such as Venus and Saturn. The scope of the project, status of which will be discussed, encompasses development of manufacturing and integration processes, fabrication of a prototype 1m diameter engineering test unit (ETU) that will undergo a series of structural tests, characterizing material aerothermal performance including development of a material response model, and structural testing and analysis to develop tools to support design and establish system capability.

Driver, David M.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Overview of Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET)

The objective of the Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) projects is to mature a 3-D Woven Thermal Protection System (TPS) to Technical Readiness Level (TRL) 6 to support future NASA missions to destinations such as Venus and Saturn. Destinations that have extreme entry environments with heat fluxes > 3500 W/cm2 and pressures up to 5 atmospheres, entry environments that NASA has not flown since Pioneer-Venus and Galileo. The scope of the project is broad and can be split into roughly four areas, Manufacturing/Integration, Structural Testing and Analysis, Thermal Testing and Analysis and Documentation. Manufacturing/Integration covers from raw materials, piece part fabrication to final integration on a 1-meter base diameter 45-degree sphere cone Engineering Test Unit (ETU). A key aspect of the project was to transfer as much of the manufacturing technology to industry in preparation to support future mission infusion. The forming, infusion and machining approaches were transferred to Fiber Materials Inc. and FMI then fabricated the piece parts from which the ETU was manufactured. The base 3D-woven material consists of a dual layer weave with a high-density outer layer to manage recession in the system and a lower density, lower thermal conductivity inner layer to manage the heat load. At the start of the project it was understood that due to weaving limitations the heat shield was going to be manufactured from a series of tiles. And it was recognized that the development of a seam solution that met the structural and thermal requirements of the system was going to be the most challenging aspect of the project. It was also recognized that the seam design would drive the final integration approach and therefore the integration of the ETU was kept in-house within NASA. A final seam concept has been successfully developed and implemented on the ETU. The structural testing and analysis covers from characterization of the different layers of the infused material as functions of weave direction and temperature to sub-component level testing such as 4pt bend testing at sub-ambient and elevated temperature and culminates in testing of the ETU results from which will validate the structural models developed using the element and sub-component level tests. Given the seam has to perform both structurally and aerothermally during entry a novel 4pt bend test fixture was developed allowing articles to be tested while the front surface is heated with a laser. These tests are being utilized to establish the systems structural capability during entry.A broad range of aerothermal tests (arcjet tests) were performed to develop material response models for predicting the required TPS thickness to meet a missions needs and to evaluate failure modes and establish the capability of the system. The final aspect of the project is to develop a comprehensive Design and Data Book such that a future mission will have the information necessary to adopt the technology. This presentation will provide an overview for each of these areas and argue that HEEET has successfully achieved TRL 6.

HEEET↗