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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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NASA NTRS1985

Studies of lightning data in conjunction with geostationary satellite data

Since January, work has been proceeding on the first phase of this project: the creation of an extensive real-time lightning data base accessible via the Space Science and Engineering Center McIdas system. The purpose of this endeavor is two-fold: to enhance the availability and ease of access to lightning data among the various networks, governmental and research agencies; and to test the feasiblity and desirability of such efforts in succeeding years. The final steps in the creation of the necessary communications links, hardware, and software are in the process of being completed. Operations ground rules for access among the various users have been discussed and are being refined. While the research planned for the last year of the project will rely for the most part on archived, quality-controlled data from the various networks, the real-time data will provide a valuable first-look at potentially interesting case studies. For this purpose, tools are being developed on McIdas for display and analysis of the data as they become available. In conjunction with concurrent GOES real-time imagery, strike locations can be plotted, gridded and contoured, or displayed in various statistical formats including frequency distributions, histograms, and scatter plots. The user may also perform these functions in relation to arbitrarily defined areas on the satellite image. By mid-May these preparations for the access and analysis of real-time lightning data are expected to be complete.

Auvine, B.↗
NASA NTRS2007

The Use of GIS and Remotely Sensed Data in Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT): The HELIX-Atlanta Experience

As part of the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN), the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is leading a project in collaboration with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA/MSFC) called Health and Environment Linked for Information Exchange (HELIX-Atlanta). HELIX-Atlanta's goal is to examine the feasibility of building an integrated electronic health and environmental data network in five counties of metropolitan Atlanta, GA. Under HELIX-Atlanta, pilot projects are being conducted to develop methods to characterize exposure; link health and environmental data; analyze the relationship between health and environmental factors; and communicate findings. There is evidence in the research literature that asthmatic persons are at increased risk of developing asthma exacerbations with exposure to environmental factors, including PM(sub 2.5). Thus, HELIX-Atlanta is focusing on methods for characterizing population exposure to PM(sub 2.5) for the Atlanta metropolitan area that could be used in ongoing surveillance. NASA/MSFC is working with CDC to combine NASA earth science satellite observations related to air quality and environmental monitoring data to model surface estimates of fine particulate matter (PM(sub 2.5)) concentrations in a Geographic Information System (GIS) that can be linked with clinic visits for asthma on the aggregated grid level as well as the individual level at the geographic locations of the patients' residences.

Al-Hamdan, Mohammad Z.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Analyzing Risks and Vulnerabilities of Various Computer Systems and Undergoing Exploitation using Embedded Devices

Security is one of the most if not the most important areas today. After the several attacks on the United States, security everywhere has heightened from airports to communication among the military branches legionnaires. With advanced persistent threats (APTs) on the rise following Stuxnet, government branches and agencies are required, more than ever, to follow several standards, policies and procedures to reduce the likelihood of a breach. Attack vectors today are very advanced and are going to continue to get more and more advanced as security controls advance. This creates a need for networks and systems to be in an updated, patched and secured state in a launch control system environment. Attacks on critical systems are becoming more and more relevant and frequent. Nation states are hacking into critical networks that might control electrical power grids or water dams as well as carrying out advanced persistent threat (APTs) attacks on government entities. NASA, as an organization, must protect its self from attacks from all different types of attackers with different motives. Although the International Space Station was created, there is still competition between the different space programs. With that in mind, NASA might get attacked and breached for various reasons such as espionage or sabotage. My project will provide a way for NASA to complete an in house penetration test which includes: asset discovery, vulnerability scans, exploit vulnerabilities and also provide forensic information to harden systems. Completing penetration testing is a part of the compliance requirements of the Federal Information Security Act (FISMA) and NASA NPR 2810.1 and related NASA Handbooks. This project is to demonstrate how in house penetration testing can be conducted that will satisfy all of the compliance requirements of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), as outlined in FISMA. By the end of this project, I hope to have carried out the tasks stated above as well as gain an immense knowledge about compliance, security tools, networks and network devices, as well as policies and procedures.

Penetration Testing↗
NASA NTRS1989

Totally parallel multilevel algorithms for sparse elliptic systems

The fastest known algorithms for the solution of a large elliptic boundary value problem on a massively parallel hypercube all require O(log(n)) floating point operations and O(log(n)) distance-1 communications, if massively parallel is defined to mean a number of processors proportional to the size n of the problem. The Totally Parallel Multilevel Algorithm (TPMA) that has, as special cases, four of these fast algorithms is described. These four algorithms are Parallel Superconvergent Multigrid (PSMG), Robust Multigrid, the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) based Spectral Algorithm, and Parallel Cyclic Reduction. The algorithm TPMA, when described recursively, has four steps: (1) project to a collection of interlaced, coarser problems at the next lower level; (2) apply TPMA, recursively, to each of these lower level problems, solving directly at the lowest level; (3) interpolate these approximate solutions to the finer grid, and to verage them to form an approximate solution on this grid; and (4) refine this approximate solution with a defect-correction step, using a local approximate inverse. Choice of the projection operator (P), the interpolation operator (Q), and the smoother (S) determines the class of problems on which TPMA is most effective. There are special cases in which the first three steps produce an exact solution, and the smoother is not needed (e.g., constant coefficient operators).

Frederickson, Paul O.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Mechanical Prototyping and Manufacturing Internship

The internship was located at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Innovation Design Center (IDC), which is a facility where the JSC workforce can meet and conduct hands-on innovative design, fabrication, evaluation, and testing of ideas and concepts relevant to NASA's mission. The tasks of the internship included mechanical prototyping design and manufacturing projects in service of research and development as well as assisting the users of the IDC in completing their manufacturing projects. The first project was to manufacture hatch mechanisms for a team in the Systems Engineering and Project Advancement Program (SETMAP) hexacopter competition. These mechanisms were intended to improve the performance of the servomotors and offer an access point that would also seal to prevent cross-contamination. I also assisted other teams as they were constructing and modifying their hexacopters. The success of this competition demonstrated a proof of concept for aerial reconnaissance and sample return to be potentially used in future NASA missions. I also worked with Dr. Kumar Krishen to prototype an improved thermos and a novel, portable solar array. Computer-aided design (CAD) software was used to model the parts for both of these projects. Then, 3D printing as well as conventional techniques were used to produce the parts. These prototypes were then subjected to trials to determine the success of the designs. The solar array is intended to work in a cluster that is easy to set up and take down and doesn't require powered servomechanisms. It could be used terrestrially in areas not serviced by power grids. Both projects improve planetary exploration capabilities to future astronauts. Other projects included manufacturing custom rail brackets for EG-2, assisting engineers working on underwater instrument and tool cases for the NEEMO project, and helping to create mock-up parts for Space Center Houston. The use of the IDC enabled efficient completion of these projects at significantly reduced cost. I acquired and improved manufacturing and prototyping skills during my tour including learning about a CAD (Computer-Aided Design) program called Creo (Creo Parametric; design software), gaining valuable conventional machining experience with lathes, CNC (Computer Numerical Control) milling machines and various other tools, and improving my engineering project communication and collaboration skills. The internship also allowed me to better understand operations at NASA. I plan to work in the aerospace industry or do academic research benefitting space science and exploration, and this internship experience will enable me to have insight into manufacturing processes for research and development.

Grenfell, Peter↗
NASA NTRS2005

NASA Tech Briefs, October 2005

Topics covered include: Insect-Inspired Optical-Flow Navigation Sensors; Chemical Sensors Based on Optical Ring Resonators; A Broad-Band Phase-Contrast Wave-Front Sensor; Progress in Insect-Inspired Optical Navigation Sensors; Portable Airborne Laser System Measures Forest-Canopy Height; Deployable Wide-Aperture Array Antennas; Faster Evolution of More Multifunctional Logic Circuits; Video-Camera-Based Position-Measuring System; N-Type delta Doping of High-Purity Silicon Imaging Arrays; Avionics System Architecture Tool; Updated Chemical Kinetics and Sensitivity Analysis Code; Predicting Flutter and Forced Response in Turbomachinery; Upgrades of Two Computer Codes for Analysis of Turbomachinery; Program Facilitates CMMI Appraisals; Grid Visualization Tool; Program Computes Sound Pressures at Rocket Launches; Solar-System Ephemeris Toolbox; Data-Acquisition Software for PSP/TSP Wind-Tunnel Cameras; Corrosion-Prevention Capabilities of a Water-Borne, Silicone-Based, Primerless Coating; Sol-Gel Process for Making Pt-Ru Fuel-Cell Catalysts; Making Activated Carbon for Storing Gas; System Regulates the Water Contents of Fuel-Cell Streams; Five-Axis, Three-Magnetic-Bearing Dynamic Spin Rig; Modifications of Fabrication of Vibratory Microgyroscopes; Chamber for Growing and Observing Fungi; Electroporation System for Sterilizing Water; Thermoelectric Air/Soil Energy-Harvesting Device; Flexible Metal-Fabric Radiators; Actuated Hybrid Mirror Telescope; Optical Design of an Optical Communications Terminal; Algorithm for Identifying Erroneous Rain-Gauge Readings; Condition Assessment and End-of-Life Prediction System for Electric Machines and Their Loads; Lightweight Thermal Insulation for a Liquid-Oxygen Tank; Stellar Gyroscope for Determining Attitude of a Spacecraft; and Lifting Mechanism for the Mars Explorer Rover.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1995

Managing Complexity in Multidisciplinary Visualization

As high performance computing technology progresses, computational simulations are becoming more advanced in their capabilities. In the computational aerosciences domain, single discipline steady-state simulations computed on a single grid are far from the state-of-the-art. In their place are complex, time-dependent multidisciplinary simulations that attempt to model a given geometry more realistically. The product of these multidisciplinary simulations is a massive amount of data stored in different formats, grid topologies, units of measure, etc., as a result of the differences in the simulated physical domains. In addition to the challenges posed by setting up and performing the simulation, additional challenges exist in analyzing computational results. Visualization plays an important role in the advancement of multidisciplinary simulations. To date, visualization has been used to aid in the interpretation of large amounts of simulation data. Because the human visual system is effective in digesting a large amount of information presented graphically, visualization has helped simulation scientists to understand complex simulation results. As these simulations become even more complex, integrating several different physical domains, visualization will be critical to digest the massive amount of information. Another important role for visualization is to provide a common communication medium from which the domain scientists can use to develop, debug, and analyze their work. Multidisciplinary analyses are the next step in simulation technology, not only in computational aerosciences, but in many other areas such as global climate modeling. Visualization researchers must understand and work towards the challenges posed by multidisciplinary simulation scenarios. This paper addresses some of these challenges, describing technologies that must be investigated to create a useful visualization analysis tool for domain scientists.

Miceli, Kristina D.↗
NASA NTRS2005

High Resolution Aerospace Applications using the NASA Columbia Supercomputer

This paper focuses on the parallel performance of two high-performance aerodynamic simulation packages on the newly installed NASA Columbia supercomputer. These packages include both a high-fidelity, unstructured, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solver, and a fully-automated inviscid flow package for cut-cell Cartesian grids. The complementary combination of these two simulation codes enables high-fidelity characterization of aerospace vehicle design performance over the entire flight envelope through extensive parametric analysis and detailed simulation of critical regions of the flight envelope. Both packages. are industrial-level codes designed for complex geometry and incorpor.ats. CuStomized multigrid solution algorithms. The performance of these codes on Columbia is examined using both MPI and OpenMP and using both the NUMAlink and InfiniBand interconnect fabrics. Numerical results demonstrate good scalability on up to 2016 CPUs using the NUMAIink4 interconnect, with measured computational rates in the vicinity of 3 TFLOP/s, while InfiniBand showed some performance degradation at high CPU counts, particularly with multigrid. Nonetheless, the results are encouraging enough to indicate that larger test cases using combined MPI/OpenMP communication should scale well on even more processors.

Mavriplis, Dimitri J.↗
NASA NTRS2017

UAV Inspection of Electrical Transmission Infrastructure with Path Conformance Autonomy and Lidar-Based Geofences NASA Report on UTM Reference Mission Flights at Southern Company Flights November 2016

Flights at low altitudes in close proximity to electrical transmission infrastructure present serious navigational challenges: GPS and radio communication quality is variable and yet tight position control is needed to measure defects while avoiding collisions with ground structures. To advance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation technology while accomplishing a task with economic and societal benefit, a high voltage electrical infrastructure inspection reference mission was designed. An integrated air-ground platform was developed for this mission and tested in two days of experimental flights to determine whether navigational augmentation was needed to successfully conduct a controlled inspection experiment. The airborne component of the platform was a multirotor UAV built from commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, and the ground component was a commercial laptop running open source software. A compact ultraviolet sensor mounted on the UAV can locate 'hot spots' (potential failure points in the electric grid), so long as the UAV flight path adequately samples the airspace near the power grid structures. To improve navigation, the platform was supplemented with two navigation technologies: lidar-to-polyhedron preflight processing for obstacle demarcation and inspection distance planning, and trajectory management software to enforce inspection standoff distance. Both navigation technologies were essential to obtaining useful results from the hot spot sensor in this obstacle-rich, low-altitude airspace. Because the electrical grid extends into crowded airspaces, the UAV position was tracked with NASA unmanned aerial system traffic management (UTM) technology. The following results were obtained: (1) Inspection of high-voltage electrical transmission infrastructure to locate 'hot spots' of ultraviolet emission requires navigation methods that are not broadly available and are not needed at higher altitude flights above ground structures. (2) The sensing capability of a novel airborne UV detector was verified with a standard ground-based instrument. Flights with this sensor showed that UAV measurement operations and recording methods are viable. With improved sensor range, UAVs equipped with compact UV sensors could serve as the detection elements in a self-diagnosing power grid. (3) Simplification of rich lidar maps to polyhedral obstacle maps reduces data volume by orders of magnitude, so that computation with the resultant maps in real time is possible. This enables real-time obstacle avoidance autonomy. Stable navigation may be feasible in the GPS-deprived environment near transmission lines by a UAV that senses ground structures and compares them to these simplified maps. (4) A new, formally verified path conformance software system that runs onboard a UAV was demonstrated in flight for the first time. It successfully maneuvered the aircraft after a sudden lateral perturbation that models a gust of wind, and processed lidar-derived polyhedral obstacle maps in real time. (5) Tracking of the UAV in the national airspace using the NASA UTM technology was a key safety component of this reference mission, since the flights were conducted beneath the landing approach to a heavily used runway. Comparison to autopilot tracking showed that UTM tracking accurately records the UAV position throughout the flight path.

Moore, Andrew J.↗
NASA NTRS1998

A Domain-Decomposed Multi-Level Method for Adaptively Refined Cartesian Grids with Embedded Boundaries

The work presents a new method for on-the-fly domain decomposition technique for mapping grids and solution algorithms to parallel machines, and is applicable to both shared-memory and message-passing architectures. It will be demonstrated on the Cray T3E, HP Exemplar, and SGI Origin 2000. Computing time has been secured on all these platforms. The decomposition technique is an outgrowth of techniques used in computational physics for simulations of N-body problems and the event horizons of black holes, and has not been previously used by the CFD community. Since the technique offers on-the-fly partitioning, it offers a substantial increase in flexibility for computing in heterogeneous environments, where the number of available processors may not be known at the time of job submission. In addition, since it is dynamic it permits the job to be repartitioned without global communication in cases where additional processors become available after the simulation has begun, or in cases where dynamic mesh adaptation changes the mesh size during the course of a simulation. The platform for this partitioning strategy is a completely new Cartesian Euler solver tarcreted at parallel machines which may be used in conjunction with Ames' "Cart3D" arbitrary geometry simulation package.

Aftosmis, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

NASA Tech Briefs, May 2013

Topics include: Test Waveform Applications for JPL STRS Operating Environment; Pneumatic Proboscis Heat-Flow Probe; Method to Measure Total Noise Temperature of a Wireless Receiver During Operation; Cursor Control Device Test Battery; Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Signals Measure Neuronal Activity in the Cortex; ESD Test Apparatus for Soldering Irons; FPGA-Based X-Ray Detection and Measurement for an X-Ray Polarimeter; Sequential Probability Ratio Test for Spacecraft Collision Avoidance Maneuver Decisions; Silicon/Carbon Nanotube Photocathode for Splitting Water; Advanced Materials and Fabrication Techniques for the Orion Attitude Control Motor; Flight Hardware Packaging Design for Stringent EMC Radiated Emission Requirements; RF Reference Switch for Spaceflight Radiometer Calibration; An Offload NIC for NASA, NLR, and Grid Computing; Multi-Scale CNT-Based Reinforcing Polymer Matrix Composites for Lightweight Structures; Ceramic Adhesive and Methods for On-Orbit Repair of Re-Entry Vehicles; Self-Healing Nanocomposites for Reusable Composite Cryotanks; Pt-Ni and Pt-Co Catalyst Synthesis Route for Fuel Cell Applications; Aerogel-Based Multilayer Insulation with Micrometeoroid Protection; Manufacturing of Nanocomposite Carbon Fibers and Composite Cylinders; Optimized Radiator Geometries for Hot Lunar Thermal Environments; A Mission Concept: Re-Entry Hopper-Aero-Space-Craft System on-Mars (REARM-Mars); New Class of Flow Batteries for Terrestrial and Aerospace Energy Storage Applications; Reliability of CCGA 1152 and CCGA 1272 Interconnect Packages for Extreme Thermal Environments; Using a Blender to Assess the Microbial Density of Encapsulated Organisms; Mixed Integer Programming and Heuristic Scheduling for Space Communication; Video Altimeter and Obstruction Detector for an Aircraft; Control Software for Piezo Stepping Actuators; Galactic Cosmic Ray Event-Based Risk Model (GERM) Code; Sasquatch Footprint Tool; and Multi-User Space Link Extension (SLE) System.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2007

NASA Tech Briefs, December 2007

Topics include: Ka-Band TWT High-Efficiency Power Combiner for High-Rate Data Transmission; Reusable, Extensible High-Level Data-Distribution Concept; Processing Satellite Imagery To Detect Waste Tire Piles; Monitoring by Use of Clusters of Sensor-Data Vectors; Circuit and Method for Communication Over DC Power Line; Switched Band-Pass Filters for Adaptive Transceivers; Noncoherent DTTLs for Symbol Synchronization; High-Voltage Power Supply With Fast Rise and Fall Times; Waveguide Calibrator for Multi-Element Probe Calibration; Four-Way Ka-Band Power Combiner; Loss-of-Control-Inhibitor Systems for Aircraft; Improved Underwater Excitation-Emission Matrix Fluorometer; Metrology Camera System Using Two-Color Interferometry; Design and Fabrication of High-Efficiency CMOS/CCD Imagers; Foam Core Shielding for Spacecraft CHEM-Based Self-Deploying Planetary Storage Tanks Sequestration of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes in a Polymer PPC750 Performance Monitor Application-Program-Installer Builder Using Visual Odometry to Estimate Position and Attitude Design and Data Management System Simple, Script-Based Science Processing Archive Automated Rocket Propulsion Test Management Online Remote Sensing Interface Fusing Image Data for Calculating Position of an Object Implementation of a Point Algorithm for Real-Time Convex Optimization Handling Input and Output for COAMPS Modeling and Grid Generation of Iced Airfoils Automated Identification of Nucleotide Sequences Balloon Design Software Rocket Science 101 Interactive Educational Program Creep Forming of Carbon-Reinforced Ceramic-Matrix Composites Dog-Bone Horns for Piezoelectric Ultrasonic/Sonic Actuators Benchtop Detection of Proteins Recombinant Collagenlike Proteins Remote Sensing of Parasitic Nematodes in Plants Direct Coupling From WGM Resonator Disks to Photodetectors Using Digital Radiography To Image Liquid Nitrogen in Voids Multiple-Parameter, Low-False-Alarm Fire-Detection Systems Mosaic-Detector-Based Fluorescence Spectral Imager Plasmoid Thruster for High Specific-Impulse Propulsion Analysis Method for Quantifying Vehicle Design Goals Improved Tracking of Targets by Cameras on a Mars Rover Sample Caching Subsystem Multistage Passive Cooler for Spaceborne Instruments GVIPS Models and Software Stowable Energy-Absorbing Rocker-Bogie Suspensions

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1997

Efficient Multidisciplinary Analysis Procedure Using Multi-Level Parallelization Approach

Multidisciplinary applications are suitable for parallel computing environment by adopting the domain decomposition method. Immediately, a multidisciplinary application can be parallelized by solving each discipline separately. In order to perform coupled multidisciplinary analysis, coupling of each discipline can be accomplished by exchanging boundary data at the interfaces. This is regarded as discipline-level parallelization. Next level could be a "coarse-grain" parallelization of each discipline, which mainly depends on the physical geometry and nature of each discipline. For example, it is almost impossible for structured-grid based computational fluid dynamics codes to do flow analysis of an aircraft by using a single grid because of the complexity of its configuration. Thus, multi-block grid is commonly used to describe the details of complex geometry. Similarly, in structural analysis, the structure is frequently subdivided into substructures. Thus, the computation of each subdomain can be easily parallelized since each subdomain is solved separately independent of other domains. The parallelization is accomplished by solving each subdomain separately on a separate processor and exchanging the boundary conditions at domain interfaces periodically. However, the physical decomposition of the domain introduces explicit boundary conditions at the domain interfaces. This is not desirable for critical areas such as those containing shock waves or flow separations. Thus, a "fine-grain" parallelization is introduced to overcome this problem. The "fine-grain" parallelization is one that solves exactly the same system of equations of a subdomain by using more than one processors without introducing any explicit boundary conditions. An efficient multidisciplinary analysis procedure can be accomplished by successfully combining the above multi-level parallelism. A multidisciplinary analysis code, ENSAERO developed at NASA Ames Research Center is used in this study to implement the proposed approach. The communication data structure required for the proposed approach will be studied in detail. This work will demonstrate the feasibility of using multi-level parallelization approach in multidisciplinary analysis applications.

Byun, Chansup↗
NASA NTRS2002

An Analysis for the Use of Research and Education Networks and Commercial Network Vendors in Support of Space Based Mission Critical and Non-Critical Networking

Currently, and in the past, dedicated communication circuits and "network services" with very stringent performance requirements are being used to support manned and unmanned mission critical ground operations at GSFC, JSC, MSFC, KSC and other NASA facilities. Because of the evolution of network technology, it is time to investigate using other approaches to providing mission services for space ground operations. The current NASA approach is not in keeping with the evolution of network technologies. In the past decade various research and education networks dedicated to scientific and educational endeavors have emerged, as well as commercial networking providers, that employ advanced networking technologies. These technologies have significantly changed networking in recent years. Significant advances in network routing techniques, various topologies and equipment have made commercial networks very stable and virtually error free. Advances in Dense Wave Division Multiplexing will provide tremendous amounts of bandwidth for the future. The question is: Do these networks, which are controlled and managed centrally, provide a level of service that equals the stringent NASA performance requirements. If they do, what are the implication(s) of using them for critical space based ground operations as they are, without adding high cost contractual performance requirements? A second question is the feasibility of applying the emerging grid technology in space operations. Is it feasible to develop a Space Operations Grid and/or a Space Science Grid? Since these network's connectivity is substantial, both nationally and internationally, development of these sorts of grids may be feasible. The concept of research and education networks has evolved to the international community as well. Currently there are international RENs connecting the US in Chicago to and from Europe, South America, Asia and the Pacific rim, Russia and Canada. And most countries in these areas have their own research and education network as do many states in the USA.

Bradford, Robert N.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Three-Dimensional High-Order Spectral Volume Method for Solving Maxwell's Equations on Unstructured Grids

A three-dimensional, high-order, conservative, and efficient discontinuous spectral volume (SV) method for the solutions of Maxwell's equations on unstructured grids is presented. The concept of discontinuous 2nd high-order loca1 representations to achieve conservation and high accuracy is utilized in a manner similar to the Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method, but instead of using a Galerkin finite-element formulation, the SV method is based on a finite-volume approach to attain a simpler formulation. Conventional unstructured finite-volume methods require data reconstruction based on the least-squares formulation using neighboring cell data. Since each unknown employs a different stencil, one must repeat the least-squares inversion for every cell at each time step, or to store the inversion coefficients. In a high-order, three-dimensional computation, the former would involve impractically large CPU time, while for the latter the memory requirement becomes prohibitive. In the SV method, one starts with a relatively coarse grid of triangles or tetrahedra, called spectral volumes (SVs), and partition each SV into a number of structured subcells, called control volumes (CVs), that support a polynomial expansion of a desired degree of precision. The unknowns are cell averages over CVs. If all the SVs are partitioned in a geometrically similar manner, the reconstruction becomes universal as a weighted sum of unknowns, and only a few universal coefficients need to be stored for the surface integrals over CV faces. Since the solution is discontinuous across the SV boundaries, a Riemann solver is thus necessary to maintain conservation. In the paper, multi-parameter and symmetric SV partitions, up to quartic for triangle and cubic for tetrahedron, are first presented. The corresponding weight coefficients for CV face integrals in terms of CV cell averages for each partition are analytically determined. These discretization formulas are then applied to the integral form of the Maxwell equations. All numerical procedures for outer boundary, material interface, zonal interface, and interior SV face are unified with a single characteristic formulation. The load balancing in a massive parallel computing environment is therefore easier to achieve. A parameter is introduced in the Riemann solver to control the strength of the smoothing term. Important aspects of the data structure and its effects to communication and the optimum use of cache memory are discussed. Results will be presented for plane TE and TM waves incident on a perfectly conducting cylinder for up to fifth order of accuracy, and a plane wave incident on a perfectly conducting sphere for up to fourth order of accuracy. Comparisons are made with exact solutions for these cases.

Liu, Yen↗
NASA NTRS2009

Spacecraft Internal Acoustic Environment Modeling

Acoustic modeling can be used to identify key noise sources, determine/analyze sub-allocated requirements, keep track of the accumulation of minor noise sources, and to predict vehicle noise levels at various stages in vehicle development, first with estimates of noise sources, later with experimental data. In FY09, the physical mockup developed in FY08, with interior geometric shape similar to Orion CM (Crew Module) IML (Interior Mode Line), was used to validate SEA (Statistical Energy Analysis) acoustic model development with realistic ventilation fan sources. The sound power levels of these sources were unknown a priori, as opposed to previous studies that RSS (Reference Sound Source) with known sound power level was used. The modeling results were evaluated based on comparisons to measurements of sound pressure levels over a wide frequency range, including the frequency range where SEA gives good results. Sound intensity measurement was performed over a rectangular-shaped grid system enclosing the ventilation fan source. Sound intensities were measured at the top, front, back, right, and left surfaces of the and system. Sound intensity at the bottom surface was not measured, but sound blocking material was placed tinder the bottom surface to reflect most of the incident sound energy back to the remaining measured surfaces. Integrating measured sound intensities over measured surfaces renders estimated sound power of the source. The reverberation time T6o of the mockup interior had been modified to match reverberation levels of ISS US Lab interior for speech frequency bands, i.e., 0.5k, 1k, 2k, 4 kHz, by attaching appropriately sized Thinsulate sound absorption material to the interior wall of the mockup. Sound absorption of Thinsulate was modeled in three methods: Sabine equation with measured mockup interior reverberation time T60, layup model based on past impedance tube testing, and layup model plus air absorption correction. The evaluation/validation was carried out by acquiring octave band microphone data simultaneously at ten fixed locations throughout the mockup. SPLs (Sound Pressure Levels) predicted by our SEA model match well with measurements for our CM mockup, with a more complicated shape. Additionally in FY09, background NC noise (Noise Criterion) simulation and MRT (Modified Rhyme Test) were developed and performed in the mockup to determine the maximum noise level in CM habitable volume for fair crew voice communications. Numerous demonstrations of simulated noise environment in the mockup and associated SIL (Speech Interference Level) via MRT were performed for various communities, including members from NASA and Orion prime-/sub-contractors. Also, a new HSIR (Human-Systems Integration Requirement) for limiting pre- and post-landing SIL was proposed.

Chu, SShao-sheng R.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Performance of an Optimized Eta Model Code on the Cray T3E and a Network of PCs

In the year 2001, NASA will launch the satellite TRIANA that will be the first Earth observing mission to provide a continuous, full disk view of the sunlit Earth. As a part of the HPCC Program at NASA GSFC, we have started a project whose objectives are to develop and implement a 3D cloud data assimilation system, by combining TRIANA measurements with model simulation, and to produce accurate statistics of global cloud coverage as an important element of the Earth's climate. For simulation of the atmosphere within this project we are using the NCEP/NOAA operational Eta model. In order to compare TRIANA and the Eta model data on approximately the same grid without significant downscaling, the Eta model will be integrated at a resolution of about 15 km. The integration domain (from -70 to +70 deg in latitude and 150 deg in longitude) will cover most of the sunlit Earth disc and will continuously rotate around the globe following TRIANA. The cloud data assimilation is supposed to run and produce 3D clouds on a near real-time basis. Such a numerical setup and integration design is very ambitious and computationally demanding. Thus, though the Eta model code has been very carefully developed and its computational efficiency has been systematically polished during the years of operational implementation at NCEP, the current MPI version may still have problems with memory and efficiency for the TRIANA simulations. Within this work, we optimize a parallel version of the Eta model code on a Cray T3E and a network of PCs (theHIVE) in order to improve its overall efficiency. Our optimization procedure consists of introducing dynamically allocated arrays to reduce the size of static memory, and optimizing on a single processor by splitting loops to limit the number of streams. All the presented results are derived using an integration domain centered at the equator, with a size of 60 x 60 deg, and with horizontal resolutions of 1/2 and 1/3 deg, respectively. In accompanying charts we report the elapsed time, the speedup and the Mflops as a function of the number of processors for the non-optimized version of the code on the T3E and theHIVE. The large amount of communication required for model integration explains its poor performance on theHIVE. Our initial implementation of the dynamic memory allocation has contributed to about 12% reduction of memory but has introduced a 3% overhead in computing time. This overhead was removed by performing loop splitting in some of the high demanding subroutines. When the Eta code is fully optimized in order to meet the memory requirement for TRIANA simulations, a non-negligeable overhead may appear that may seriously affect the efficiency of the code. To alleviate this problem, we are considering implementation of a new algorithm for the horizontal advection that is computationally less expensive, and also a new approach for marching in time.

Kouatchou, Jules↗
NASA NTRS2024

Quantification of Uncertainty and Risk Sensitivity for Safety of Emerging Operations

The growing need to develop and deploy small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAVs) for various applications in the airspace necessitates reliable tools to accurately predict the flight trajectories of the sUAVs. The knowledge of the predicted trajectories help decision makers anticipate potential conflict, assess the risk, and take appropriate risk mitigation actions. In addition, uncertainties in vehicle models, weather, and controller action further highlights the need for reliable prediction tools. In this project, the application of mixed sparse grid-based quadrature and generalized polynomial chaos(gPC) expansion method for uncertainty quantification and collision assessment in air traffic consisting of fixed-wing small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAV) was studied. From the results obtained, it can be concluded that this provides a reliable framework to carry out quantitative conflict assessment in an unmanned air traffic, which when employed, can improve the functionalities of the unmanned traffic management system. It was observed that the results from the gPC expansion framework developed in the project can be utilized to conduct rapid probabilistic collision assessment for near real-time unmanned traffic management in the airspace. From the vehicle models, position updates, and wind-field data, a priori gPC based 3-σcon-fidence ellipses can provide estimates of potential conflict at some future instants. The computational costs scaled linearly when the uncertain inputs were fewer. Further, the largest allowable distribution of para-metric uncertainties that leads to the smallest risk of collision in traffic of small unmanned aerial vehicles could be calculated. The time of closest approach between two sUAVs can be established paving way for development of proactive mitigation strategies. The separation between the sUAVs was found to be most significantly affected by uncertainties in the maximum available thrusts, zero-lift drag coefficients, and wing planform areas of the sUAVs. The study of uncertain wind-fields indicated that a heterogeneous traffic mix resulted in an increased probability of conflict. Increased measurement update rate reduced the uncertain-ties in the trajectories of the vehicles, further reducing the probability of conflict but rapid updates of all vehicles in the airspace poses a stringent communication limitation. The gPC framework also provided the means to analyze vehicle impact (crash region) due to loss of control resulting from actuator failure in sUAS traffic, essentially to predict impact and crash zones for representative vehicles. The predicted regions when compared with non-participant density, provides a means to develop an early mitigation strategy, should the sUAV detect an imminent actuator failure.

Rajnish Bhusal↗