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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

Development of a real-time aeroperformance analysis technique for the X-29A advanced technology demonstrator

The X-29A advanced technology demonstrator has shown the practicality and advantages of the capability to compute and display, in real time, aeroperformance flight results. This capability includes the calculation of the in flight measured drag polar, lift curve, and aircraft specific excess power. From these elements, many other types of aeroperformance measurements can be computed and analyzed. The technique can be used to give an immediate postmaneuver assessment of data quality and maneuver technique, thus increasing the productivity of a flight program. A key element of this new method was the concurrent development of a real-time in flight net thrust algorithm, based on the simplified gross thrust method. This net thrust algorithm allows for the direct calculation of total aircraft drag.

Ray, R. J.↗

PC-CUBE: A Personal Computer Based Hypercube

PC-CUBE is an ensemble of IBM PCs or close compatibles connected in the hypercube topology with ordinary computer cables. Communication occurs at the rate of 115.2 K-band via the RS-232 serial links. Available for PC-CUBE is the Crystalline Operating System III (CrOS III), Mercury Operating System, CUBIX and PLOTIX which are parallel I/O and graphics libraries. A CrOS performance monitor was developed to facilitate the measurement of communication and computation time of a program and their effects on performance. Also available are CXLISP, a parallel version of the XLISP interpreter; GRAFIX, some graphics routines for the EGA and CGA; and a general execution profiler for determining execution time spent by program subroutines. PC-CUBE provides a programming environment similar to all hypercube systems running CrOS III, Mercury and CUBIX. In addition, every node (personal computer) has its own graphics display monitor and storage devices. These allow data to be displayed or stored at every processor, which has much instructional value and enables easier debugging of applications. Some application programs which are taken from the book Solving Problems on Concurrent Processors (Fox 88) were implemented with graphics enhancement on PC-CUBE. The applications range from solving the Mandelbrot set, Laplace equation, wave equation, long range force interaction, to WaTor, an ecological simulation.

Ho, Alex↗

Solid Inflammability Boundary at Low Speed (SIBAL)

This research program is concerned with the effect of low-speed, concurrent flow on the spreading and extinction processes of flames over solid fuels. The primary objective is to verify the theoretically predicted extinction boundary, using oxygen percentage and flow velocity as coordinates. In particular, we are interested in the low-speed quenching limits and the existence of the critical oxygen flammability limit. Detailed flame spread characteristics, including flame spread rate, flame size, and flame structure are sought. Since the predicted flame behavior depends on the inclusion of flame and surface radiation, the measured results will also be used to assess the importance of radiative heat transfer by direct comparison to a comprehensive numerical model. This project passed the Science Concept Review (SCR) in 1996. As a result, the experiment continues on the flight definition path, and is currently scheduled to be performed in the Space Station Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR). We present an overview of recent and ongoing work, including selected experimental and theoretical topics.

T'ien, James S.↗

Solid Inflammability Boundary at Low-Speed (SIBAL)

This research program is concerned with the effect of low-speed, concurrent flow on the spreading and extinction processes of flames over solid fuels. The primary objective is to verify the theoretically predicted extinction boundary, using oxygen percentage and flow velocity as coordinates. Of particular interest are the low-speed quenching limits and the existence of the critical oxygen flammability limit. Detailed flame spread characteristics, including flame spread rate, flame size, and flame structure are sought. Since the predicted flame behavior depends on the inclusion of flame and surface radiation, the measured results will also be used to assess the importance of radiative heat transfer by direct comparison to a comprehensive numerical model. The solid fuel used in this experiment is a custom-made fabric consisting of a 1:1 blend of cotton and fiberglass. This choice was made following an extensive search to yield a material with favorable properties, namely, rollability, non-cracking behavior during combustion, strength after combustion, and flammability in a range of oxygen limits permissible within the Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) on the International Space Station. At the present time, an effort is being made to characterize both the radiative properties of the fuel and the flame spreading behavior in normal gravity at reduced pressure. These will provide a basis for comparison with the microgravity results as well as aid in bracketing the anticipated flammability boundary for the flight experiment. An overview of recent work, with emphasis on theoretical results, is presented.

T'ien, James↗

STARDUST: Discovery's InterStellar Dust and Cometary Sample Return Mission

The STARDUST Discovery mission will collect samples of cometary and interstellar dust and return them to Earth. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides project management with Lockheed Martin Astronautics as the spacecraft industrial partner. STARDUST management is aggressively pursuing cost control through the use of Total Quality Management principles, specifically operating in a Project Engineering and Integration Team that

STARDUST↗

Maintaining consistency in distributed systems

In systems designed as assemblies of independently developed components, concurrent access to data or data structures normally arises within individual programs, and is controlled using mutual exclusion constructs, such as semaphores and monitors. Where data is persistent and/or sets of operation are related to one another, transactions or linearizability may be more appropriate. Systems that incorporate cooperative styles of distributed execution often replicate or distribute data within groups of components. In these cases, group oriented consistency properties must be maintained, and tools based on the virtual synchrony execution model greatly simplify the task confronting an application developer. All three styles of distributed computing are likely to be seen in future systems - often, within the same application. This leads us to propose an integrated approach that permits applications that use virtual synchrony with concurrent objects that respect a linearizability constraint, and vice versa. Transactional subsystems are treated as a special case of linearizability.

Birman, Kenneth P.↗

Analytical Fuel Property Effects - Small Combustors. Phase II

A test program was conducted to study the effects of non-standard aviation fuels on a typical small gas turbine combustor, and to evaluate the effectiveness of design changes intended to counter the effects of these fuels. This study was a follow on to an earlier analytical study to predict the fuel effects and generate the design modifications evaluated in this program. The T700/CT7 engine family was chosen for both studies as being representative of the class of aircraft power plants desired for this study. Fuel properties, as specified by NASA, are characterized by low hydrogen content and high aromatics levels. No. 2 diesel fuel was also evaluated in this program. The tests demonstrated the anticipated higher than normal smoke output and flame radiation intensity with resulting increased metal temperatures on the baseline T700 combustor. Three new designs were evaluated using the non standard fuels. The three designs incorporated enhanced cooling features and smoke reduction features. All three designs, when burning the broad specification fuels, exhibited metal temperatures at or below the baseline combustor temperatures on JP-5. Smoke levels were acceptable but higher than predicted. This was partly due to the increase in baseline combustor smoke levels with the broad spec fuels being higher than anticipated. One combustor of the three clearly demonstrated the best smoke and metal temperature characteristics. It was also easiest to manufacture and incorporate into a production design. GE with NASA's concurrence selected and subjected this combustor to a final component test program.

Monty, J.↗

Development of a New Data Tool for Computing Launch and Landing Availability with Respect to Surface Weather

The Marshall Space Flight Center Natural Environments Branch has a long history of expertise in the modeling and computation of statistical launch availabilities with respect to weather conditions. Their existing data analysis product, the Atmospheric Parametric Risk Assessment (APRA) tool, computes launch availability given an input set of vehicle hardware and/or operational weather constraints by calculating the climatological probability of exceeding the specified constraint limits, APRA has been used extensively to provide the Space Shuttle program the ability to estimate impacts that various proposed design modifications would have to overall launch availability. The model accounts for both seasonal and diurnal variability at a single geographic location and provides output probabilities for a single arbitrary launch attempt. Recently, the Shuttle program has shown interest in having additional capabilities added to the APRA model, including analysis of humidity parameters, inclusion of landing site weather to produce landing availability, and concurrent analysis of multiple sites, to assist in operational landing site selection. In addition, the Constellation program has also expressed interest in the APRA tool, and has requested several additional capabilities to address some Constellation-specific issues, both in the specification and verification of design requirements and in the development of operations concepts. The combined scope of the requested capability enhancements suggests an evolution of the model beyond a simple revision process. Development has begun for a new data analysis tool that will satisfy the requests of both programs. This new tool, Probabilities of Atmospheric Conditions and Environmental Risk (PACER), will provide greater flexibility and significantly enhanced functionality compared to the currently existing tool.

Burns, K. Lee↗

Design and evaluation of executable assertions for concurrent error detection

System level concurrent detection of errors due to hardware faults can be accomplished by introducing software redundancy in the form of executable assertions into a program to monitor the correct operation of the system during its execution. This paper attempts to formalize the use of executable assertions for the purpose of concurrent error detection, and discusses a transformation approach to the design of assertion statements. The second part deals with the effectiveness of the error detection technique. A fault simulation method for the evaluation of the reliability of the assertion statements is described. This scheme was used to study the effectiveness of a nontrivial program in providing protection against faults in the underlying system. The experimental results shows that the use of executable assertions provides an effective approach to achieve concurrent error detection.

Hua, Kien A.↗

One-pot catalytic conversion of biomass and alkanes: Kinetically coupling deoxygenation and dehydrogenation pathways

The stoichiometric hydrogen deficiency of carbohydrate feedstock implies that all conversion processes must remove oxygen and concurrently increase hydrogen content to form liquid hydrocarbon products. With support from the DOE Early Career program (DE-SC0008418) we have investigated the use of transition metal carbides for hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) chemistries using CH 4 and H 2 as co-reactants. We report that concurrently processing CH 4 and C 1 -C 3 oxygenates (oxygenate/CH 4 = 0.01-0.1) at 950 K on molybdenum carbide clusters encapsulated in zeolite micropores results in a staged bed with upstream CH 4 reforming and downstream CH 4 dehydroaromatization. Forward rates of CH 4 pyrolysis limited by CH 4 activation are unperturbed by the introduction of oxygenates with a (C/H) eff <0.25 after rigorously accounting for the thermodynamic reversibility caused by the H 2 produced in oxygenate reforming reactions and the fraction of the active catalyst bed deemed unavailable for CH 4 dehydroaromatization. A binomial distribution of 12 C/ 13 C isotopologues of CO is observed upon introduction of CH 3 13 COOH/CH 4 reactants suggesting that the introduction of oxygenates with a (C/H) eff <0.25 results in complete fragmentation of the oxygenate at these temperatures which in turn results in the invariance of forward rates of CH 4 pyrolysis when using CO 2 , HCOOH, or CH 3 COOH co-feeds. The stoichiometric loss of oxygen as CO when co-processing C 1 -C 3 oxygenates and CH 4 at these temperatures demonstrates that (C/H) eff =(C-O)/H is a single valued descriptor for oxygen removal on Mo/HZSM-5 catalysts. Separately, we have demonstrated the utility of transition metal carbides for vapor phase catalytic hydrodeoxygenation using molecular hydrogen with high selectivity for C-O cleavage and near absence of sequential hydrogenation reactions at atmospheric hydrogen pressure and illustrated that the faculty of transition metal carbides for selective hydrodeoxygenation arises due to oxygen-modification of the catalyst in situ. The oxophilic characteristics of these materials engender both the observed acid-metal catalytic bifunctionality and selectivity for hydrodeoxygenation. The evolution of catalyst surface composition and catalytic function under oxidative reaction environments proffers unique challenges in structural characterization of these materials and in this context, we developed and demonstrated the use of chemical titration and chemical transient studies to assess catalytic site identity and densities.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Ethics Education in University Aviation Management Programs in the US: The Need - Part 1

This three-part study examines how four-year universities in the United States with baccalaureate programs in aviation management include ethics instruction in their curricula. Based on a literature review, no research exists to describe the current status of teaching ethics to aviation students. Yet concurrently, unethical activities reported in the media involving the aviation industry indicates the need for such programs. Part One of this study justifies the need for ethics education and develops a series of hypotheses to evaluate the current status of ethics instruction, which was investigated and will be reported on in Parts Two and Three of this study, respectively.

Oderman, Dale B.↗

Mars Pathfinder

The Mars Pathfinder Mission Assurance program was the first.

concurrent engineering early↗

Methods for design and evaluation of integrated hardware-software systems for concurrent computation

Research activities and publications are briefly summarized. The major tasks reviewed are: (1) VAX implementation of the PISCES parallel programming environment; (2) Apollo workstation network implementation of the PISCES environment; (3) FLEX implementation of the PISCES environment; (4) sparse matrix iterative solver in PSICES Fortran; (5) image processing application of PISCES; and (6) a formal model of concurrent computation being developed.

Pratt, T. W.↗

Cache Locality Optimization for Recursive Programs

We present an approach to optimize the cache locality for recursive programs by dynamically splicing--recursively interleaving--the execution of distinct function invocations. By utilizing data effect annotations, we identify concurrency and data reuse opportunities across function invocations and interleave them to reduce reuse distance. We present algorithms that efficiently track effects in recursive programs, detect interference and dependencies, and interleave execution of function invocations using user-level (non-kernel) lightweight threads. To enable multi-core execution, a program is parallelized using a nested fork/join programming model. Our cache optimization strategy is designed to work in the context of a random work stealing scheduler. We present an implementation using the MIT Cilk framework that demonstrates significant improvements in sequential and parallel performance, competitive with a state-of-the-art compile-time optimizer for loop programs and a domain- specific optimizer for stencil programs.

Lifflander, Jonathan↗

An Overview of SAL

To become practical for assurance, automated formal methods must be made more scalable, automatic, and cost-effective. Such an increase in scope, scale, automation, and utility can be derived from an emphasis on a systematic separation of concerns during verification. SAL (Symbolic Analysis Laboratory) attempts to address these issues. It is a framework for combining different tools to calculate properties of concurrent systems. The heart of SAL is a language, developed in collaboration with Stanford, Berkeley, and Verimag for specifying concurrent systems in a compositional way. Our instantiation of the SAL framework augments PVS with tools for abstraction, invariant generation, program analysis (such as slicing), theorem proving, and model checking to separate concerns as well as calculate properties (i.e., perform, symbolic analysis) of concurrent systems. We. describe the motivation, the language, the tools, their integration in SAL/PAS, and some preliminary experience of their use.

Bensalem, Saddek↗

Quantum multi-programming for Grover’s search

Quantum multi-programming is a method utilizing contemporary noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers by executing multiple quantum circuits concurrently. Despite early research on it, the research remains on quantum gates or small-size quantum algorithms without correlation. In this paper, we propose a quantum multi-programming (QMP algorithm for Grover's search. Our algorithm decomposes Grover's algorithm by the partial diffusion operator and executes the decomposed circuits in parallel by QMP. We proved that this new algorithm increases the rotation angle of the Grover operator which, as a result, increases the success probability. The new algorithm is implemented on IBM quantum computers and compared with the canonical Grover's algorithm and other variations of Grover's algorithms. So, the empirical tests validate that our new algorithm outperforms other variations of Grover's algorithms as well as the canonical Grover's algorithm.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Environmental requirements for flat plate photovoltaic modules for terrestrial applications

The environmental test requirements that have been developed for flat plate modules purchased through Department of Energy funding are described. Concurrent with the selection of the initial qualification tests from space program experience - temperature cycling and humidity - surveys of existing photovoltaic systems in the field revealed that arrays were experiencing the following failure modes: interconnect breakage, delamination, and electrical termination corrosion. These coupled with application-dependent considerations led to the development of additional qualification tests, such as cyclic pressure loading, warped mounting surface, and hail. Rationale for the selection of tests, their levels and durations is described. Comparisons between field-observed degradation and test-induced degradation show a positive correlation with some of the observed field effects. Also, the tests are proving useful for detecting design, process, and workmanship deficiencies. The status of study efforts for the development of environmental requirements for field-related problems is reviewed.

Hoffman, A. R.↗

Advanced main combustion chamber program

The topics presented are covered in viewgraph form and include the following: investment of low cost castings; usage of SSME program; usage of MSFC personnel for design effort; and usage of concurrent engineering techniques.

Source record↗