SEARCH · Search NASA
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.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
The author has identified the following significant results. Results have demonstrated the suitability of satellite retransmission as a means of obtaining near real time data from remote areas in Canada. Capital costs of the equipment installed at a gaging station are reasonable, and indications are that the DCPs do not require much maintenance. The potential impact on water resources data gathering activities is considerable.
Numerical integrations of the structure function of tropospheric inhomogeneities have been performed to assess the impact of water vapor fluctuations on connected element interferometry (CEI). The expectation value of the RMS troposphere error for a differential spacecraft-quasar observation is derived by integrating the spatial refractivity structure function along raypaths to both the spacecraft and quasar from two spatially separated sites. Correlations between the tropospheric conditions at the two sites, which can become significant for short baseline observations, are fully accounted for in this calculation. Temporal effects are treated by assuming a frozen-flow model in which a fixed spatial distribution blows over both sites. Two nominal observation scenarios are considered, along with variations to study the dependence of the resultant differential troposphere errors on baseline length, observation time, source separation angle, and elevation. Consecutive differential observations are found to be almost completely uncorrelated, implying that averaging many repeated differential observations can quickly reduce the troposphere error.
Advanced space missions will require oxygen and hydrogen utilities for several important operations including the following: (1) propulsion; (2) electrical power generation and storage; (3) environmental control and life support; (4) extravehicular activity; (5) in-space manufacturing and (6) in-space science activities. An experiment suited to a Space Shuttle standard middeck payload has been designed for the Static Feed Water Electrolysis technology which has been viewed as being capable of efficient, reliable oxygen and hydrogen generation with few subsystem components. The program included: end use design requirements, phenomena to be studied, Space Shuttle Orbiter experiment constraints, experiment design and data requirements, and test hardware requirements. The objectives are to obtain scientific and engineering data for future research and development and to focus on demonstrating and monitoring for safety of a standard middeck payload.
The current overall safety criterion for both radioisotope and reactor power sources is containment or immobilization in the case of a reentry accident. In addition, reactors are designed to remain subcritical under conditions of land impact or water immersion. A very extensive safety test and analysis program was completed on the radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) in use on the Galileo spacecraft and planned for use on the Ulysses spacecraft. The results of this work show that the RTGs will pose little or no risk for any credible accident. The SP-100 space nuclear reactor program has begun addressing its safety criteria, and the design is planned to be such as to ensure meeting the various safety criteria. Preliminary mission risk analyses on SP-100 show the expected value population dose from postulated accidents on the reference mission to be very small. It is concluded that the current US nuclear power sources are the safest flown.
The performance of an axial-flow fan-compressor unit is basically unsteady when there is ingestion of water along with the gas phase. The gas phase is a mixture of air and water vapor in the case of a bypass fan engine that provides thrust power to an aircraft. The liquid water may be in the form of droplets and film at entry to the fan. The unsteadiness is then associated with the relative motion between the gas phase and water, at entry and within the machine, while the water undergoes impact on material surfaces, centrifuging, heat and mass transfer processes, and reingestion in blade wakes, following peal off from blade surfaces. The unsteadiness may be caused by changes in atmospheric conditions and at entry into and exit from rain storms while the aircraft is in flight. In a multi-stage machine, with an uneven distribution of blade tip clearance, the combined effect of various processes in the presence of steady or time-dependent ingestion is such as to make the performance of a fan and a compressor unit time-dependent from the start of ingestion up to a short time following termination of ingestion. The original WINCOF code was developed without accounting for the relative motion between gas and liquid phases in the ingested fluid. A modification of the WINCOF code was developed and named WINCOF-1. The WINCOF-1 code can provide the transient performance of a fan-compressor unit under a variety of input conditions.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
A theory for the side force, rolling moment, yawing moment, and pressure distribution during yawed landings and planing of seaplanes was developed. For the special case of the straight-sided wedge without chine immersion, the results of the theoretical analysis are presented in the form of generalized curves covering all step landing conditions. Experimental impact and planing data are presented for a prismatic wedge having an angle of dead rise of 22.5 degrees and are shown to be in reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions.
The ability to predict precipitation several months in advance would have a significant impact on water resource management. This talk provides an overview of a project aimed at developing this prediction capability. NASA's Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project (NSIPP) will generate seasonal-to-interannual sea surface temperature predictions through detailed ocean circulation modeling and will then translate these SST forecasts into forecasts of continental precipitation through the application of an atmospheric general circulation model and a "SVAT"-type land surface model. As part of the process, ocean variables (e.g., height) and land variables (e.g., soil moisture) will be updated regularly via data assimilation. The overview will include a discussion of the variability inherent in such a modeling system and will provide some quantitative estimates of the absolute upper limits of seasonal-to-interannual precipitation predictability.
A case of torrential precipitation process in the Mei-yu front, an Asian monsoon system east to the Tibetan Plateau, is studied with the coupled Penn State University/NCAR MM5 and NASA/GSFC PLACE (Parameterization for Land - Atmosphere - Cloud Exchange) models. Remote and local impacts of water vapor on the location and intensity of Mei-yu precipitation are studied by numerical experiments. Results demonstrate that the water vapor source for this heavy precipitation case in Yangtze river basin is derived mostly from the Bay of Bengal, transported by the southwesterly low-level Jet (LLJ) southeast to the Tibetan Plateau. The moist convection is a critical process in the development and maintenance of the front. The meridional and zonal secondary circulations resulted from Mei-yu condensation heating both act to increase the wind speed in the LLJ. The condensation induced local circulation strengthens the moisture transport in the LLJ, providing a positive feedback to sustain the Mei-yu precipitation system. It is found that local precipitation recycling shifts heavy rain toward the warm side of the Mei-yu front. This shift of rainfall location is due to the pronounced increase of atmospheric moisture and decrease of surface temperature over the warm side of the front.
Results are presented on the following:(A) Ab initio quantum chemical studies of reactions in astrophysical ices.Theoretical electronic structure calculations were used to investigate reactions between formaldehyde (H2CO) and both hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and isocyanide (HNC) in search of other favorable reactions such as ammonia-formaldehyde addition, which was found in a recent theoretical study to be strongly enhanced when it occurs within cold ices.The present study examines further reactions between this product and H2CO in ices.(B) Heterogeneous hydrogenation of CO and H2CO on icy grain mantles.Formaldehyde (H2CO) and methanol (CH30H) are thought to be produced in the interstellar medium by the successive hydrogenation of carbon monoxide (CO) on grain surfaces. In the gas phase, the steps in which H adds to CO and H2CO possess modest barriers and are too inefficient to account for the observed abundances. Recent laboratory work has confirmed that formaldehyde and methanol are formed when H atoms are deposited on CO ice at 12 K. The present study employed ab initio quantum chemical calculations to investigate the impact of water ice on the sequential hydrogenation of CO.(C) Ice-bound condensed-phase reactions involving formic acid (HCOOH), methylenimine (CH2NH), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), hydrogen isocyanide (HNC), and ammonia ( 3) were investigated in order to characterize possible pathways to larger organic species that are efficient at the cold temperatures prevalent in cometary nuclei and the interstellar medium. (D) Pathways to glycine and other amino acids in ultraviolet-irradiated ices determined via quantum chemical modeling.(E) Photoionization in ultraviolet processing of astrophysical ice analogs at cryogenic temperatures.
An elongated sea ice feature called the Svalbard sea ice barrier rapidly formed over an area in the Barents Sea to the east of Svalbard posing navigation hazards. The secret of its formation lies in the bottom bathymetry that governs the distribution of cold Arctic waters masses, which impacts sea ice growth on the water surface.
The parachutes on the Space Transportation System (STS) Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) are the means for decelerating the SRB and allowing it to impact the water at a nominal vertical velocity of 75 feet per second. Each SRB has one pilot, one drogue, and three main parachutes. About four minutes after SRB separation, the SRB nose cap is jettisoned, deploying the pilot parachute. The pilot chute then deploys the drogue parachute. The drogue chute provides initial deceleration and proper SRB orientation prior to frustum separation. At frustum separation, the drogue pulls the frustum from the SRB and allows the main parachutes that are mounted in the frustum to unpack and inflate. These chutes are retrieved, inspected, cleaned, repaired as needed, and returned to the flight inventory and reused. Over the course of the Shuttle Program, several improvements have been introduced to the SRB main parachutes. A major change was the replacement of the small (115 ft. diameter) main parachutes with the larger (136 ft. diameter) main parachutes. Other modifications were made to the main parachutes, main parachute support structure, and SRB frustum to eliminate failure mechanisms, improve damage tolerance, and improve deployment and inflation characteristics. This reliability analysis is limited to the examination of the SRB Large Main Parachute (LMP) and drogue parachute failure history to assess the reliability of these chutes. From the inventory analysis, 68 Large Main Parachutes were used in 651 deployments, and 7 chute failures occurred in the 651 deployments. Logistic regression was used to analyze the LMP failure history, and it showed that reliability growth has occurred over the period of use resulting in a current chute reliability of R = .9983. This result was then used to determine the reliability of the 3 LMPs on the SRB, when all must function. There are 29 drogue parachutes that were used in 244 deployments, and no in-flight failures have occurred. Since there are no observed drogue chute failures, Jeffreys Prior was used to calculate a reliability of R =.998. Based on these results, it is concluded that the LMP and drogue parachutes on the Shuttle SRB are suited to their mission and changes made over their life have improved the reliability of the parachute.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences between and the effects of hard and soft safety verifications. Initially, the terminology should be defined and clarified. A hard safety verification is datum which demonstrates how a safety control is enacted. An example of this is relief valve testing. A soft safety verification is something which is usually described as nice to have but it is not necessary to prove safe operation. An example of a soft verification is the loss of the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) casings from Shuttle flight, STS-4. When the main parachutes failed, the casings impacted the water and sank. In the nose cap of the SRBs, video cameras recorded the release of the parachutes to determine safe operation and to provide information for potential anomaly resolution. Generally, examination of the casings and nozzles contributed to understanding of the newly developed boosters and their operation. Safety verification of SRB operation was demonstrated by examination for erosion or wear of the casings and nozzle. Loss of the SRBs and associated data did not delay the launch of the next Shuttle flight.
We evaluate different techniques that rebuild reservoir bathymetry by combining multi-satellite imagery of surface water elevation and extent. Digital elevation models (DEMs) are processed in two distinct ways in order to determine 3-D reservoir bathymetry. They are defined as (a) linear extrapolation and (b) linear interpolation. The first one linearly extrapolates the land slope, defining the bottom as the intersection of all extrapolated lines. The second linearly interpolates the uppermost and lowermost pixels of the reservoir's main river, repeating the process for all other tributaries. A visible bathymetry, resulting from the combination of radar altimetry and water extent masks, can be coupled with the DEM, improving the accuracy of techniques (a) and (b). Envisat-and Altika-based altimetric time series is combined to a Landsat-based water extent database over the2002-2016 period in order to generate the visible bathymetry, and topography is derived from the 3-arcsecHydroSHEDS DEM. Fourteen 3-D bathymetries derived from the combination of these techniques and datasets, plus the inclusion of upstream and downstream riverbed elevations, are evaluated over Lake Mead. Accuracy is measured using ground observations, and show that metrics improve as a function of added data requirement and processing. Best bathymetry estimates are obtained when the visible bathymetry, linear extrapolation technique and riverbed elevation are combined. Water storage variability is also evaluated and shows that best results are derived from the aforementioned combination. This study contributes to our understanding and representation of reservoir water impoundment impacts on the hydrological cycle.
While it has generally been understood that the production of Labrador Sea Water (LSW) impacts the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC), this relationship has not been explored extensively nor validated against observations. To explore this relationship, a suite of global ocean and ocean–sea-ice models forced by the same interannually-varying atmospheric dataset, varying in resolution from non-eddy permitting to eddy-permitting (1°–1/4°), is analyzed to investigate the local and downstream relationships between LSW formation and the MOC on interannual to decadal time scales. While all models display a strong relationship between changes in the LSW volume and the MOC in the Labrador Sea, this relationship degrades considerably downstream of the Labrador Sea. In particular, there is no consistent pattern among the models in the North Atlantic subtropical basin over interannual to decadal time scales. Furthermore, the strong response of the MOC in the Labrador Sea to LSW volume changes in that basin may be biased by the overproduction of LSW in many models compared to observations. This analysis shows that changes in LSW volume in the Labrador Sea cannot be clearly and consistently linked to a coherent MOC response across latitudes over interannual to decadal time scales in ocean hindcast simulations of the last half-century. Similarly, no coherent relationships are identified between the MOC and the Labrador Sea mixed layer depth or the density of newly formed LSW across latitudes or across models over interannual to decadal time scales.
In recent years, wildfires in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest have become increasingly common and more severe. Wildfires can have powerful impacts on hydrology and soil stability, including erosion, flooding, and debris-flows that threaten lives and infrastructure downstream. Vegetation restoration treatments like seeding and mulching can mitigate these effects and facilitate ecosystem recovery. Understanding the effectiveness of various restoration methods is vital to planning a cost-effective and successful post-fire recovery strategy. The immediate response to a fire on US Forest Service land is coordinated by a Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team, a group responsible for mitigating immediate post-fire risks to human life, property, and critical natural and cultural resources. This study created a proof-of-concept methodology for a decision-support tool designed to help BAER teams identify the restoration treatments most likely to succeed in a given burned area. Leveraging random forest regression, Google Earth Engine, and Landsat 7 and 8 Earth observations, this study modeled vegetation recovery after the 2013 Silver Fire for seeded areas, seeded/mulched areas, and untreated areas. Treatment type and initial burn severity were the largest drivers of vegetation recovery across the landscape. Seeded/mulched areas showed higher recovery levels than untreated areas three months post-fire, but by four years post-fire, treated and untreated areas displayed similar recovery levels. To produce a robust predictive tool for the Gila National Forest, the model should be trained on many more fires and incorporate post-fire weather conditions into the process. Such a model will help partners ensure efficient resource use and plan effective post-fire restoration strategies.
South and Southeast Asia is subject to significant hydrometeorological extremes, including drought. Under rising temperatures, growing populations, and an apparent weakening of the South Asian monsoon in recent decades, concerns regarding drought and its potential impacts on water and food security are on the rise. Reliable sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) hydrological forecasts could, in principle, help governments and international organizations to better assess risk and act in the face of an oncoming drought. Here, we leverage recent improvements in S2S meteorological forecasts and the growing power of Earth Observations to provide more accurate monitoring of hydrological states for forecast initialization. Information from both sources is merged in a South and Southeast Asia sub-seasonal to seasonal hydrological forecasting system (SAHFS-S2S), developed collaboratively with the NASA SERVIR program and end-users across the region. This system applies the Noah-MultiParameterization (NoahMP) Land Surface Model (LSM) in the NASA Land Information System (LIS), driven by downscaled meteorological fields from the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) and Climate Hazards InfraRed Precipitation products (CHIRP and CHIRPS) to optimize initial conditions. The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System Model - sub-seasonal to seasonal (GEOS-S2S) forecasts, downscaled using the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) General Analog Regression Downscaling (GARD) tool and quantile mapping, are then applied to drive 5-km resolution hydrological forecasts to a 9-month forecast time horizon. Results show that the skillful predictions of root zone soil moisture can be made one to two months in advance for forecasts initialized in rainy seasons and up to 8 months when initialized in dry seasons. The memory of accurate initial conditions can positively contribute to forecast skills throughout the entire 9-month prediction period in areas with limited precipitation. This SAHFS-S2S has been operationalized at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) to support drought monitoring and warning needs in the region.
Rapid drought intensification, or flash droughts, is often driven by anomalous atmospheric ridging and can cause severe and complex impacts on water availability and agriculture, but the full range of variability of such events in terms of intensity and frequency is unknown. New tree-ring reconstructions of May–July mid-tropospheric ridging and soil moisture anomalies back to 1500 CE in the central United States — a hotspot for flash drought — suggest that over the last five centuries, anomalies in these two variables combined to indicate flash-drought conditions in ~17% of years and exceptionally severe flash drought in ~4% of years, similar to frequencies in recent decades. However, over one-third of all inferred exceptional flash droughts occurred since 1900, suggesting the 20th century was highly flash-drought prone. These results may guide future work to diagnose the roles of external, oceanic, and land-surface forcing of warm-season atmospheric circulation and hydroclimate over North America.