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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 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Development of Cast Valve Bodies For High Temperature Service

Gen 3 Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) system components are required to operate at 750°C - 800°C to achieve the Sunshot target of 6 cents/kWh. Haynes ® 282 and IN ® 740H are preferred alloys for the construction of these components due to their high tensile and creep strengths for service at temperatures greater than 750°C. There is significant motivation to lower the cost of materials and components so that the capital costs can be minimized. One approach to reduce costs is to fabricate castings at the lowest possible cost. To obtain the lowest cost in castings, there is a significant need to maximize yields in castings by decreasing rejects due to casting defects and to minimize wastage in material lost in the gating systems. However, very little work has been performed to develop cast products using Haynes ® 282. Although preliminary work has established the feasibility of casting Haynes ® 282 using investment and sand casting, there are no commercial cast components available. In particular, there is significant interest in the development of casting design and process technology for the fabrication of components such as valve bodies using Haynes ® 282.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1984

White Cliffs: Operating Experience

The fourteen dish white cliffs solar power station area is remote and subject to extreme environmental conditions, solution of the associated problems required careful and thoughtful attention and the application of resources. Notwithstanding the wide range and harshness of conditions, the difficulties caused by remoteness and the lack of a technological base and the need for relatively rapid demonstration of success, the project has had a very positive outcome. Qualitative and quantitative information and lessons are now available to enable considerable simplifications to be made for a new system, reducing both hardware and operation and maintenance costs. Experience and lessons are presented, particularly in relation to: system performance in various environmental conditions; design philosophies for collectors, the array, control systems, engine and plant; operation and maintenance strategies and cost reducing possibilities. Experience so far gives encouragement for the future of such paraboloidal dish systems in appropriate areas.

Kaneff, S.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Deep Space Habitat Team: HEFT Phase 2 Effects

HEFT was a NASA-wide team that performed analyses of architectures for human exploration beyond LEO, evaluating technical, programmatic, and budgetary issues to support decisions at the highest level of the agency in HSF planning. HEFT Phase I (April - September, 2010) and Phase II (September - December, 2010) examined a broad set of Human Exploration of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) Design Reference Missions (DRMs), evaluating such factors as elements, performance, technologies, schedule, and cost. At end of HEFT Phase 1, an architecture concept known as DRM 4a represented the best available option for a full capability NEO mission. Within DRM4a, the habitation system was provided by Deep Space Habitat (DSH), Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV), and Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV) pressurized elements. HEFT Phase 2 extended DRM4a, resulting in DRM4b. Scrubbed element-level functionality assumptions and mission Concepts of Operations. Habitation Team developed more detailed concepts of the DSH and the DSH/MMSEV/CTV Conops, including functionality and accommodations, mass & volume estimates, technology requirements, and DDT&E costs. DRM 5 represented an effort to reduce cost by scaling back on technologies and eliminating the need for the development of an MMSEV.

Toups, Larry D.↗
DOE OSTI2025

The National Solar Radiation Database Final Report: Fiscal Years 2022-2024

The National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) is the leading public source of high-resolution solar resource data in the United States, with more than 400,000 users annually. This database represents the state of the art in the satellite-based estimation of solar resource information and uses a unique physics-based modeling approach that enables improvements in accuracy with the deployment of the next-generation geostationary satellites. Making the highest-quality, state-of-the-art, regularly updated datasets available on a timely basis for users reduces costs of solar deployment by providing accurate information for siting studies and system output prediction and thereby reduces project financing costs and risks.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Nuclear Power Fault Diagnostics and Preventative Maintenance Optimization

The nuclear industry is beginning to see reactors shut down—even after their operating licenses have been extended—because they are not economically competitive with other energy sources. These early closures happen primarily due to economic reasons, despite excellent safety records. Therefore, it is imperative to reduce costs in order to prevent these early closures. One of the contributors to these economic reasons is the large operations and maintenance costs. This paper showcases recent research on advanced fault diagnostics techniques and preventative maintenance optimization (PMO) for reducing NPP maintenance costs. Specifically, it focuses on the feedwater and condensate system (FWCS) for both pressurized- and boiling-water reactor (BWR) systems. The computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), which contains the plant’s digital record of all corrective maintenance (CM) and preventative maintenance (PM) work orders, provided the ground truth for locating potential faults and labeling the process data as either healthy or faulted. Various feature extraction techniques were used to further differentiate the faulted data from the healthy data. Through a cross-validation procedure, support vectors machines were used to label other test sets of process data as either healthy or faulted. With relatively few faults identified in the BWR system, the potential for PMO opens up, since an unnecessary amount of PM leads to inflated maintenance costs. The steps for PMO are summarized, from component health determinations to recommendations for action. An example of PMO assessment is presented for condensate pumps, condensate booster pumps, and the respective motors that drive them.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Nuclear Power Fault Diagnostics and Preventative Maintenance Optimization NPIC presentation

The nuclear industry is beginning to see reactors shut down—even after their operating licenses have been extended—because they are not economically competitive with other energy sources. These early closures happen primarily due to economic reasons, despite excellent safety records. Therefore, it is imperative to reduce costs in order to prevent these early closures. One of the contributors to these economic reasons is the large operations and maintenance costs. This paper showcases recent research on advanced fault diagnostics techniques and preventative maintenance optimization (PMO) for reducing NPP maintenance costs. Specifically, it focuses on the feedwater and condensate system (FWCS) for both pressurized- and boiling-water reactor (BWR) systems. The computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), which contains the plant’s digital record of all corrective maintenance (CM) and preventative maintenance (PM) work orders, provided the ground truth for locating potential faults and labeling the process data as either healthy or faulted. Various feature extraction techniques were used to further differentiate the faulted data from the healthy data. Through a cross-validation procedure, support vectors machines were used to label other test sets of process data as either healthy or faulted. With relatively few faults identified in the BWR system, the potential for PMO opens up, since an unnecessary amount of PM leads to inflated maintenance costs. The steps for PMO are summarized, from component health determinations to recommendations for action. An example of PMO assessment is presented for condensate pumps, condensate booster pumps, and the respective motors that drive them.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Multilevel Monte Carlo methods for the Grad-Shafranov free boundary problem

The equilibrium configuration of a plasma in an axially symmetric reactor is described mathematically by a free boundary problem associated with the celebrated Grad-Shafranov equation. The presence of uncertainty in the model parameters introduces the need to quantify the variability in the predictions. This is often done by computing a large number of model solutions on a computational grid for an ensemble of parameter values and then obtaining estimates for the statistical properties of solutions. In this study, we explore the savings that can be obtained using multilevel Monte Carlo methods, which reduce costs by performing the bulk of the computations on a sequence of spatial grids that are coarser than the one that would typically be used for a simple Monte Carlo simulation. We examine this approach using both a set of uniformly refined grids and a set of adaptively refined grids guided by a discrete error estimator. Numerical experiments show that multilevel methods dramatically reduce the cost of simulation, with cost reductions typically on the order of 60 or more and possibly as large as 200. Furthermore, adaptive griding results in more accurate computation of geometric quantities such as x-points associated with the model.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Static Subspace Approximation for Random Phase Approximation Correlation Energies: Applications to Materials for Catalysis and Electrochemistry

Modeling complex materials using high-fidelity, ab initio methods at low cost is a fundamental goal for quantum chemical software packages. The GW approximation and random phase approximation (RPA) provide a unified description of both electronic structure and total energies using the same physics in a many-body perturbative approach that can be more accurate than generalized-gradient density functional theory (DFT) methods. However, GW/RPA implementations have historically been limited to either specific materials classes or application toward small chemical systems. Here, the static subspace approximation allows for reduced cost full-frequency GW/RPA calculations and has previously been benchmarked thoroughly for GW calculations. Here, we describe our approach to including partial occupations of electronic orbitals in full-frequency GW and RPA calculations for the study of electrocatalysts. We benchmarked RPA total energy calculations using the subspace approximation across a diverse test suite of materials for a variety of computational parameters. The benchmarking quantifies the impact of different extrapolation procedures for representing the static polarizability at infinite screened cutoff, and shows that using screened cutoffs above 20-25 Ryd result in diminishing accuracy returns for predicting RPA total energies. Additionally, for moderately sized electrocatalytic models, 2-3 times fewer computational resources are used to compute RPA total energies by representing the static polarizability with 20-30% of the static subspace basis, with an error of approximately 0.01 eV or better in RPA adsorption energy calculations. Finally, we show that for these electrochemical models RPA can shift DFT adsorption energy shifts by up to 0.5 eV and that GW can frequently shift DFT eigenvalues of surface and adsorbate states by approximately 0.5-1 eV.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Building a framework to genetically characterize “feather spots” and understand demographic impacts of solar energy sites on migratory bird populations

The lack of data on the impact of utility-scale solar facilities on avian species and populations adds to the cost of siting and operation. As much as 32 percent of the avian biological material (feathers and carcasses) recovered from solar facilities remain unidentified, because they often take the form of “feather spots”. Feather spots are remains of impacted animals that can be separated into two broad categories: 1) those remains that may be visually identified to a species, or 2) those that cannot be visually identified to a species due to degradation from the environment and/or scavenger activity (listed as “unknown”). Even when feather spots can be identified to species, they cannot be visually assigned to particular breeding populations. In some cases, it is unknown whether multiple feather spots represent single or multiple individuals. This project’s objectives were to: 1. Use a developed, genetic-based technique to identify and determine the species, population of origin, and number of individuals found in feather spots recovered from solar facilities. 2. Implement collected data and resulting analyses to develop a publicly accessible web-based decision-making tool that can be used by the solar industry, regulators and other stakeholders to inform siting, mitigation, and conservation management efforts. 3. Establish a not-for-profit fee-for-service center at UCLA to ensure collection and identification of feather spots continue after the project period of performance. During the Project Period, we proposed to establish a pipeline for collecting, transporting, and storing of avian biological material collected at solar facilities and the collection and identification of feather spots to species and individual. We proposed the development of a genetic-based framework that would recover viable DNA from feather spots, amplify this DNA (i.e., make millions of copies of the original DNA), and use it to match the resulting sequences to a national database of known species of birds. The result would be the identification of feathers spots that were previously unidentified, and the incorporation of these samples into a larger database that included all samples recovered from solar facilities. The resulting report (below) details the result of this work and its alignment with proposed activities. We proposed the use of the data collected to assess the comparative risk to specific species or populations of species from solar facilities. For some species, we have already identified genomic markers of specific breeding populations and developed “genoscapes,” maps of unique genetic variation across the full breeding range of a species. We used these (previously and newly developed) genoscapes to probabilistically link a feather spot to the specific breeding populations from which it originated (assignment probabilities range from 75%-100% depending on species and population groups). For those species without genoscapes, we developed a vulnerability and susceptibility estimate that determines the relative local and regional risk to populations that are in geographic proximity to solar facilities, using citizen science data (Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and eBird). These two feather spot processing pipelines (see Figure 1 below) provide quantitative estimates as to the numbers of individuals from a given population of origin that are affected by solar facilities, and ultimately can reduce costs to the consumer by reducing the industry costs associated with mitigation and siting strategies for future solar energy development.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Solar Cell Performance after Exfoliation Using Sonic Liftoff

Removing grown device layers from a GaAs substrate is an essential aspect of reducing costs of III–V photovoltaics. While many methods of device layer removal have been explored, Sonic Lift‐off (SLO) demonstrates novel control of the stress conditions within the substrate during exfoliation. By utilizing acoustic energy, this technique allows for a lower maximum stress required to fully lift‐off layers from a substrate. We demonstrate that this technique results in no damage to inverted‐grown and upright‐grown exfoliated devices. The inverted device demonstrated an efficiency of 26.8% after SLO in comparison to 26.5% for a traditionally‐processed cell, and the upright device showed a 22.0% efficiency after SLO. The SLO process has been shown to produce exfoliated, damage‐free devices and opens the door for substrate reuse to reduce the cost of III–V photovoltaics.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Calista Energy Management Assistance Initiative

The Calista Energy Management Assistance Initiative (CEMAI) provided technical assistance and capacity building for 56 Tribal communities in the Calista Region of Alaska as an effort to reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, enhance human capacity, and job opportunities. CEMAI catalyzed and guided numerous efforts into a consolidated and effective initiative that brought rural energy best practices, economies of scale, operational efficiencies, human capacity, and economic development to the forefront. Calista Corporation (Calista) is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in the settlement of aboriginal land claims. Calista was incorporated in Alaska on June 12, 1972. The Calista Region covers Alaska’s Bethel and Kusilvak (formerly Wade Hampton) Census areas and includes 56 communities. Calista partnered with Nuvista Light and Electric Cooperative (Nuvista) on the Department of Energy, Office of Indian Energy (DOE-OIE), CEMAI project. Nuvista is a non-profit that seeks to reduce energy costs and provide renewable sources of energy to the people of western Alaska. It is founded and led by a non-profit, Tribe, Native Corporations (including Calista), energy organizations, and Alaska Native stakeholders in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YK-D) Region; covering the same service boundaries and communities served by Calista. This partnership allowed Calista to direct the project work with local energy experts to respond to community needs. In this arrangement, Calista added credibility and regional accountability while Nuvista added energy-specific expertise and skill set in project management. The delivery of the CEMAI Workplan included short-term or on-demand responses to specific technical assistance requests from communities in addition to longer-term strategically directed activities such as workshops, coordinated training, and capacity development efforts across the region. CEMAI’s Workplan aimed to enhance communities’ readiness for establishing renewable energy projects and implementing energy efficiency initiatives. The CEMAI objectives included: (1) Identifying common operational needs and improvement opportunities for entities with an energy interest or responsibility. (2) Providing access to multi-level expertise to address existing challenges. (3) Developing specialized training programs to build local capacity and community readiness. (4) Nurturing the creation of regional support networks. (5) Increasing access to regional, state, and federal energy initiatives, funding, and expertise. (6) Improving technical skills, provide livable wages, and job opportunities.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2021

Ambient Performance Testing of the CubeSat Infrared Atmospheric Sounder (CIRAS)

Hyperspectral infrared measurements of Earth’s atmosphere from space have proven their value for weather forecasting, climate science and atmospheric composition. The CubeSat Infrared Atmospheric Sounder (CIRAS) instrument will demonstrate a fully functional infrared temperature, water vapor and carbon monoxide sounder in a CubeSat sized volume for at least an order of magnitude lower cost than legacy systems. Design for a CubeSat significantly reduces cost of access to space and enables flight in a constellation to reduce revisit time and enable new measurements including 3D winds. A technology demonstration of CIRAS is currently under development at JPL. The effort has completed integration and ambient testing of a high fidelity brassboard, complete with the flight configured optics assembly developed by Ball Aerospace with a JPL Immersion Grating and Black Silicon Entrance Slit. The brassboard includes a flight-configured High Operating Temperature Barrier Infrared Detector (HOT-BIRD) mounted in an Integrated Dewar Cryocooler Assembly (IDCA), enabling testing in the ambient environment. Ambient testing included radiometric testing of the system to characterize the instrument operability and NEdT. Spatial testing was performed to characterize the system line spread function (LSF) in two axes and report FWHM of the LSF. Spectral testing involved an air path test to characterize the spectral/spatial transformation matrix, and an etalon was used to measure the Spectral Response Functions (SRFs). Results of the testing show the CIRAS performs exceptionally well and meets the key performance required of the system. The end result of testing is the CIRAS instrument now meets TRL 4 with confidence in a brassboard configuration ready for thermal vacuum (TVac) testing necessary to achieve TRL 5 for the system.

Wilson, Robert C.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Advanced Launch System (ALS) actuation and power systems impact operability and cost

To obtain the Advanced Launch System (ALS) primary goals of reduced costs and improved operability, there must be significant reductions in the launch operations and servicing requirements relative to current vehicle designs and practices. One of the primary methods for achieving these goals is by using vehicle electrical power system and controls for all actuation and avionics requirements. A brief status review of the ALS and its associated Advanced Development Program is presented to demonstrate maturation of those technologies that will help meet the overall operability and cost goals. The electric power and actuation systems are highlighted as a specific technology ready not only to meet the stringent ALS goals (cryogenic field valves and thrust vector controls with peak power demands to 75 hp), but also those of other launch vehicles, military and civilian aircraft, lunar/Martian vehicles, and a multitude of commercial applications.

Sundberg, Gale R.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Community-scale interaction of energy efficiency and demand flexibility in residential buildings

Demand-side management (DSM) strategies, including energy efficiency (EE) and demand flexibility (DF), contribute to cost-effective operation of the electricity grid. From a system-level perspective, such programs reduce costs, enhance reliability, and reduce network issues. Similarly, DSM programs help participating customers reduce utility bills while maintaining occupant comfort. Understanding the relationship between EE and DF is key to realizing the full potential of DSM programs. In this study, we modeled an all-electric residential community based on a 498-home community that is planned for construction in Fort Collins, Colorado in the United States. We used this community model to study the relationship between different EE measures, including building envelope upgrades and smart appliances, and DF enabled by a home energy management system (HEMS) responding to a time-varying tariff. Various EE levels in the homes – code-minimum, zero energy ready, and even higher levels of envelope efficiency – were simulated. DF is enabled by the HEMS, which coordinates behind-the-meter resources, including flexible building loads, PV, and home battery systems, to minimize utility bills while maintaining occupant comfort. When comparing to the code-minimum homes, EE upgrades alone reduce HVAC energy use during peak hours by up to 50% and the HVAC utility bill by up to $312/year. With the addition of HEMS, the average daily peak demand can be reduced by up to 0.58 MW or 1.2 kW/home in the higher envelope efficiency homes. The combination of EE upgrades, HEMS, and home battery systems is expected to save homeowners up to $590/year while increasing community load flexibility. However, HEMS and home battery systems are less effective in increasing the DF in the more efficient homes due to the lower load.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS1998

Analysis of Potential Alternatives to Reduce NASA's Cost of Human Access to Space

The purpose of this report is to analyze NASA's potential options for significantly reducing the cost of human access to space. The opinions expressed in this report are based on Hawthorne, Krauss & Associates' ("HKA") interaction with NASA and several of its key contractors over the past nine months. This report is not intended to be an exhaustive quantitative analysis of the various options available to NASA. Instead, its purpose is to outline key decision-related issues that the agency should consider prior to making a decision as to which option to pursue. This report attempts to bring a private-sector perspective to bear on the issue of reducing the cost of human access to space. HKA believes that the key to the NASA's success in reducing those costs over the long-term is the involvement of the private-sector incentives and disciplines--which is achieved only through the assumption of risk by the private sector, not through a traditional contractor relationship--is essential to achieve significant long-term cost reductions.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2024

Survival and behavior of Mojave desert tortoises head-started with and without outdoor rearing

Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) populations in some regions have declined by >50% since 2004, prompting the need for more research on ways to recover populations. One possible recovery tool is head-starting (i.e., the act of protecting and raising juvenile tortoises to sizes that increase survival upon release); however, head-starting can have high start-up and maintenance costs that can limit its feasibility. Strategies that reduce cost and rearing duration may foster broader and more effective use. We released and radio-tracked 60 juvenile tortoises in the Mojave National Preserve in California, USA, that had been reared under 2 treatments: those reared 1 year indoors after hatching, then 1 year outdoors (combo) and those reared just 1 year indoors (indoor-only). We tested whether indoor-only rearing alone could be a more efficient means of producing robust head-started tortoises. We examined the behavior, movement, and survival of tortoises after release into the wild from 2020 to 2021 to determine whether these outcomes differed between husbandry treatments. Combo tortoises tended to perform settling behaviors (mean ± 1 SE days to building first burrow = 6.7 ± 0.8, entering dormancy = 23.3 ± 2.1, and emerging from dormancy = 189.6 ± 4.4) earlier than indoor-only tortoises (7.4 ± 0.9, 31.5 ± 2.6, and 193.9 ± 5.9, respectively), but this difference was not significant, suggesting the rearing method did not greatly alter settling behavior. Indoor-only tortoises dispersed at least twice as far from their release site (156.2 ± 26.3 m compared with 77.3 ± 20.6 m for combo tortoises), had larger mean use areas (3.7 ± 0.1 ha compared with 2.8 ± 0.3 ha for combo tortoises for 95% Brownian bridge movement model estimates), and greater variability in their movements than combo tortoises (daily average step length post-emergence: 4.3 ± 0.2 m compared with 2.8 ± 0.1 m for combo tortoises). Despite differences in their movements, indoor-only and combo tortoises had similar survival rates over the study, 51% versus 42%, respectively, during a period of extreme drought in 2021. The similarity in survival between groups gives head-starting practitioners freedom in their rearing methods. The indoor-only group had lower site fidelity, which should be considered when this is an undesirable trait for released tortoises.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Simulating dispatchable grid services provided by flexible building loads: State of the art and needed building energy modeling improvements

End-use electrical loads in residential and commercial buildings are evolving into flexible and cost-effective resources to improve electric grid reliability, reduce costs, and support increased hosting of distributed renewable generation. This article reviews the simulation of utility services delivered by buildings for the purpose of electric grid operational modeling. We consider services delivered to (1) the high-voltage bulk power system through the coordinated action of many, distributed building loads working together, and (2) targeted support provided to the operation of low-voltage electric distribution grids. Although an exhaustive exploration is not possible, we emphasize the ancillary services and voltage management buildings can provide and summarize the gaps in our ability to simulate them with traditional building energy modeling (BEM) tools, suggesting pathways for future research and development.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗