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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 307 records · Page 17

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1934

The processes in spring-loaded injection valves of solid injection oil engines

On the premise of a rectangular velocity wave arriving at the valve, the equation of motion of a spring-loaded valve stem is developed and analyzed. It is found that the stem oscillates, the oscillation frequency being consistently above the natural frequency of the nozzle stem alone, and whose amplitudes would increase in the absence of damping. The results are evaluated and verified on an example. The pressure in the valve and the spray volume are analyzed and several pertinent questions are discussed on the basis of the results.

Lutz, O↗

NASA NTRS1994

Flexible Wedge Seal For Ball Valve

Ball valve contains flexible sealing wedge. Wedge flexes around ball at locus of contact, creating effective seal with less force on ball than if hard valve seat were used. Less torque needed to close valve, and smaller actuator used.

Levert, Joseph A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Low-Pressure-Drop Shutoff Valve

Flapper valve remains open under normal flow conditions but closes upon sudden increases to high rate of flow and remains closed until reset. Valve is fluid/mechanical analog of electrical fuse or circuit breaker. Low-pressure-drop shutoff valve contains flapper machined from cylindrical surface. During normal flow conditions, flapper presents small cross section to flow. (Useful in stopping loss of fluid through leaks in cooling systems.)

Thornborrow, John↗

NASA NTRS1994

Computed Flow Through An Artificial Heart Valve

Report discusses computations of blood flow through prosthetic tilting disk valve. Computational procedure developed in simulation used to design better artificial hearts and valves by reducing or eliminating following adverse flow characteristics: large pressure losses, which prevent hearts from working efficiently; separated and secondary flows, which causes clotting; and high turbulent shear stresses, which damages red blood cells. Report reiterates and expands upon part of NASA technical memorandum "Computed Flow Through an Artificial Heart and Valve" (ARC-12983). Also based partly on research described in "Numerical Simulation of Flow Through an Artificial Heart" (ARC-12478).

Rogers, Stewart E.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Calibration Valve With Built-In Test Port

Calibration valve includes built-in test port for calibrating control-panel gauges in place, without having to remove them for calibration. Use of this valve reduces number of plumbing parts and thus number of potential leakage points. Application of calibration valve saves time when calibrating control-panel gauges or transducers and prevents damage or loss of instruments by not having to remove them from control panel for calibration.

Pilichi, Carmine A.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Ferroelectric Fluid Flow Control Valve

An active valve is controlled and driven by external electrical actuation of a ferroelectric actuator to provide for improved passage of the fluid during certain time periods and to provide positive closure of the valve during other time periods. The valve provides improved passage in the direction of flow and positive closure in the direction against the flow. The actuator is a dome shaped internally prestressed ferroelectric actuator having a curvature, said dome shaped actuator having a rim and an apex. and a dome height measured from a plane through said rim said apex that varies with an electric voltage applied between an inside and an outside surface of said dome shaped actuator.

Jalink, Antony, Jr.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Progress in Valve Modeling at Stennis Space Center

Understanding valve behavior will aid testing of rocket components at Stennis Space Center. The authors of this viewgraph presentation have developed a computational model for a cryogenic liquid control valve, and a gas pressure regulator valve. The model is a compressible/incompressible pressure-based FDNS code from Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). It is a k-epsilon turbulence model with wall functions.

Daines, Russell L.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Valve Health Monitoring System Utilizing Smart Instrumentation

The valve monitoring system is a stand alone unit with network capabilities for integration into a higher level health management system. The system is designed for aiding in failure predictions of high-geared ball valves and linearly actuated valves. It performs data tracking and archiving for identifying degraded performance. The data collection types are cryogenic cycles, total cycles, inlet temperature, body temperature torsional strain, linear bonnet strain, preload position, total travel and total directional changes. Events are recorded and time stamped in accordance with the IRIG B True Time. The monitoring system is designed for use in a Class 1 Division II explosive environment. The basic configuration consists of several instrumentation sensor units and a base station. The sensor units are self contained microprocessor controlled and remotely mountable in three by three by two inches. Each unit is potted in a fire retardant substance without any cavities and limited to low operating power for maintaining safe operation in a hydrogen environment. The units are temperature monitored to safeguard against operation outside temperature limitations. Each contains 902-928 MHz band digital transmitters which meet Federal Communication Commission's requirements and are limited to a 35 foot transmission radius for preserving data security. The base-station controller correlates data from the sensor units and generates data event logs on a compact flash memory module for database uploading. The entries are also broadcast over an Ethernet network. Nitrogen purged National Electrical Manufactures Association (NEMA) Class 4 enclosures are used to house the base-station

Jensen, Scott L.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Pump having pistons and valves made of electroactive actuators

The present invention provides a pump for inducing a displacement of a fluid from a first medium to a second medium, including a conduit coupled to the first and second media, a transducing material piston defining a pump chamber in the conduit and being transversely displaceable for increasing a volume of the chamber to extract the fluid from the first medium to the chamber and for decreasing the chamber volume to force the fluid from the chamber to the second medium, a first transducing material valve mounted in the conduit between the piston and the first medium and being transversely displaceable from a closed position to an open position to admit the fluid to the chamber, and control means for changing a first field applied to the piston to displace the piston for changing the chamber volume and for changing a second field applied to the first valve to change the position of the first valve.

Bar-Cohen, Yoseph↗

NASA NTRS1976

Fluid valve with wide temperature range

A fluid valve suitable for either metering or pressure regulating fluids at various temperatures is provided for a fuel system as may be utilized in an aircraft gas turbine engine. The valve includes a ceramic or carbon pad which cooperates with a window in a valve plate to provide a variable area orifice which remains operational during large and sometimes rapid variations in temperature incurred from the use of different fuels.

Kast, Howard Berdolt↗

NASA NTRS2008

Supercharged two-cycle engines employing novel single element reciprocating shuttle inlet valve mechanisms and with a variable compression ratio

This invention relates to novel reciprocating shuttle inlet valves, effective with every type of two-cycle engine, from small high-speed single cylinder model engines, to large low-speed multiple cylinder engines, employing spark or compression ignition. Also permitting the elimination of out-of-phase piston arrangements to control scavenging and supercharging of opposed-piston engines. The reciprocating shuttle inlet valve (32) and its operating mechanism (34) is constructed as a single and simple uncomplicated member, in combination with the lost-motion abutments, (46) and (48), formed in a piston skirt, obviating the need for any complex mechanisms or auxiliary drives, unaffected by heat, friction, wear or inertial forces. The reciprocating shuttle inlet valve retains the simplicity and advantages of two-cycle engines, while permitting an increase in volumetric efficiency and performance, thereby increasing the range of usefulness of two-cycle engines into many areas that are now dominated by the four-cycle engine.

Wiesen, Bernard↗

NASA NTRS2008

Magnetostrictive valve assembly

A magnetostrictive valve assembly includes a housing that defines a passage with a seat being formed therein. A magnetically-biased and axially-compressed magnetostrictive assembly slidingly fitted in the passage is configured as a hollow and open-ended conduit adapted to support a flow of a fluid therethrough. Current-carrying coil(s) disposed about the passage in the region of the magnetostrictive assembly generate a magnetic field in the passage when current flows through the coil(s). A hollow valve body with side ports is coupled on one end thereof to an axial end of the magnetostrictive assembly. The other end of the valve body is designed to seal with the seat formed in the housing's passage when brought into contact therewith.

Richard, James A.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Embossed Teflon AF Laminate Membrane Microfluidic Diaphragm Valves

A microfluidic system has been designed to survive spaceflight and to function autonomously on the Martian surface. It manipulates microscopic quantities of liquid water and performs chemical analyses on these samples to assay for the presence of molecules associated with past or present living processes. This technology lies at the core of the Urey Instrument, which is scheduled for inclusion on the Pasteur Payload of the ESA ExoMars rover mission in 2013. Fabrication processes have been developed to make the microfabricated Teflon-AF microfluidic diaphragm pumps capable of surviving extreme temperature excursions before and after exposure to liquid water. Two glass wafers are etched with features and a continuous Teflon membrane is sandwiched between them (see figure). Single valves are constructed using this geometry. The microfabricated devices are then post processed by heating the assembled device while applying pneumatic pressure to force the Teflon diaphragm against the valve seat while it is softened. After cooling the device, the embossed membrane retains this new shape. This solves previous problems with bubble introduction into the fluid flow where deformations of the membrane at the valve seat occurred during device bonding at elevated temperatures (100-150 C). The use of laminated membranes containing commercial Teflon AF 2400 sheet sandwiched between spun Teflon AF 1600 layers performed best, and were less gas permeable than Teflon AF 1600 membranes on their own. Spinning Teflon AF 1600 solution (6 percent in FLOURINERT(Registered TradeMark) FC40 solvent, 3M Company) at 500 rpm for 1.5 seconds, followed by 1,000 rpm for 3 seconds onto Borofloat glass wafers, results in a 10-micron-thick film of extremely smooth Teflon AF. This spinning process is repeated several times on flat, blank, glass wafers in order to gradually build a thick, smooth membrane. After running this process at least five times, the wafer and Teflon coating are heated under vacuum at 220 C for one hour in order to drive off any residual solvent present in the composite film. After this, a second blank, glass wafer is brought down from above and the stack is held under vacuum at 3 atm mechanical pressure for ten 10 hours.

Willis, Peter↗

NASA NTRS2010

Particle Impact Ignition Test Data on a Stainless Steel Hand Valve

This slide presentation reviews the particle impact ignition test of a stainless steel hand valve. The impact of particles is a real fire hazard with stainless steel hand valves, however 100 mg of particulate can be tolerated. Since it is unlikely that 100 mg of stainless steel contaminant particles can be simultaneously released into this type of valve in the WSTF configuration, this is acceptable and within statistical confidence as demonstrated by testing.

Peralta, Stephen↗

NASA NTRS2010

Low-power piezoelectric micro-machined valve

A piezoelectric microvalve employs a valve element formed of hermetically sealed and opposed plates flexed together by a cross axis piezoelectric element. Large flow modulation with small piezoelectric actuator displacement is obtained by perimeter augmentation of the valve seat which dramatically increases the change in valve flow area for small deflections.

Gianchandani, Yogesh B.↗

NASA NTRS2011

A Model-Based Prognostics Approach Applied to Pneumatic Valves

Within the area of systems health management, the task of prognostics centers on predicting when components will fail. Model-based prognostics exploits domain knowledge of the system, its components, and how they fail by casting the underlying physical phenomena in a physics-based model that is derived from first principles. Uncertainty cannot be avoided in prediction, therefore, algorithms are employed that help in managing these uncertainties. The particle filtering algorithm has become a popular choice for model-based prognostics due to its wide applicability, ease of implementation, and support for uncertainty management. We develop a general model-based prognostics methodology within a robust probabilistic framework using particle filters. As a case study, we consider a pneumatic valve from the Space Shuttle cryogenic refueling system. We develop a detailed physics-based model of the pneumatic valve, and perform comprehensive simulation experiments to illustrate our prognostics approach and evaluate its effectiveness and robustness. The approach is demonstrated using historical pneumatic valve data from the refueling system.

Daigle, Matthew J.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Non-collinear valve actuator

A non-collinear valve actuator includes a primary actuating system and a return spring system with each applying forces to a linkage system in order to regulate the flow of a quarter-turn valve. The primary actuating system and return spring system are positioned non-collinearly, which simply means the primary actuating system and return spring system are not in line with each other. By positioning the primary actuating system and return spring system in this manner, the primary actuating system can undergo a larger stroke while the return spring system experiences significantly less displacement. This allows the length of the return spring to be reduced due to the minimization of displacement thereby reducing the weight of the return spring system. By allowing the primary actuating system to undergo longer strokes, the weight of the primary actuating system may also be reduced. Accordingly, the weight of the non-collinear valve actuator is reduced.

Richard, James A.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Variable-Aperture Reciprocating Reed Valve

A variable-aperture reciprocating reed valve includes a valve body defining a through hole region having a contoured-profile portion. A semi-rigid plate is affixed on one side thereof to the valve body to define a cantilever extending across the through hole region. At least one free edge of the cantilever opposes the contoured-profile portion of the through hole region in a non-contact relationship.

Lindner, Jeffrey L.↗