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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 361 records · Page 20

Implementation of the NCAR Community Land Model (CLM) in the NASA/NCAR finite-volume Global Climate Model (fvGCM)

In this study, the NCAR CLM version 2.0 land-surface model was integrated into the NASA/NCAR fvGCM. The CLM was developed collaboratively by an open interagency/university group of scientists and based on well-proven physical parameterizations and numerical schemes that combine the best features of BATS, NCAR-LSM, and IAP94. The CLM design is a one-dimensional point model with 1 vegetation layer, along with sub-grid scale tiles. The features of the CLM include 10-uneven soil layers with water, ice, and temperature states in each soil layer, and five snow layers, with water flow, refreezing, compaction, and aging allowed. In addition, the CLM utilizes two-stream canopy radiative transfer, the Bonan lake model and topographic enhanced streamflow based on TOPMODEL. The DAO fvGCM uses a genuinely conservative Flux-Form Semi-Lagrangian transport algorithm along with terrain- following Lagrangian control-volume vertical coordinates. The physical parameterizations are based on the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM-2). For our purposes, the fvGCM was run at 2 deg x 2.5 deg horizontal resolution with 55 vertical levels. The 10-year climate from the fvGCM with CLM2 was intercompared with the climate from fvGCM with LSM, ECMWF and NCEP. We concluded that the incorporation of CLM2 did not significantly impact the fvGCM climate from that of LSM. The most striking difference was the warm bias in the CLM2 surface skin temperature over desert regions. We determined that the warm bias can be partially attributed to the value of the drag coefficient for the soil under the canopy, which was too small resulting in a decoupling between the ground surface and the canopy. We also discovered that the canopy interception was high compared to observations in the Amazon region. A number of experiments were then performed focused on implementing model improvements. In order to correct the warm bias, the drag coefficient for the soil under the canopy was considered a function of LAI (Leaf Area Index). Analysis of the results revealed that there was a substantial impact, and the warm and dry bias in the CLM2 was significantly reduced. For the interception scheme, the canopy throughfall was increased to allow for more infiltration of precipitation into the soil, resulting in increased low-level moisture and a decrease in the interception loss ratio (canopy evaporation to precipitation).

Radakovich, Jon D.↗

Radio Frequency (RF) Trap for Confinement of Antimatter Plasmas Using Rotating Wall Electric Fields

Perturbations associated with a rotating wall electric field enable the confinement of ions for periods approaching weeks. This steady state confinement is a result of a radio frequency manipulation of the ions. Using state-of-the-art techniques it is shown that radio frequency energy can produce useable manipulation of the ion cloud (matter or antimatter) for use in containment experiments. The current research focuses on the improvement of confinement systems capable of containing and transporting antimatter.

Sims, William Herbert, III↗

Transitioning Active Flow Control to Applications

Active Flow Control Programs at NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and DARPA have been initiated with the goals of obtaining revolutionary advances in aerodynamic performance and maneuvering compared to conventional approaches. These programs envision the use of actuators, sensors, and controllers on applications such as aircraft wings/tails, engine nacelles, internal ducts, nozzles, projectiles, weapons bays, and hydrodynamic vehicles. Anticipated benefits of flow control include reduced weight, part count, and operating cost and reduced fuel burn (and emissions), noise and enhanced safety if the sensors serve a dual role of flow control and health monitoring. To get from the bench-top or laboratory test to adaptive distributed control systems on realistic applications, reliable validated design tools are needed in addition to sub- and large-scale wind-tunnel and flight experiments. This paper will focus on the development of tools for active flow control applications.

Joslin, Ronald D.↗

Aircraft Laminar Flow Control

Aircraft laminar flow control (LFC) from the 1930's through the 1990's is reviewed and the current status of the technology is assessed. Examples are provided to demonstrate the benefits of LFC for subsonic and supersonic aircraft. Early studies related to the laminar boundary-layer flow physics, manufacturing tolerances for laminar flow, and insect-contamination avoidance are discussed. LFC concept studies in wind-tunnel and flight experiments are the major focus of the paper. LFC design tools are briefly outlined for completeness.

Joslin, Ronald D.↗

Test oracle automation for V&V of an autonomous spacecraft's planner

We built automation to assist the software testing efforts associated with the Remote Agent experiment. In particular, our focus was upon introducing test oracles into the testing of the planning and scheduling system component. This summary is intended to provide an overview of the work.

testing test oracles verification validation analy↗

The International Space Station Supports International Polar Year (IPY)

Every day, ISS astronauts photograph designated sites and dynamic events on the Earth's surface using digital cameras equipped with a variety of lenses. Depending on observation parameters, astronauts can collect high resolution (4-6 m pixel size) or synoptic views (lower resolution but covering very large areas) digital data in 3 (red-green-blue) color bands. ISS crews have daily opportunities to document a variety of high-latitude phenomena. Although lighting conditions, ground track and other viewing parameters change with orbital precessions and season, the 51.6o orbital inclination and 400 km altitude of the ISS provide the crew an unique vantage point for collecting image-based data of polar phenomena, including surface observations to roughly 65o latitude, and upper atmospheric observations that reach nearly to the poles. During the 2007-2009 timeframe of the IPY, polar observations will become a scientific focus for the CEO experiment; the experiment is designated ISS-IPY. We solicit requests from scientists for observations from the ISS that are coordinated with or complement ground-based polar studies. The CEO imagery website for ISS-IPY provides an on-line form that allows IPY investigators to interact with CEO scientists and define their imagery requests. This information is integrated into daily communications with the ISS astronauts about their Earth Observations targets. All data collected are cataloged and posted on the website for downloading and assimilation into IPY projects. Examples of imagery and detailed information about scientific observations from the ISS can also be downloaded from the ISS-IPY web site.

Evans, Cynthia A.↗

Airborne Precision Spacing: A Trajectory-based Approach to Improve Terminal Area Operations

Airborne Precision Spacing has been developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) over the past seven years as an attempt to benefit from the capabilities of the flight deck to precisely space their aircraft relative to another aircraft. This development has leveraged decades of work on improving terminal area operations, especially the arrival phase. With APS operations, the air traffic controller instructs the participating aircraft to achieve an assigned inter-arrival spacing interval at the runway threshold, relative to another aircraft. The flight crew then uses airborne automation to manage the aircraft s speed to achieve the goal. The spacing tool is designed to keep the speed within acceptable operational limits, promote system-wide stability, and meet the assigned goal. This reallocation of tasks with the controller issuing strategic goals and the flight crew managing the tactical achievement of those goals has been shown to be feasible through simulation and flight test. A precision of plus or minus 2-3 seconds is generally achievable. Simulations of long strings of arriving traffic show no signs of instabilities or compression waves. Subject pilots have rated the workload to be similar to current-day operations and eye-tracking data substantiate this result. This paper will present a high-level review of research results over the past seven years from a variety of tests and experiments. The results will focus on the precision and accuracy achievable, flow stability and some major sources of uncertainty. The paper also includes a summary of the flight crew s procedures and interface and a brief concept overview.

Barmore, Bryan↗

Sensor Selection and Data Validation for Reliable Integrated System Health Management

For new access to space systems with challenging mission requirements, effective implementation of integrated system health management (ISHM) must be available early in the program to support the design of systems that are safe, reliable, highly autonomous. Early ISHM availability is also needed to promote design for affordable operations; increased knowledge of functional health provided by ISHM supports construction of more efficient operations infrastructure. Lack of early ISHM inclusion in the system design process could result in retrofitting health management systems to augment and expand operational and safety requirements; thereby increasing program cost and risk due to increased instrumentation and computational complexity. Having the right sensors generating the required data to perform condition assessment, such as fault detection and isolation, with a high degree of confidence is critical to reliable operation of ISHM. Also, the data being generated by the sensors needs to be qualified to ensure that the assessments made by the ISHM is not based on faulty data. NASA Glenn Research Center has been developing technologies for sensor selection and data validation as part of the FDDR (Fault Detection, Diagnosis, and Response) element of the Upper Stage project of the Ares 1 launch vehicle development. This presentation will provide an overview of the GRC approach to sensor selection and data quality validation and will present recent results from applications that are representative of the complexity of propulsion systems for access to space vehicles. A brief overview of the sensor selection and data quality validation approaches is provided below. The NASA GRC developed Systematic Sensor Selection Strategy (S4) is a model-based procedure for systematically and quantitatively selecting an optimal sensor suite to provide overall health assessment of a host system. S4 can be logically partitioned into three major subdivisions: the knowledge base, the down-select iteration, and the final selection analysis. The knowledge base required for productive use of S4 consists of system design information and heritage experience together with a focus on components with health implications. The sensor suite down-selection is an iterative process for identifying a group of sensors that provide good fault detection and isolation for targeted fault scenarios. In the final selection analysis, a statistical evaluation algorithm provides the final robustness test for each down-selected sensor suite. NASA GRC has developed an approach to sensor data qualification that applies empirical relationships, threshold detection techniques, and Bayesian belief theory to a network of sensors related by physics (i.e., analytical redundancy) in order to identify the failure of a given sensor within the network. This data quality validation approach extends the state-of-the-art, from red-lines and reasonableness checks that flag a sensor after it fails, to include analytical redundancy-based methods that can identify a sensor in the process of failing. The focus of this effort is on understanding the proper application of analytical redundancy-based data qualification methods for onboard use in monitoring Upper Stage sensors.

Garg, Sanjay↗

An LED Approach for Measuring the Photocatalytic Breakdown of Crystal Violet Dye

A simple technique to assess the reactivity of photocatalytic coatings sprayed onto transmissive glass surfaces was developed. This new method uses ultraviolet (UV) gallium nitride (GaN) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to drive a photocatalytic reaction (the photocatalytic breakdown of a UV-resistant dye applied to a surface coated with the semiconductor titanium dioxide); and then a combination of a stabilized white light LED and a spectrometer to track the dye degradation as a function of time. Simple, standardized evaluation techniques that assess photocatalytic materials over a variety of environmental conditions, including illumination level, are not generally available and are greatly needed prior to in situ application of photocatalytic technologies. To date, much research pertaining to this aspect of photocatalysis has been limited and has focused primarily on laboratory experiments using mercury lamps. Mercury lamp illumination levels are difficult to control over large ranges and are temporally modulated by line power, limiting their use in helping to understand and predict how photocatalytic materials will behave in natural environmental settings and conditions. The methodology described here, using steady-state LEDs and time series spectroradiometric techniques, is a novel approach to explore the effect of UV light on the photocatalytic degradation of a UV resistant dye (crystal violet). GaN UV LED arrays, centered around 365 nm with an adjustable DC power supply, are used to create a small, spatially uniform light field where the steady state light level can be varied over three to four orders of magnitude. For this study, a set of glass microscope slides was custom coated with a thinly sprayed layer of photocatalytic titanium dioxide. Crystal violet was then applied to these titanium-dioxide coated slides and to uncoated control slides. The slides were then illuminated at various light levels from the dye side of the slide by the UV LED array. To monitor dye degradation on the slides over time, a temperature-stabilized white light LED was used to illuminate the opposite side of the slides. As the dye degraded, the amount of light from the white light LED transmitted through the slide was monitored with a spectrometer and subsequently analyzed to determine and compare the rate of dye degradation for photocatalytically coated versus uncoated slide surfaces. The long-term stability of the spectrometer/white light LED combination, which required only a single reference spectra to be taken for a time series sequence of several hours, enabled accurate measurements of transmitted light over time. Time series transmission curves were generated and results demonstrated that over time the transmission increased much more rapidly on the coated slides than on the control slides. This experimental configuration and methodology for photocatalytic activity measurement minimizes many external variable effects and allows low light level studies to be performed. This study also compares the advantages of this novel LED light source design to traditional mercury lamp systems and non-LED lamp approaches that have conventionally been used. The methodology and experimental design research summarized in this abstract is partly funded by the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, and by the NASA Stennis Space Center Innovative Partnerships Program.

Ryan, Robert E.↗

Engineering and Scientific Applications: Using MatLab(Registered Trademark) for Data Processing and Visualization

MatLab(R) (MATrix LABoratory) is a numerical computation and simulation tool that is used by thousands Scientists and Engineers in many cou ntries. MatLab does purely numerical calculations, which can be used as a glorified calculator or interpreter programming language; its re al strength is in matrix manipulations. Computer algebra functionalities are achieved within the MatLab environment using "symbolic" toolbo x. This feature is similar to computer algebra programs, provided by Maple or Mathematica to calculate with mathematical equations using s ymbolic operations. MatLab in its interpreter programming language fo rm (command interface) is similar with well known programming languag es such as C/C++, support data structures and cell arrays to define c lasses in object oriented programming. As such, MatLab is equipped with most ofthe essential constructs of a higher programming language. M atLab is packaged with an editor and debugging functionality useful t o perform analysis of large MatLab programs and find errors. We belie ve there are many ways to approach real-world problems; prescribed methods to ensure foregoing solutions are incorporated in design and ana lysis of data processing and visualization can benefit engineers and scientist in gaining wider insight in actual implementation of their perspective experiments. This presentation will focus on data processing and visualizations aspects of engineering and scientific applicati ons. Specifically, it will discuss methods and techniques to perform intermediate-level data processing covering engineering and scientifi c problems. MatLab programming techniques including reading various data files formats to produce customized publication-quality graphics, importing engineering and/or scientific data, organizing data in tabu lar format, exporting data to be used by other software programs such as Microsoft Excel, data presentation and visualization will be discussed. The presentation will emphasize creating practIcal scripts (pro grams) that extend the basic features of MatLab TOPICS mclude (1) Ma trix and vector analysis and manipulations (2) Mathematical functions (3) Symbolic calculations & functions (4) Import/export data files (5) Program lOgic and flow control (6) Writing function and passing parameters (7) Test application programs

Sen, Syamal K.↗

Engineering and Scientific Applications: Using MatLab(Registered Trademark) for Data Processing and Visualization

MatLab(TradeMark)(MATrix LABoratory) is a numerical computation and simulation tool that is used by thousands Scientists and Engineers in many countries. MatLab does purely numerical calculations, which can be used as a glorified calculator or interpreter programming language; its real strength is in matrix manipulations. Computer algebra functionalities are achieved within the MatLab environment using "symbolic" toolbox. This feature is similar to computer algebra programs, provided by Maple or Mathematica to calculate with mathematical equations using symbolic operations. MatLab in its interpreter programming language form (command interface) is similar with well known programming languages such as C/C++, support data structures and cell arrays to define classes in object oriented programming. As such, MatLab is equipped with most of the essential constructs of a higher programming language. MatLab is packaged with an editor and debugging functionality useful to perform analysis of large MatLab programs and find errors. We believe there are many ways to approach real-world problems; prescribed methods to ensure foregoing solutions are incorporated in design and analysis of data processing and visualization can benefit engineers and scientist in gaining wider insight in actual implementation of their perspective experiments. This presentation will focus on data processing and visualizations aspects of engineering and scientific applications. Specifically, it will discuss methods and techniques to perform intermediate-level data processing covering engineering and scientific problems. MatLab programming techniques including reading various data files formats to produce customized publication-quality graphics, importing engineering and/or scientific data, organizing data in tabular format, exporting data to be used by other software programs such as Microsoft Excel, data presentation and visualization will be discussed.

Sen, Syamal K.↗

Compendium of Directors Colloquia 1999-2012

The Director s colloquium series was established primarily to provide a mechanism to bring high profile individuals to the Center to present new and innovative ideas to the entire Ames staff. More focused lecture series are arranged by specific divisions or departments. Before the year 1999, there is only a fragmentary record of who spoke in this series. Announcements to the staff were sent via land mail, and tickets were required to attend the colloquium. In 1999, the notification to attend colloquia became electronic and the entire resident staff was invited to attend. The centerwide announcement archive established in this timeframe created a lasting record of the Director s colloquia. The "Office of the Chief Scientist" at Ames had the responsibility for administering the colloquium series. When I became Chief Scientist on June 29, 1998, the program was not being used extensively and this continued to be the case through the years 1999-2002 of Harry McDonald s tenure as Director (see graph below). During Scott Hubbard s tenure as Director (September 19, 2002- February 15, 2006), the Director's colloquium series was used exclusively for high profile speakers from outside Ames whom he selected, such as lab directors from other research organizations around the Bay Area. During Pete Worden s tenure as Ames Director (May 4, 2006 -present) the colloquium series gained far greater use. First, I had greater discretion to select speakers for the colloquium series. Secondly, beginning in 2007, we established a 10-week Director's Colloquium Summer Series focused on enriching the experience of our many summer interns, and giving our top researchers within Ames Research Center an opportunity to present their work to the Center. The summer program has received rave reviews. This compendium contains a compilation of one-page descriptions (title, abstract and speaker biographies) for all of the 171 colloquia presented from the beginning of 1999 to October of 2012. The list of speakers includes four Nobel Laureates, six astronauts, three current or former Ames Center Directors, as well as many CEOs and other lab directors. Other featured speakers include famous mountain climbers, historians, movie stars, and former FBI agents and directors. Finally, the list includes world-class scientists and engineers representing a wide range of disciplines. It has been my privilege to host almost all of the colloquia presented in this compendium.

Langhoff, Stephanie↗

Shooting the Moon

This story is about an unlikely NASA mission to the Moon. It was unlikely because it was started with far too little time and too-little money to complete. It was unlikely because it was able to take chances to accept risk of failure. It was unlikely because it was searching for the unthinkable: water-ice on the moon... Figure 1-1: LCROSS Mission. The mission of the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was to investigate the possibility of water ice in craters on the Moon s poles. This is certainly an interesting scientific topic in itself, but I intend to focus on the compelling experience of managing the LCROSS Project in the context of this storied Agency. Perhaps most interesting are the implications this story has for managing any development effort, lunar or not, and working a balance to achieve success. NASA is by design a risk-taking agency within the US Government. It could be argued that NASA s purpose in the aerospace community is to take on the really big challenges that either the corporate world can t afford, are not yet profitable endeavors, or are just too risky for private corporations to entertain. However, expectations of the Agency have evolved. A combination of grim human tragedies and some very public cost and schedule overruns have challenged the public s and Congress s tolerance for risk-taking within the Agency. NASA, which is supposed to be in the business of taking risks to do bold, difficult things, has become less and less able to do so within its cost framework. Yet effectively replacing prudent risk management with attempts to "risk-eliminate" is completely unaffordable. So where does risk-taking fit within the Agency, or within private/corporate organizations for that matter? Where astronauts play there is clearly concern about risk. When an organization puts humans in harm s way, it is understandably going to take extra effort to assure nobody gets hurt. Doing so, of course, costs money - a lot of money to pay for labor and hardware which is attempting to assure nothing will go wrong. Sophisticated designs, with doubly- or triply-redundant systems, extensive testing to verify those systems, and numerous engineering test units built to learn and evolve a hardware design, all drive the cost and time required to implement. Human spaceflight is an expensive business because of the exceptional system complexity and levels of assurance required for human space travel. What about missions that do not involve human spaceflight? What about missions whose potential failure will not take a human life, whose costs are small and whose urgency and importance are limited by design? A portfolio consisting of this type of mission can be designed to be risk tolerant, not requiring large expenditures to guarantee against failure. With the money saved, the number of missions that can be executed within the portfolio grows, or the total cost of the portfolio can be reduced. The NASA LCROSS mission is a pathfinder example of a low-cost, quick turn-around mission which struck a balance on mission risk, while accomplishing big objectives, like defining how we understand the Moon.

Andrews, Daniel R.↗

Pilot Subjective Assessments During an Investigation of Separation Function Allocation Using a Human-In-The-Loop Simulation

Two human-in-the-loop simulation experiments were conducted to investigate allocation of separation assurance functions between ground and air and between humans and automation. The experiments modeled a mixed-operations concept in which aircraft receiving ground-based separation services shared the airspace with aircraft providing their own separation service (i.e., self-separation). The two experiments, one pilot-focused and the other controller-focused, addressed selected key issues of mixed operations and modeling an emergence of NextGen technologies and procedures. This paper focuses on the results of the subjective assessments of pilots collected during the pilot-focused human-in-the-loop simulation, specifically workload and situation awareness. Generally the results revealed that across all conditions, pilots' perceived workload was low to medium, with the highest reported levels of workload occurring when the pilots experienced a loss of separation during the scenario. Furthermore, the results from the workload data and situation awareness data were complimentary such that when pilots reported lower levels of workload they also experienced higher levels of situation awareness.

Burke, Kelly A.↗

Colorado Lightning Mapping Array Collaborations through the GOES-R Visiting Scientist Program

For the past two years, the GOES‐R Proving Ground has solicited proposals for its Visiting Scientist Program. NASA's Short‐term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center has used this opportunity to support the GOES‐R Proving Ground by expanding SPoRT's total lightning collaborations. In 2012, this expanded the evaluation of SPoRT's pseudo‐geostationary lightning mapper product to the Aviation Weather Center and Storm Prediction Center. This year, SPoRT has collaborated with the Colorado Lightning Mapping Array (COLMA) and potential end users. In particular, SPoRT is collaborating with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) and Colorado State University (CSU) to obtain these data in real‐time. From there, SPoRT is supporting the transition of these data to the local forecast offices in Boulder, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming as well as to Proving Ground projects (e.g., the Hazardous Weather Testbed's Spring Program and Aviation Weather Center's Summer Experiment). This presentation will focus on the results of this particular Visiting Scientist Program trip. In particular, the COLMA data are being provided to both forecast offices for initial familiarization. Additionally, several forecast issues have been highlighted as important uses for COLMA data in the operational environment. These include the utility of these data for fire weather situations, situational awareness for both severe weather and lightning safety, and formal evaluations to take place in the spring of 2014.

Stano, Geoffrey T.↗

Play Nice Across Time Space

Lecture is an overview of Simulation technologies, methods and practices, as applied to current and past NASA programs. Focus is on sharing experience and the overall benefits to programs and projects of having appropriate simulation and analysis capabilities available at the correct point in a system lifecycle.

system engineering↗

The TechEdSat-N Series: A Collaborative Technology Development Platform in the Nano-Satellite Form Factor

The TechEdSat-1 (TES-1) was the first U.S. CubeSat to be deployed from the ISS (International Space Station). This permitted the initiation of a flight series that has recently de-orbited the 6th nano-satellite with subsequent numbers 7-10 under development. The nano-satellites range from 1U (1 unit) to 6U (TechEdSat-8) but have the critical ISS Safety design features standardized in order to focus on the particular experiment objectives. Incremental experimental development has included unique communication subsystems such as command/control of the nanosatellite through email commands -as well as a recent record for Wifi transmission. Also, the thermophysics of controlled drag devices (Exo-Brake) has been developed which will prelude sample return and planetary exploration applications. The successful "rapid incremental experiment" approach has also been incorporated into collaborations with academia, permitting professors/student interns to be exposed to the rigors of space mission hardware design and execution. The TechEdSat-8, a linear 6U configuration, allows for 5 different groups to contribute an "experiment, sensor, or sub-system" through a well-defined common interface. Lastly, the flying laboratory concept is helpful in developing future interplanetary nano-satellite subsystems which will advance exploration goals by allowing rapid demonstration/validation first in LEO (Low Earth Orbit).

Small Payload Quick Return↗

Comparison of Impact Damage from Spin Pit and Flat Panel Gas Gun Testing

Gas gun experiments can generate useful data for the design of jet engine containment shields at much lower costs. To replicate the damage modes similar to that on a containment shield in fan-blade-out (FBO) testing, the gas gun experiment has to be carefully designed. This work focuses on the design of projectiles. Gas gun experiments were performed for flat composite panel targets with three different projectiles. FBO conditions were simulated using spin pit tests. The damage modes on the flat panels used in the gas gun tests were compared with damage modes on cylindrical composite containment shields used in spin pit tests. The results show that to generate similar damage modes, it is critical to ensure the shape of the projectile used in a gas gun test accounts for the deformation of the released blade during initial contact in the spin pit test.

Vanderklok, Andy↗