Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “hard technologies”

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.

At least 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2003

NASA Helps Industry Relieve Pressure Safely

In many industrial applications, pressure relief valves (PRV) perform the critical function of safely releasing pressure before potentially damaging build-ups occur. Conventional relief valves, however, have proven unstable, leading to premature wear and devasting consequences. A high-performance pressure relief valve, the PRV95, now being manufactured my Marotta Scientific Controls, Inc., of Montville, NJ, provides the answer to premature wear and instability. Using an improved valve design developed under a NASA Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) contract from John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC), Marotta's PRV95 pressure relief valve provides stability over the entire operational range, from fully closed to fully open. The valve employs upstream control for valve positioning, that makes the valve more stable and affords excellent repeatability with minimal lag time. 'It opens and closes softly, and does not oscillate or generate hard impacts; oscillation can result in a hard impact pressure release, which can lead to an explosion in the presence of oxygen,' says Bill St. Cyr, Chief of Test Technology Branch at Stennis Space Center. Marotta's PRV95 design is also unique in its ability to maintain a seal near the set point of the relief limit. Typically, relief valves seal tightly up to 90% of set point and then reseat when pressure is reduced to 85% of set point. The PRV95 technology maintains seal integrity until 98% of set point and will reseat a 95-97% of set point. This allows the operator to protect his system while not exceeding its limits.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2003

Microgravity Manufacturing: Extending Rapid Prototyping Past the Horizon

Over the last decade, rapid prototyping (RP) technologies have continued to advance in all aspects of operation and application. From continuously advanced materials and processes development to more hard-core manufacturing uses, the RP realm has stretched considerably past its original expectations as a prototyping capability. This paper discusses the unique applications for which NASA has chosen these manufacturing techniques to be utilized in outer space.

Cooper, Ken↗
NASA NTRS2012

Dual-Compartment Inflatable Suitlock

A paper discusses a dual-compartment inflatable suitlock (DCIS) for Extra - vehicular Activity (EVA) that will allow for dust control, suit maintenance, and efficient EVA egress/ingress. The expandable (inflatable technologies) aspect of the design will allow the unit to stow in a compact package for transport. The DCIS consists of three hard, in line bulkheads, separating two cylindrical membrane-walled compartments. The inner bulkhead can be fitted with a variety of hatch types, docking flanges, and mating hardware, such as the common berthing mechanism (CBM), for the purpose of mating with vehicles, habitats, and other pressurized modules. The inner bulkhead and center bulkhead function as the end walls of the inner compartment, which, during operations, would stay pressurized, either matching the pressure of the habitat or acting as a lower-pressure transitional volume. The suited crewmember can quickly don a suit, and egress the suitlock without waiting for the compartment to depressurize. The outer compartment can be pressurized infrequently, when a long dwell time is expected prior to the next EVA, or during off-nominal suit maintenance tasks, allowing shirtsleeve inspections and maintenance of the space suits. The outer bulkhead has a pressure-assisted hatch door that stays open and stowed routinely, but can be closed for suit maintenance and pressurization as needed.

Howe, Scott↗
DOE OSTI2021

SURFACE FINISHING AND ELECTROLESS NICKEL PLATING OF ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED (AM) METAL COMPONENTS

This study investigates the application of electroless nickel deposition on additively manufactured stainless steel samples. Current additive manufacturing (AM) technologies produce metal components with a rough surface. Rough surfaces generally exhibit fatigue characteristics, increasing the probability of initiating a crack or fracture to the printed part. For this reason, the direct use of as-produced parts in a finished product cannot be actualized, which presents a challenge. Post-processing of the AM parts is therefore required to smoothen the surface. This study analyzes chempolish (CP) and electropolish (EP) surface finishing techniques for post-processing AM stainless steel components CP has a great advantage in creating uniform, smooth surfaces regardless of size or part geometry EP creates an extremely smooth surface, which reduces the surface roughness to the sub-micrometer level. In this study, we also investigate nickel deposition on EP, CP, and as-built AM components using electroless nickel solutions. Electroless nickel plating is a method of alloy treatment designed to increase manufactured component's hardness and surface resistance to the unrelenting environment. The electroless nickel plating process is more straightforward than its counterpart electroplating.. We use low-phosphorus (2-5% P), medium-phosphorus (6-9% P), and high-phosphorus (10-13% P). These Ni deposition experiments were optimized using the L9 Taguchi design of experiments (TDOE), which compromises the prosperous content in the solution, surface finish, plane of the geometry, and bath temperature. The pre-and post-processed surface of the AM parts was characterized by KEYENCE Digital MicroscopeVHX-7000 and Phenom XL Desktop SEM. The experimental results show that electroless nickel deposition produces uniform Ni coating on the additively manufactured components up to 20 μm per hour. Mechanical properties of as-built and Ni coated AM samples were analyzed by applying a standard 10 N scratch test. Nickel coated AM samples were up to two times scratch resistant compared to the as-built samples. This study suggests electroless nickel plating is a robust viable option for surface hardening and finishing AM components for various applications and operating conditions.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, fatigue, chempol↗
NASA NTRS2000

Acousto-Optic Imaging Spectrometers for Mars Surface Science

NASA's long term plan for Mars sample collection and return requires a highly streamlined approach for spectrally characterizing a landing site, documenting the mineralogical make-up of the site and guiding the collections of samples which represent the diversity of the site. Ideally, image data should be acquired at hundreds of VIS and IR wavelengths, in order to separately distinguish numerous anticipated species, using principal component analysis and linear unmixing. Cameras with bore-sighted point spectrometers can acquire spectra of isolated scene elements, but it requires 10(exp 2) to 10(exp 2) successive motions and precise relative pointing knowledge in order to create a single data cube which qualifies as a spectral map. These and other competing science objectives have to be accomplished within very short lander/rover operational lifetime (a few sols). True, 2-D imaging spectroscopy greatly speeds up the data acquisition process, since the spectra of all pixels in the scene are collected at once. This task can be accomplished with cameras that use electronically tunable acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs) as the optical tuning element. AOTFs made from TeO2 are now a mature technology, and operate at wavelengths from near-UV to about 5 microns. Because of incremental improvements in the last few years, present generation devices are rugged, radiation-hard and operate at temperatures down to at least 150K so they can be safely integrated into the ambient temperature optics of in-situ instruments such as planetary or small-body landers. They have been used for ground-based astronomy, and were also baselined for the ST-4 Champollion IR comet lander experiment (CIRCLE), prior to cancellation of the ST-4 mission last year. AIMS (for Acousto-optic Imaging spectrometer), is a prototype lander instrument which is being built at GSFC with support by the NASA OSS Advanced Technologies and Mission Studies, Mars Instrument Definition and Development Program (MIDP). AIMS is capable of tunable spectroscopic imaging of surface mineralogy, ices and dust between 0.5 and 2.4 microns, at a resolving power (lambda/delta lambda) which is typically several hundred. The design spatial resolution, similar to IMP and SSI, will allow mapping at scales down to about 1 cm.

Glenar, D. A.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Bulk electronic structure of lanthanum hexaboride (LaB 6 ) by hard x-ray angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy

In the last decade rare-earth hexaborides have been investigated for their fundamental importance in condensed matter, and for their applications in advanced technological fields. Among these compounds, LaB 6 has a special place, being a traditional d-band metal without additional f- bands. In order to understand the bulk electronic structure of the more complex rare-earth hexaborides, in this paper we investigate the bulk electronic structure of LaB 6 using tender/hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy, measuring both core-level and angle-resolved valence-band spectra. Furthermore, we compare the La 3d core level spectrum to cluster model calculations in order to understand the bulk-like core-hole screening effects. The results show that the La 3d well-screened peak is at a lower binding energy compared to the main poorly-screened peak; the relative intensity between these peaks depends on how strong the hybridization is between La and B atoms. Here, we show that the recoil effect, negligible in the soft x-ray regime, becomes prominent at higher kinetic energies for lighter elements, such as boron, but is still negligible for heavy elements, such as lanthanum. In addition, we report the bulk-like band structure of LaB6 determined by tender/hard x-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (HARPES). We compare HARPES experimental results to the free-electron final-state calculations and to the more precise one-step photoemission theory including matrix element and phonon excitation effects. The agreement between the features present in the experimental ARPES data and the theoretical calculations is very good. In addition, we consider the nature and the magnitude of phonon excitations in order to interpret HARPES experimental data measured at different temperatures and excitation energies. We demonstrate that one step theory of photoemission and HARPES experiments provide, at present, the only approach capable of probing, both experimentally and theoretically, true “bulk-like” electronic band structure of rare-earth hexaborides and strongly correlated materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2002

The Kinetics of Crystallization of Colloids and Proteins: A Light Scattering Study

Hard-sphere colloidal systems serve as model systems for aggregation, nucleation, crystallization and gelation as well as interesting systems in their own right. Similar colloidal systems have important technological uses such as paints and pharmaceuticals. There is a strong current interest in using colloidal systems to form photonic crystals. A number of colloidal experiments have flown on the space shuttle and a suite of experiments is currently active on the ISS A major scientific thrust of NASA's microgravity research is the crystallization of proteins for structural determination. The crystallization of proteins is a complicated process that requires a great deal of trial and error experimentation. In spite of a great deal of work, "better" protein crystals cannot always be grown in microgravity and conditions for crystallization are not well understood. Crystallization of colloidal systems interacting as hard spheres and with an attractive potential induced by entropic forces have been studied in a series of static light scattering experiments. Additionally, aggregation of a protein as a function of pH has been studied using dynamic light scattering.

Jim McClymer↗
DOE OSTI2024

Technological evolution of large-scale blue hydrogen production toward the U.S. Hydrogen Energy Earthshot

Hydrogen potentially has a crucial role in the U.S. transition to a net-zero emissions economy. Learning from large-scale hydrogen projects will boost technological evolution and innovation toward the U.S. Hydrogen Energy Earthshot. We apply experience curves to estimate the evolving costs of blue hydrogen production and to further examine the economic effect on technological evolution of the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for carbon sequestration and clean hydrogen. Learning-by-doing alone can decrease the production cost of blue hydrogen. Without tax incentives, however, it is hard for blue hydrogen production to reach the cost target of $\$1$/kg H 2 . Here we show that the breakeven cumulative production capacity required for gas-based blue hydrogen to reach the $\$1$/kg H 2 target highly depends on tax credit, natural gas price, inflation rate, and learning rates. We make recommendations for hydrogen hub development and for accelerating technological progress toward the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot.

08 HYDROGEN↗
NASA NTRS1982

New technologies for radiation-hardening analog to digital converters

Surveys of available Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) suitable for precision applications showed that none have the proper combination of accuracy and radiation hardness to meet space and/or strategic weapon requirements. A development program which will result in an ADC device which will serve a number of space and strategic applications. Emphasis was placed on approaches that could be integrated onto a single chip within three to five years.

Gauthier, M. K.↗
NASA NTRS1998

GSFC Cutting Edge Avionics Technologies for Spacecraft

With the launch of NASA's first fiber optic bus on SAMPEX in 1992, GSFC has ushered in an era of new technology development and insertion into flight programs. Predating such programs the Lewis and Clark missions and the New Millenium Program, GSFC has spearheaded the drive to use cutting edge technologies on spacecraft for three reasons: to enable next generation Space and Earth Science, to shorten spacecraft development schedules, and to reduce the cost of NASA missions. The technologies developed have addressed three focus areas: standard interface components, high performance processing, and high-density packaging techniques enabling lower cost systems. To realize the benefits of standard interface components GSFC has developed and utilized radiation hardened/tolerant devices such as PCI target ASICs, Parallel Fiber Optic Data Bus terminals, MIL-STD-1773 and AS1773 transceivers, and Essential Services Node. High performance processing has been the focus of the Mongoose I and Mongoose V rad-hard 32-bit processor programs as well as the SMEX-Lite Computation Hub. High-density packaging techniques have resulted in 3-D stack DRAM packages and Chip-On-Board processes. Lower cost systems have been demonstrated by judiciously using all of our technology developments to enable "plug and play" scalable architectures. The paper will present a survey of development and insertion experiences for the above technologies, as well as future plans to enable more "better, faster, cheaper" spacecraft. Details of ongoing GSFC programs such as Ultra-Low Power electronics, Rad-Hard FPGAs, PCI master ASICs, and Next Generation Mongoose processors.

Luers, Philip J.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Creep performance and microstructure of grade 91 steel weldments with integrated welding and thermal processing

Ferritic-Martensitic steel welds typically require post weld heat treatment (PWHT) to restore toughness and high temperature performance. This off-line thermal process reduces disparities between weld and base metal, but can cause distortion, cracking, or simply be impractical due to assembly size and joint non-uniformity. Here we show integrated welding and thermal processing applied to modified 9Cr-1Mo (Grade 91) steel, favored for advanced power generation applications, performed in real time through the addition of a secondary heat source near the primary weld head. Optimal integrated processing reduces weld fusion and heat affected zone hardness by 125 HV, approaching performance of conventional 730 °C, 60 min PWHT processing. Microstructures and mechanical performance are compared for mechanized GTAW welds, with equivalent lifetimes noted in cross-weld creep rupture tests up to 234 MPa at 550 °C, and up to 104 MPa at 650 °C. The integrated process was validated on a Grade 91 pressure vessel with multipass cold wire feed GTAW. After 550 °C, 71.4 bar thermomechanical cyclic testing, the maximum weld hardness is <350 HV.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

The AMACStar ASIC for the HL-LHC ATLAS ITk Strip detector: design, verification, testing, and quality assurance

For the high-luminosity upgrade to the LHC (HL-LHC), the ATLAS detector at CERN requires an all-new inner detector, the Inner Tracker (ITk). The ITk Strip subdetector is made up of silicon modules, which include three types of radiation-hard ASICs. One of these is the Autonomous Monitor and Control (AMAC). The AMAC is manufactured by Global Foundries using 130 nm CMOS8RF DM technology and is approximately 3 by 5 mm in size. This ASIC autonomously monitors the temperatures, voltages, and currents in the module components while controlling critical values in order to prevent these quantities from reaching dangerous levels. The final design, AMACStar, was verified, tested, and ensured to perform all necessary functions. A quality control procedure using an in-house probe station set-up was developed in order to ensure that every individual chip on each wafer of AMACStars required by the ITk Strip project met performance requirements. The average per wafer yield of usable AMACStars is 92.33%, exceeding the design-specific 90% yield estimated for project costing. This estimate was based on actual yields for similar designs in this process.

Analogue electronic circuits↗
NASA NTRS2014

Propellant Handler's Ensemble (PHE) Aka Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble (SCAPE), Ventilator Improvement Study Project

The overall objective for this project is to evaluate two candidate alternatives for the existing Propellant Handler's Ensemble (PHE) escape ventilator. The new candidate ventilators use newer technology with similar quantities of air at approximately half the weight of the current ventilator. Ventilators are typically used to ingress/egress a hazardous work area when hard line air is provided at the work area but the hose is not long enough to get the operator to and from the staging area to the work area. The intent of this test is to verify that the new ventilators perform as well as or better than the current ventilators in maintaining proper oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the PHE during a typical use for the rated time period (~10 minutes). We will evaluate two new units comparing them to the existing unit. Subjects will wear the Category I version of the Propellant Handler's Ensemble with the rear suit pouch snapped.

PHE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Electrocoagulation in Water Treatment: Targeted Contaminant Removal and Laboratory Best Practices

Electrocoagulation for water treatment offers many advantages over traditional treatment technologies, including improved energy efficiency and modularity. One challenge with electrocoagulation is the lack of standardization in the methodology and reporting. This review provides a novel contribution by examining the past literature using a uniform metric (charge loading) as a basis for comparison, highlighting the importance of uniform reporting practices in this field. Furthermore, this review provides practical guidance for experimentalists in standardizing the electrocoagulation design and operating procedures. First, we present a comprehensive overview of contaminant-specific electrocoagulation as an electrochemical treatment technology for processing industrial, municipal, and agricultural water, with a focus on aluminum and iron electrocoagulation. We detail the fundamental mechanisms that allow for constituent removal during pretreatment. Specifically, we highlight electrocoagulation’s potential for organics, metalloids, microbes, and hardness remediation, examining the optimal removal conditions in terms of charge loading and current density. We conclude this work with some experimental best practices for lab-scale electrocoagulation experiments.

aluminum↗
DOE OSTI2022

Development of readout electronics for the CMS ME0 muon detector

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the High Luminosity (HL-LHC) era will be upgraded to deliver instantaneous luminosities up to 5 X 10 34 cm -2 s -1 , five times more than the original design value. In order to maintain performance of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment under these conditions, ME0 is one of the new muon detectors to be added, along with GE1/1, GE2/1, RE3/1 and RE4/1. ME0 uses the triple Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) technology and is designed to cover the far-forward region of 2.0 < |η| < 2.8. Further, the readout electronics for ME0 must be designed to deal with high data rates and be sufficiently radiation hard to operate very close to the beamline. The design and development status of the readout electronics for ME0 are presented, along with recent results from integration tests performed using the latest electronics prototypes with GEM chambers.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Study of CMOS strip sensor for future silicon tracker

Monolithic silicon sensors developed with High-Voltage CMOS (HV-CMOS) processes have become highly attractive for charged particle tracking. Compared with the standard CMOS sensors, HV-CMOS sensors can provide larger and deeper depletion regions that lead to larger signals and faster charge collection. They can provide high position resolution, low material budget, high radiation hardness and low cost that are desirable for high performance tracking in harsh collision environment. Various studies have been conducted to explore the technology feasibility for the large-area tracking systems at future collider experiments. CHESS (CMOS HV/HR Evaluation for Strip Sensor) sensor series have been developed as an alternative solution to the conventional silicon micro-strip detectors for the ATLAS inner tracker upgrade. The first prototype (named CHESS1) was to evaluate the diode geometry and the in-pixel analog electronics. Obtained test results were used to optimize the second prototype (named CHESS2). CHESS2 was implemented with a full digital readout architecture and realized as a full reticle sized monolithic sensor. Here, the basic characteristics of the CHESS2 prototype sensors and their performance in response to different input signals are presented.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Anion-Exchange-Membrane Electrolysis with Alkali-Free Water Feed

Hydrogen is a green and sustainable energy vector that can facilitate the large-scale integration of intermittent renewable energy, renewable fuels for heavy transport, and deep decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries. Anion-exchange-membrane water electrolyzers (AEM-WEs) have several achieved or expected competitive advantages over other electrolysis technologies, including the use of precious metal-free electrocatalysts at both electrodes, fluorine-free hydrocarbon-based ionomeric membranes and bipolar plates based on inexpensive materials. Contrasting the analogous proton-exchange-membrane system (PEM-WE), where pure water is circulated (no support electrolyte), the current generation of AEM-WEs necessitates the circulation of a dilute aqueous alkaline electrolyte for reaching high energy efficiency and durability. For several reasons, including but not limited to lower cost of balance-of-plant, lower operating cost and improved device's lifetime, achieving high cell efficiency and performance using an alkali-free water feed is highly desirable. In this review, we develop and build a foundational understanding of AEM-WEs operating with pure water, as well as discuss the effects of operating with natural water feeds like seawater. After a discussion of the possible advantages of pure-water-fed AEM-WEs, we cover the thermodynamic and kinetic processes involved in AEM-WE, followed by a detailed review of materials and components and their integration in the device. We highlight the influence of electrolyte composition and alkali/electrolyte-free feed on the membrane-electrode assembly, ionomers, electrocatalysts, porous transport layer, bipolar plates and operating configuration. We provide evidence for how the pure water feed engenders several issues related to the degradation of device components and propose mitigation strategies.

Electrodes↗