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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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NASA NTRS2002

A System for Planning Ahead

A software system that uses artificial intelligence techniques to help with complex Space Shuttle scheduling at Kennedy Space Center is commercially available. Stottler Henke Associates, Inc.(SHAI), is marketing its automatic scheduling system, the Automated Manifest Planner (AMP), to industries that must plan and project changes many different times before the tasks are executed. The system creates optimal schedules while reducing manpower costs. Using information entered into the system by expert planners, the system automatically makes scheduling decisions based upon resource limitations and other constraints. It provides a constraint authoring system for adding other constraints to the scheduling process as needed. AMP is adaptable to assist with a variety of complex scheduling problems in manufacturing, transportation, business, architecture, and construction. AMP can benefit vehicle assembly plants, batch processing plants, semiconductor manufacturing, printing and textiles, surface and underground mining operations, and maintenance shops. For most of SHAI's commercial sales, the company obtains a service contract to customize AMP to a specific domain and then issues the customer a user license.

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NASA NTRS2002

Mining Marketing Data

MarketMiner(R) Products, a line of automated marketing analysis tools manufactured by MarketMiner, Inc., can benefit organizations that perform significant amounts of direct marketing. MarketMiner received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from NASA's Johnson Space Center to develop the software as a data modeling tool for space mission applications. The technology was then built into the company current products to provide decision support for business and marketing applications. With the tool, users gain valuable information about customers and prospects from existing data in order to increase sales and profitability. MarketMiner(R) is a registered trademark of MarketMiner, Inc.

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NASA NTRS1994

Technology for the Sound of Music

In the early 1960s during an industry recession, Kaman Aircraft lost several defense contracts. Forced to diversify, the helicopter manufacturer began to manufacture acoustic guitars. Kaman's engineers used special vibration analysis equipment based on aerospace technology. While a helicopter's rotor system is highly susceptible to vibration, which must be reduced or "dampened," vibration enhances a guitar's sound. After two years of vibration analysis Kaman produced an instrument, which is very successful. The Ovation guitar is made of fiberglass. It is stronger than the traditional rosewood and manufactured with adapted aircraft techniques such as jigs and fixtures, reducing labor and assuring quality and cost control. Kaman Music Corporation now has annual sales of $100 million.

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NASA NTRS1994

A Personal Storm Warning Service

Although lightning detection systems operated by government agencies, utilities and other businesses provide storm warnings, this information often does not reach the public until some time after the observations have been made. A low-cost personal lightning detector offers a significant safety advantage to private flyers, boaters, golfers and others. Developed by Airborne Research Associates, the detectors originated in Space Shuttle tests of an optical lightning detection technique. The commercial device is pointed toward a cloud to detect invisible intracloud lightning by sensing subtle changes in light presence. The majority of the sales have been to golf courses. Additional products and more advanced applications are in progress.

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NASA NTRS1992

Water Sensors

Mike Morris, former Associate Director of STAC, formed pHish Doctor, Inc. to develop and sell a pH monitor for home aquariums. The monitor, or pHish Doctor, consists of a sensor strip and color chart that continually measures pH levels in an aquarium. This is important because when the level gets too high, ammonia excreted by fish is highly toxic; at low pH, bacteria that normally break down waste products stop functioning. Sales have run into the tens of thousands of dollars. A NASA Tech Brief Technical Support Package later led to a salt water version of the system and a DoE Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for development of a sensor for sea buoys. The company, now known as Ocean Optics, Inc., is currently studying the effects of carbon dioxide buildup as well as exploring other commercial applications for the fiber optic sensor.

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NASA NTRS1991

Help for the Steel Industry

A collaboration between NASA Lewis Research Center (LRC) and Gladwin Engineering resulted in the adaptation of aerospace high temperature metal technology to the continuous casting of steel. The continuous process is more efficient because it takes less time and labor. A high temperature material, once used on the X-15 research plane, was applied to metal rollers by a LRC developed spraying technique. Lewis Research Center also supplied mold prototype of metal composites, reducing erosion and promoting thermal conductivity. Rollers that previously cracked due to thermal fatigue, lasted longer. Gladwin's sales have increased, and additional NASA-developed innovations are anticipated.

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NASA NTRS1988

Light Reflector

Ultra Sales, Inc.'s fluorescent lighting fixture gets a boost in reflectivity through installation of Lightdriver, a thin tough thermoplastic film plated with aluminum, capable of reflecting 95 percent of visible light striking it. Lightdriver increases brightness without adding bulbs, and allows energy savings by removing some bulbs because the mirrorlike surface cuts light loss generally occasioned by conventional low reflectivity white painted surface above the bulbs in many fluorescent fixtures. Forty-five percent reduction in lighting electricity is attainable.

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NASA NTRS1990

Liquid Crystals

Thermochromic liquid crystals, or TLCs, are a type of liquid crystals that react to changes in temperature by changing color. The Hallcrest/NASA collaboration involved development of a new way to visualize boundary layer transition in flight and in wind tunnel testing of aircraft wing and body surfaces. TLCs offered a new and potentially better method of visualizing the boundary layer transition in flight. Hallcrest provided a liquid crystal formulation technique that afforded great control over the sensitivity of the liquid crystals to varying conditions. Method is of great use to industry, government and universities for aerodynamic and hydrodynamic testing. Company's principal line is temperature indicating devices for industrial use, such as non-destructive testing and flaw detection in electric/electronic systems, medical application, such as diagnostic systems, for retail sale, such as room, refrigerator, baby bath and aquarium thermometers, and for advertising and promotion specials. Additionally, Hallcrest manufactures TLC mixtures for cosmetic applications, and liquid crystal battery tester for Duracell batteries.

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NASA NTRS1986

Bolting Technology

With NERAC assistance, Raymond Engineering has developed a line of sophisticated tools for producing and controlling high torques that affect bolted joints in various applications. Information from NERAC was also useful in designing and presenting a series of Raymond Bolting Seminars. The new tools have increased sales and created jobs.

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NASA NTRS1984

Welding Curtains

Concept of transparent welding curtains made of heavy duty vinyl originated with David F. Wilson, President of Wilson Sales Company. In 1968, Wilson's curtains reduced glare of welding arc and blocked ultraviolet radiation. When later research uncovered blue light hazards, Wilson sought improvement of his products. He contracted Dr. Charles G. Miller and James B. Stephens, both of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and they agreed to undertake development of a curtain capable of filtering out harmful irradiance, including ultraviolet and blue light and provide protection over a broad range of welding operation. Working on their own time, the JPL pair spent 3 years developing a patented formula that includes light filtering dyes and small particles of zinc oxide. The result was the Wilson Spectra Curtain.

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NASA NTRS1980

Temperature Sensor

Weed Instrument Inc. produces a line of thermocouples - temperature sensors - for a variety of industrial and research uses. One of the company's newer products is a thermocouple specially designed for high accuracy at extreme temperatures above 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Development of sensor brought substantial increases in Weed Instrument sales and employment.

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NASA NTRS1981

Temper Foam

Fabricated by Expanded Rubber & Plastics Corporation, Temper Foam provides better impact protection for airplane passengers and enhances passenger comfort on long flights because it distributes body weight and pressure evenly over the entire contact area. Called a "memory foam" it matches the contour of the body pressing against it and returns to its original shape once the pressure is removed. As a shock absorber, a three-inch foam pad has the ability to absorb the impact of a 10-foot fall by an adult. Applications include seat cushioning for transportation vehicles, padding for furniture and a variety of athletic equipment medical applications including wheelchair padding, artificial limb socket lining, finger splint and hand padding for burn patients, special mattresses for the bedridden and dental stools. Production and sales rights are owned by Temper Foam, Inc. Material is manufactured under license by the Dewey and Almy Division of Grace Chemical Corporation. Distributors of the product are Kees Goebel Medical Specialties, Inc. and Alimed, Inc. They sell Temper Foam in bulk to the fabricators who trim it to shapes required by their customers.

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NASA NTRS2003

Advanced Propulsion Systems Study for General Aviation Aircraft

This study defines a family of advanced technology Stratified Charge Rotary Engines (SCRE) appropriate for the enablement of the development of a new generation of general aviation aircraft. High commonality, affordability, and environmental compatibility are considerations influencing the family composition and ratings. The SCRE family is comprised of three engines in the 70 Series (40 cu in. displacement per rotor), i.e. one, two, and four rotor and two engines in the 170 Series (105 cu in. displacement per rotor), i.e., two and four rotor. The two rotor engines are considered the primary engines in each series. A wide power range is considered covering 125 to 2500 HP through growth and compounding/dual pac considerations. Mission requirements, TBO, FAA Certification, engine development cycles, and costs are examined. Comparisons to current and projected reciprocating and turbine engine configurations in the 125 to 1000 HP class are provided. Market impact, estimated sales, and U.S. job creation (R&D, manufacturing and infractures) are examined.

Mount, R.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Software With Strong Ties to Space

TieFlow is a simple but powerful business process improvement solution. It can automate and simplify any generic or industry-specific work process, helping organizations to transform work inefficiencies and internal operations involving people, paper, and procedures into a streamlined, well-organized, electronicbased process. TieFlow increases business productivity by improving process cycle times. The software can expedite generic processes in the areas of product design and development, purchase orders, expense reports, benefits enrollment, budgeting, hiring, and sales. It can also shore up vertical market processes such as claims processing, loan application and processing, health care administration, contract management, and advertising agency traffic. The processes can be easily and rapidly captured in a graphical manner and enforced together with rules pertaining to assignments that need to be performed. Aside from boosting productivity, TieFlow also reduces organizational costs and errors. TieFlow was developed with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) assistance from Johnson. The SBIR support entitles all Federal Government agencies to utilize the TieFlow software technology free of charge. Tietronix emphasizes that TieFlow is an outstanding workflow resource that could produce dramatic productivity and cost improvements for all agencies, just as it has done and continues to do for NASA. The Space Agency is currently using the software throughout several mission-critical offices, including the Mission Operations Directorate and the Flight Director s Office, for worldwide participation of authorized users in NASA processes. At the Flight Director s Office, TieFlow allows personnel to electronically submit and review changes to the flight rules carried out during missions.

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NASA NTRS2003

Numerical Modeling of Shatter Cones Development in Impact Craters

Shatter cones are the characteristic forms of rock fractures in impact structures. They have been used for decades as unequivocal fingerprints of meteoritic impacts on Earth. The abundant data about shapes, apical angles, sizes and distributions of shatter cones for many terrestrial impact structures should provide insights for the determination of impact conditions and characteristics of shock waves produced by high-velocity projectiles in geologic media. However, previously proposed models for the formation of shatter cones do not agree with observations. For example, the widely accepted Johnson-Talbot mechanism requires that the longitudinal stress drops to zero between the arrival of the elastic precursor and the main plastic wave. Unfortunately, observations do not support such a drop. A model has been also proposed to explain the striated features on the surface of shatter cones but can not invoked for their conical shape. The mechanism by which shatter cones form thus remains enigmatic to date. In this paper we present a new model for the formation of shatter cones. Our model has been tested by means of numerical simulations using the hydrocodes SALE 2D enhanced with the Grady-Kipp-Melosh fragmentation model.

Baratoux, D.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Hydrogen Flame Imaging System Soars to New, Different Heights

When Judy and Dave Duncan of Auburn, Calif.-based Duncan Technologies Inc. (DTI) developed their color hydrogen flame imaging system in the early 1990's, their market prospects were limited. 'We talked about commercializing the technology in the hydrogen community, but we also looked at commercialization on a much broader aspect. While there were some hydrogen applications, the market was not large enough to suppport an entire company; also, safety issues were a concern,' said Judy Duncan, owner and CEO of Duncan Technologies. Using the basic technology developed under the Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR); DTI conducted market research, identified other applications, formulated a plan for next generation development, and implemented a far-reaching marketing strategy. 'We took that technology; reinvested our own funds and energy into a second-generation design on the overall camera electronics and deployed that basic technology intially in a series of what we call multi-spectral cameras; cameras that could image in both the visible range and the infrared,' explains Duncan. 'The SBIR program allowed us to develop the technology to do a 3CCD camera, which very few compaines in the world do, particularly not small companies. The fact that we designed our own prism and specked the coding as we had for the hydrogen application, we were able to create a custom spectral configuration which could support varying types of research and applications.' As a result, Duncan Technologies Inc. of Auburn, Ca., has achieved a milestone $ 1 million in sales.

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NASA NTRS2003

Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE): MIT Contribution

We describe in detail the instrumentation and calibrations used in the ALE, GAGE and AGAGE experiments and present a history of the majority of the anthropogenic ozone- depleting and climate-forcing gases in air based on these experiments. Beginning in 1978, these three successive automated high frequency in-situ experiments have documented the long-term behavior of the measured concentrations of these gases over the past twenty years, and show both the evolution of latitudinal gradients and the high frequency variability due to sources and circulation. We provide estimates of the long-term trends in total chlorine contained in long- lived halocarbons involved in ozone depletion. We summarize interpretations of these measurements using inverse methods to determine trace gas lifetimes and emissions. Finally, we provide a combined observational and modeled reconstruction of the evolution of chlorocarbons by latitude in the atmosphere over the past sixty years which can be used as boundary conditions for interpreting trapped air in glaciers and oceanic measurements of chlorocarbon tracers of the deep oceanic circulation. Some specific conclusions are: (a) International compliance with the Montreal Protocol is so far resulting in chlorofluorocarbon and chlorocarbon mole fractions comparable to target levels, (b) Mole fractions of total chlorine contained in long-lived halocarbons (CCl2F2, CCl3F, CH3CCl3, CCl4, CHClF2, CCl2FCClF2, CH3Cl, CH2Cl2, CHCl3, CCl2=CCl2) in the lower troposphere reached maximum values of about 3.6 ppb in 1993 and are beginning to slowly decrease in the global lower atmosphere, (c) The chlorofluorocarbons have atmospheric lifetimes consistent with destruction in the stratosphere being their principal removal mechanism, (d) Multi-annual variations in chlorofluorocarbon and chlorocarbon emissions deduced from ALUGAGWAGAGE data are consistent approximately with variations estimated independently from industrial production and sales data where available (CCl2F2 (CFC-12) and CCl2FCClF2 (CFC-113) show the greatest discrepancies), (e) The mole fractions of the hydrochlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, which are replacing the regulated halocarbons, are rising very rapidly in the atmosphere but, with the exception of the much longer manufactured CHClF2 (HCFC-22), they are not yet at levels sufficient to contribute significantly to atmospheric chlorine loading. These replacement species could in the future provide independent estimates of the global weighted-average OH concentration provided their industrial emissions are accurately documented, (f) In the future, analysis of pollution events measured using high frequency in-situ measurements of chlorofluorocarbons and their replacements may enable emission estimates at the regional level which, together with industrial end-use data, are of sufficient accuracy to be capable of identifying regional non-compliance with the Montreal Protocol.

Kurylo, Michael↗
NASA NTRS2001

A Closed-Loop Optimal Neural-Network Controller to Optimize Rotorcraft Aeromechanical Behaviour: Theory and Methodology - Volume 1

Given the predicted growth in air transportation, the potential exists for significant market niches for rotary wing subsonic vehicles. Technological advances which optimise rotorcraft aeromechanical behaviour can contribute significantly to both their commercial and military development, acceptance, and sales. Examples of the optimisation of rotorcraft aeromechanical behaviour which are of interest include the minimisation of vibration and/or loads. The reduction of rotorcraft vibration and loads is an important means to extend the useful life of the vehicle and to improve its ride quality. Although vibration reduction can be accomplished by using passive dampers and/or tuned masses, active closed-loop control has the potential to reduce vibration and loads throughout a.wider flight regime whilst requiring less additional weight to the aircraft man that obtained by using passive methads. It is ernphasised that the analysis described herein is applicable to all those rotorcraft aeromechanical behaviour optimisation problems for which the relationship between the harmonic control vector and the measurement vector can be adequately described by a neural-network model.

Leyland, Jane Anne↗