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At least 397 records · Page 22

Transient Convection Due to Imposed Heat Flux: Application to Liquid-Acquisition Devices

A model problem is considered that addresses the effect of heat load from an ambient laboratory environment on the temperature rise of liquid nitrogen inside an enclosure. This model has applications to liquid acquisition devices inside the cryogenic storage tanks used to transport vapor-free propellant to the main engine. We show that heat loads from Q = 0.001 to 10 W, with corresponding Rayleigh numbers from Ra = 109 to 1013, yield a range of unsteady convective states and temperature rise in the liquid. The results show that Q = 1 to 10 W (Ra = 1012 to 1013) yield temperature distributions along the enclosure height that are similar in trend to experimental measurements. Unsteady convection, which shows selfsimilarity in its planforms, is predicted for the range of heat-load conditions. The onset of convection occurs from a free-convection-dominated base flow that becomes unstable against convective instability generated at the bottom of the enclosure while the top of the enclosure is convectively stable. A number of modes are generated with small-scale thermals at the bottom of the enclosure in which the flow selforganizes into two symmetric modes prior to the onset of the propagation of the instability. These symmetric vertical modes transition to asymmetric modes that propagate as a traveling-wave-type motion of convective modes and are representative of the asymptotic convective state of the flow field. Intense vorticity production is created in the core of the flow field due to the fact that there is shear instability between the vertical and horizontal modes. For the higher Rayleigh numbers, 1012 to 1013, there is a transition from a stationary to a nonstationary response time signal of the flow and temperature fields with a mean value that increases with time over various time bands and regions of the enclosure.

Duval, Walter M. B.↗

Partial-Thickness Grooves In A VBL Memory Device

Bias magnetic fields tailored to match those needed elsewhere in device. Grooves through part of thickness of magnetic garnet storage layer of vertical-Bloch-line (VBL) memory device used to confine magnetic bubble and stripe domains in desired storage areas. VBL-memory concept described in "Vertical-Bloch-Line Memory" (NPO-18467).

Katti, Romney R.↗

Micro-Fresnel Zone Plate Optical Devices Using Densely Accumulated Ray Points

An embodiment generally relates to an optical device suitable for use with an optical medium for the storage and retrieval of data. The optical device includes an illumination means for providing a beam of optical radiation of wavelength .lamda. and an optical path that the beam of optical radiation follows. The optical device also includes a diffractive optical element defined by a plurality of annular sections. The plurality of annular sections having a first material alternately disposed with a plurality of annular sections comprising a second material. The diffractive optical element generates a plurality of focal points and densely accumulated ray points with phase contrast phenomena and the optical medium is positioned at a selected focal point or ray point of the diffractive optical element.

Choi, Sang H.↗

Combinatorial Multidomain Mesoporous Chips and a Method for Fractionation, Stabilization, and Storage of Biomolecules

A new fractionation device shows desirable features for exploratory screening and biomarker discovery. The constituent MSCs may be tailored for desired pore sizes and surface properties and for the sequestration and enrichment of extremely low abundant protein and peptides in desired ranges of the mass/charge spectrum. The MSCs are effective in yielding reproducible extracts from complex biological samples as small as 10 microliter in a time as short as 30 minutes. They are inexpensive to manufacture, and allow for scaled up production to attain the simultaneous processing of a large number of samples. The MSCs are multiplexed, label-free diagnostic tools with the potential of biological recognition moiety modification for enhanced specificity. The MSCs may store, protect and stabilize biological fluids, enabling the simplified and cost-effective collection and transportation of clinical samples. The MSC-based device may serve as a diagnostic tool to complement histopathology, imaging, and other conventional clinical techniques. The MSCs mediated identification of disease-specific protein signatures may help in the selection of personalized therapeutic combinations, in the real-time assessment of therapeutic efficacy and toxicity, and in the rational modulation of therapy based on the changes in the protein networks associated with the prognosis and the drug resistance of the disease.

Ferrari, Mauro↗

Electric power processing, distribution, management and energy storage

Power distribution subsystems are required for three elements of the SPS program: (1) orbiting satellite, (2) ground rectenna, and (3) Electric Orbiting Transfer Vehicle (EOTV). Power distribution subsystems receive electrical power from the energy conversion subsystem and provide the power busses rotary power transfer devices, switchgear, power processing, energy storage, and power management required to deliver control, high voltage plasma interactions, electric thruster interactions, and spacecraft charging of the SPS and the EOTV are also included as part of the power distribution subsystem design.

Giudici, R. J.↗

Configuration and Projected Capabilities of the Common Habitat Medical Care Facility

The Common Habitat is a large, long-duration habitat being explored as part of a conceptual study (not an active NASA program) that uses an SLS core stage Liquid Oxygen (LOX) tank as its primary structure. It is intended for use on the Moon as part of a permanently occupied outpost, on Mars as part of an outpost that will be occupied for hundreds of days at a time, and in deep space as part of the Deep Space Exploration Vehicle where it will support crewed missions up to 1200 days in duration. A study of internal orientation and crew size resulted in a Common Habitat configuration sized for a crew of eight with a three-deck horizontal orientation. Additional work outside the scope of this paper is developing a vertical translation system, a crew mobility aids system based on wearable gecko-derived grippers, and a crew seating/restraint system. These systems are all assumed for use in conjunction with the Medical Care Facility, which is needed to maintain crew well-being during these missions, where distance from Earth precludes the possibility of evacuation to Earth. This paper describes recent improvements in the Common Habitat Medical Care Facility and associated benefits for crew survivability in long duration missions beyond Earth orbit. These improvements were made with the assistance of a NASA Pathways intern whose experience includes a tour of duty in Afghanistan as an Army combat medic with the 691st GHOST-T, attached to the 1st and 7th US Special Forces Groups as part of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, where he helped provide far-forward surgical capabilities in austere combat environments. The initial baseline Medical Care Facility was developed working in conjunction with University of Houston Space Architecture graduate students. The facility was placed on the upper deck of the Common Habitat in a location that provided privacy, operational volume, and was close to the vertical translation pathway. The notional outfitting repurposed component CAD models from unrelated studies and notionally indicated a level of care roughly equivalent to that aboard the International Space Station. The CAD modeling provided notional stowage volumes, a deployable surface, some fixed equipment, an ultrasound, and a potentially reconfigurable treatment table. While this facility is clearly a competent arrangement, it was desired to leverage available expertise and upgrade the station given the vast distances from Earth to be experienced by the Common Habitat. Key driving requirements applied to the upgrade included to provide Medical Level of Care V, offer enhanced telemedicine capabilities, provide patient physical accommodation, provide caregiver access to the patient from all sides, include sliding pocket doors for access to hygiene and to the Vertical Translation System, and to add any additional capability possible for the best achievable medical care. The first step in the facility upgrade was to quantify the current medical inventory on the International Space Station and ensure that sufficient stowage volume was present for this purpose. To that end, the ISS medical kits were reviewed, and eight full size mid deck lockers were placed in the facility. A number of additional devices were also added, based on the intern’s combat medic experience. Also, two fixed shelves and one horizontal work surface were added to the Medical Care Facility, with the shelves providing storage space for the additional devices and the work surface providing a location for the caregiver to work or stage equipment. Four display monitors were added to the wall above the horizontal work surface, supporting data display, telemedicine, conferencing, or other needs. The existing treatment table was replaced with a mobile surgical stretcher-chair. Two additional doors were added to the Medical Care Facility. One leads directly to the hygiene compartment, allowing it to support medical operations in addition to providing galley/wardroom support. The other door leads directly into the Vertical Translation System. The wall adjacent to the subsystems bay was moved, adding additional volume to the Medical Care Facility. This improved caregiver access to the patient and allowed for a larger number of caregivers to be present. It also provided options for relocation of support equipment relative to the patient as needed. In the upgraded Medical Care Facility, the Surgical Stretcher-Chair and the Vertical Translation System can work together to provide incapacitated crew member transport from a site of injury on any deck of the Common Habitat to the Medical Care Facility. It can also support patient treatment in a variety of positions including a variety of sitting postures and a supine posture at a variety of pitch angles. The facility can also support caregiver office work for review of examination results, private consultation, inventory and maintenance, and a variety of other purposes. A forward activity will be to conduct evaluations of the Medical Care Facility with different medical scenarios. Additionally, ambient and task lighting selections remain as forward work. The eight mid deck lockers can be augmented to use as portable equipment carts, similar to a manner in which maintenance facility stowage was used as portable carts during the NASA Desert Research and Technology Studies in the Constellation Program. Trash accommodation will also need forward work to assess, including provision for wet trash, dry trash, and biological waste. It will be important to assess a redesign of the surgical stretcher-chair. The commercial version used in the upgrade can only enable vertical translation in the seated configuration, requiring the patient to bend both hips and knees. A possible redesign of the chair will allow for vertical translation without requiring any bending at the hip or knees. Also, the commercial version is wheeled, making it mobile in gravity but unanchored in microgravity. Work will be needed to adapt the chair for gravity-independent performance. The hygiene compartment can be redesigned for dual-use medical scrub and galley handwash facility. Pending sufficient volume, it may also be possible to place sanitation equipment in this location to clean medical tools. Finally, most space architectures have never allowed for more than one incapacitated crew member, but several scenarios could potentially injure two or more crew in the same incident. This facility could be assessed to determine its present ability to address two or more injured crew in parallel and determine the potential upper limit for number of treatable crew in a multi-crew injury scenario, or to treat polytrauma of a single patient.

Habitat↗

Configuration and Projected Capabilities of the Common Habitat Medical Care Facility

The Common Habitat is a large, long-duration habitat being explored as part of a conceptual study (not an active NASA program) that uses an SLS core stage Liquid Oxygen (LOX) tank as its primary structure. It is intended for use on the Moon as part of a permanently occupied outpost, on Mars as part of an outpost that will be occupied for hundreds of days at a time, and in deep space as part of the Deep Space Exploration Vehicle where it will support crewed missions up to 1200 days in duration. A study of internal orientation and crew size resulted in a Common Habitat configuration sized for a crew of eight with a three-deck horizontal orientation. Additional work outside the scope of this paper is developing a vertical translation system, a crew mobility aids system based on wearable gecko-derived grippers, and a crew seating/restraint system. These systems are all assumed for use in conjunction with the Medical Care Facility, which is needed to maintain crew well-being during these missions, where distance from Earth precludes the possibility of evacuation to Earth. This paper describes recent improvements in the Common Habitat Medical Care Facility and associated benefits for crew survivability in long duration missions beyond Earth orbit. These improvements were made with the assistance of a NASA Pathways intern whose experience includes a tour of duty in Afghanistan as an Army combat medic with the 691st GHOST-T, attached to the 1st and 7th US Special Forces Groups as part of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, where he helped provide far-forward surgical capabilities in austere combat environments. The initial baseline Medical Care Facility was developed working in conjunction with University of Houston Space Architecture graduate students. The facility was placed on the upper deck of the Common Habitat in a location that provided privacy, operational volume, and was close to the vertical translation pathway. The notional outfitting repurposed component CAD models from unrelated studies and notionally indicated a level of care roughly equivalent to that aboard the International Space Station. The CAD modeling provided notional stowage volumes, a deployable surface, some fixed equipment, an ultrasound, and a potentially reconfigurable treatment table. While this facility is clearly a competent arrangement, it was desired to leverage available expertise and upgrade the station given the vast distances from Earth to be experienced by the Common Habitat. Key driving requirements applied to the upgrade included to provide NASA’s Medical Level of Care V, offer enhanced telemedicine capabilities, provide patient physical accommodation, provide caregiver access to the patient from all sides, include sliding pocket doors for access to hygiene and to the Vertical Translation System, and to add any additional capability possible for the best achievable medical care. The first step in the facility upgrade was to quantify the current medical inventory on the International Space Station and ensure that sufficient stowage volume was present for this purpose. To that end, the ISS medical kits were reviewed, and eight full size mid deck lockers were placed in the facility. A number of additional devices were also added, based on the co-author’s combat medic experience. Also, two fixed shelves and one horizontal work surface were added to the Medical Care Facility, with the shelves providing storage space for the additional devices and the work surface providing a location for the caregiver to work or stage equipment. Four display monitors were added to the wall above the horizontal work surface, supporting data display, telemedicine, conferencing, or other needs. The existing treatment table was replaced with a mobile surgical stretcher-chair. Two additional doors were added to the Medical Care Facility. One leads directly to the hygiene compartment, allowing it to support medical operations in addition to providing galley/wardroom support. The other door leads directly into the Vertical Translation System. The wall adjacent to the subsystems bay was moved, adding additional volume to the Medical Care Facility. This improved caregiver access to the patient and allowed for a larger number of caregivers to be present. It also provided options for relocation of support equipment relative to the patient as needed. In the upgraded Medical Care Facility, the Surgical Stretcher-Chair and the Vertical Translation System can work together to provide incapacitated crew member transport from a site of injury on any deck of the Common Habitat to the Medical Care Facility. It can also support patient treatment in a variety of positions including a variety of sitting postures and a supine posture at a variety of pitch angles. The facility can also support caregiver office work for review of examination results, private consultation, inventory and maintenance, and a variety of other purposes. A forward activity will be to conduct evaluations of the Medical Care Facility with different medical scenarios. Additionally, ambient and task lighting selections remain as forward work. The eight middeck lockers can be augmented to use as portable equipment carts, similar to a manner in which maintenance facility stowage was used as portable carts during the NASA Desert Research and Technology Studies in the Constellation Program. Trash accommodation will also need forward work to assess, including provision for wet trash, dry trash, and biological waste. It will be important to assess a redesign of the surgical stretcher-chair. The commercial version used in the upgrade can only enable vertical translation in the seated configuration, requiring the patient to bend both hips and knees. A possible redesign of the chair will allow for vertical translation without requiring any bending at the hip or knees. Also, the commercial version is wheeled, making it mobile in gravity but unanchored in microgravity. Work will be needed to adapt the chair for gravity-independent performance. The hygiene compartment can be redesigned to serve both as a medical scrub facility and for galley hand washing. Pending sufficient volume, it may also be possible to place sanitation equipment in this location to clean medical tools. Finally, most space architectures have never allowed for more than one incapacitated crew member, but several scenarios could potentially injure two or more crew in the same incident. This facility could be assessed to determine its present ability to address two or more injured crew in parallel and determine the potential upper limit for number of treatable crew in a multi-crew injury scenario, or to treat polytrauma of a single patient.

Common Habitat↗

Summary and evaluation of the Strategic Defense Initiative Space Power Architecture Study

The Space Power Architecture Study (SPAS) identified and evaluated power subsystem options for multimegawatt electric (MMWE) space based weapons and surveillance platforms for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) applications. Steady state requirements of less than 1 MMWE are adequately covered by the SP-100 nuclear space power program and hence were not addressed in the SPAS. Four steady state power systems less than 1 MMWE were investigated with little difference between them on a mass basis. The majority of the burst power systems utilized H(2) from the weapons and were either closed (no effluent), open (effluent release) or steady state with storage (no effluent). Closed systems used nuclear or combustion heat source with thermionic, Rankine, turboalternator, fuel cell and battery conversion devices. Open systems included nuclear or combustion heat sources using turboalternator, magnetohydrodynamic, fuel cell or battery power conversion devices. The steady state systems with storage used the SP-100 or Star-M reactors as energy sources and flywheels, fuel cells or batteries to store energy for burst applications. As with other studies the open systems are by far the lightest, most compact and simplist (most reliable) systems. However, unlike other studies the SPAS studied potential platform operational problems caused by effluents or vibration.

Edenburn, M.↗

Gratings and waveguides

Our immediate objective is to understand the limitations of guided-wave and grating coupler devices in their application to optical data storage. Our long-range goal is to develop and validate design codes for integrated optic devices. The principal research activity was in the development of numerical models for the design of a blue wavelength integrated optical source for data storage applications.

Bates, K. A.↗

Vent System Analysis for the Cryogenic Propellant Storage Transfer Ground Test Article

To test and validate key capabilities and technologies required for future exploration elements such as large cryogenic propulsion stages and propellant depots, NASA is leading the efforts to develop and design the Cryogenic Propellant Storage and Transfer (CPST) Cryogenic Fluid Management (CFM) payload. The primary objectives of CPST payload are to demonstrate: 1) in-space storage of cryogenic propellants for long duration applications; and 2) in-space transfer of cryogenic propellants. The Ground Test Article (GTA) is a technology development version of the CPST payload. The GTA consists of flight-sized and flight-like storage and transfer tanks, liquid acquisition devices, transfer, and pressurization systems with all of the CPST functionality. The GTA is designed to perform integrated passive and active thermal storage and transfer performance testing with liquid hydrogen (LH2) in a vacuum environment. The GTA storage tank is designed to store liquid hydrogen and the transfer tank is designed to be 5% of the storage tank volume. The LH2 transfer subsystem is designed to transfer propellant from one tank to the other utilizing pressure or a pump. The LH2 vent subsystem is designed to prevent over-pressurization of the storage and transfer tanks. An in-house general-purpose computer program was utilized to model and simulate the vent subsystem operation. The modeling, analysis, and the results will be presented in the final paper.

Hedayat, A↗

Flexible bulb large storage box hydrogen maser

The principal limitation on the accuracy of the hydrogen maser as a primary frequency standard has been the irreproducibility of the frequency shift caused by collisions of the radiating atoms with the walls of the vessel containing them. The flexible bulb-large storage box hydrogen maser allows correction for this wall shift within a single device, sidestepping the reproducibility problem, and reducing the frequency error from the wall shift to the level imposed by the device's stability. The principles of the device are discussed including the flexible bulb technique and the complications caused by a multiple region storage bulb. The stability of the device is discussed including a comparison with an ordinary hydrogen maser. Data is presented from a working flexible bulb-large storage box hydrogen maser demonstrating the feasibility of the device and showing some of its operating characteristics. The flexibility of the device is demonstrated by showing how the device's added degrees of freedom allow measurement of parameters unmeasurable in an ordinary hydrogen maser.

Reinhardt, V.↗

Variable-gravity anti-vortex and vapor-ingestion-suppression device

A liquid propellant management device for placement in a liquid storage tank adjacent an outlet of the storage tank to substantially reduce or eliminate the formation of a dip and vortex in the liquid of the tank, as well as prevent vapor ingestion into the outlet, as the liquid drains out through the outlet. The liquid propellant management device has a first member adapted to suppress the formation of a vortex of a liquid exiting the storage tank. A plate is affixed generally perpendicular to the first member, wherein the plate is adapted to suppress vapor ingestion into the outlet by reducing a dip in a surface level of the liquid leaving the tank. A second member is affixed to the second side of the plate. The second member ensures that the plate is wet with liquid and assists in positioning bubbles away from the outlet.

Grayson, Gary D.↗

Water separating system Patent

Development of liquid separating system using capillary device connected to flexible bladder storage chamber

Beauregard, W. W.↗

Program THEK energy production units of average power and using thermal conversion of solar radiation

General studies undertaken by the C.N.R.S. in the field of solar power plants have generated the problem of building energy production units in the medium range of electrical power, in the order of 100 kW. Among the possible solutions, the principle of the use of distributed heliothermal converters has been selected as being, with the current status of things, the most advantageous solution. This principle consists of obtaining the conversion of concentrated radiation into heat by using a series of heliothermal conversion modules scattered over the ground; the produced heat is collected by a heat-carrying fluid circulating inside a thermal loop leading to a device for both regulation and storage.

Source record↗

Method of and apparatus for generating an interstitial point in a data stream having an even number of data points

Apparatus for doubling the data density rate of an analog to digital converter or doubling the data density storage capacity of a memory deviced is discussed. An interstitial data point midway between adjacent data points in a data stream having an even number of equal interval data points is generated by applying a set of predetermined one-dimensional convolute integer coefficients which can include a set of multiplier coefficients and a normalizer coefficient. Interpolator means apply the coefficients to the data points by weighting equally on each side of the center of the even number of equal interval data points to obtain an interstital point value at the center of the data points. A one-dimensional output data set, which is twice as dense as a one-dimensional equal interval input data set, can be generated where the output data set includes interstitial points interdigitated between adjacent data points in the input data set. The method for generating the set of interstital points is a weighted, nearest-neighbor, non-recursive, moving, smoothing averaging technique, equivalent to applying a polynomial regression calculation to the data set.

Edwards, T. R.↗

The science of computing - The evolution of parallel processing

The present paper is concerned with the approaches to be employed to overcome the set of limitations in software technology which impedes currently an effective use of parallel hardware technology. The process required to solve the arising problems is found to involve four different stages. At the present time, Stage One is nearly finished, while Stage Two is under way. Tentative explorations are beginning on Stage Three, and Stage Four is more distant. In Stage One, parallelism is introduced into the hardware of a single computer, which consists of one or more processors, a main storage system, a secondary storage system, and various peripheral devices. In Stage Two, parallel execution of cooperating programs on different machines becomes explicit, while in Stage Three, new languages will make parallelism implicit. In Stage Four, there will be very high level user interfaces capable of interacting with scientists at the same level of abstraction as scientists do with each other.

Denning, P. J.↗

Design consideration for magnetically suspended flywheel systems

Consideration is given to the design, fabrication, and testing of a magnetically suspended flywheel system for energy storage applications in space. The device is the prototype of a system combining passive suspension of the flywheel plate by samarium cobalt magnets and active control in the radial direction using eight separate magnetic coils. The bearing assembly was machined from a nickel-iron alloy, and the machine parts are all hydrogen annealed. Slots in the magnetic plate allow four independent quadrants for control. The motor/generator component of the system is a brushless dc-permanent magnetic/ironless engine using electronic communication. The system has been tested at over 2500 rpm with satisfactory results. The system characteristics of the flywheel for application in low earth orbit (LEO) are given in a table.

Anand, D.↗

Electronic Photography at the NASA Langley Research Center

An electronic photography facility has been established in the Imaging & Photographic Technology Section, Visual Imaging Branch, at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). The purpose of this facility is to provide the LaRC community with access to digital imaging technology. In particular, capabilities have been established for image scanning, direct image capture, optimized image processing for storage, image enhancement, and optimized device dependent image processing for output. Unique approaches include: evaluation and extraction of the entire film information content through scanning; standardization of image file tone reproduction characteristics for optimal bit utilization and viewing; education of digital imaging personnel on the effects of sampling and quantization to minimize image processing related information loss; investigation of the use of small kernel optimal filters for image restoration; characterization of a large array of output devices and development of image processing protocols for standardized output. Currently, the laboratory has a large collection of digital image files which contain essentially all the information present on the original films. These files are stored at 8-bits per color, but the initial image processing was done at higher bit depths and/or resolutions so that the full 8-bits are used in the stored files. The tone reproduction of these files has also been optimized so the available levels are distributed according to visual perceptibility. Look up tables are available which modify these files for standardized output on various devices, although color reproduction has been allowed to float to some extent to allow for full utilization of output device gamut.

Holm, Jack↗