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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 397 records · Page 22
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1977

Effects of control laws and relaxed static stability on vertical ride quality of flexible aircraft

State variable techniques are utilized to generate the RMS vertical load factors for the B-52H and B-1 bombers at low level, mission critical, cruise conditions. A ride quality index is proposed to provide meaningful comparisons between different controls or conditions. Ride quality is shown to be relatively invariant under various popular control laws. Handling quality variations are shown to be major contributors to ride quality variations on both vehicles. Relaxed static stability is artificially implemented on the study vehicles to investigate its effects on ride quality. The B-52H ride quality is generally degraded when handling characteristics are automatically restored by a feedback control to the original values from relaxed stability conditions. The B-1 airplane shows little ride quality sensitivity to the same analysis due to the small rigid body contribution to load factors at the flight condition investigated.

Roberts, P. A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

ENSAERO - A multidisciplinary program for fluid/structural interaction studies of aerospace vehicles

A computational procedure is developed that uses a moving zonal grid concept to model complex flexible aerospace vehicles. The Euler/Navier-Stokes equations are used to model the flow, and computations are made using efficient methods based on both central and upwind schemes. The structure is represented by a finite element method which can model general aerospace vehicles. Provisions are made to accommodate other disciplines such as controls and thermal loads. The code is capable of computing unsteady flows on flexible wings with vortical flows. Adaptation of this procedure for parallel processing and validation for complete aerospace configurations is in progress.

Guruswamy, G. P.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Space Shuttle Main Engine nozzle thermal protection system

Two of the three Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) nozzles are exposed to significant reentry aeroheating loads. To ensure reusability of the Nozzle Assembly, the nozzle primary structure must not exceed specific temperature limits. Due to the thermal, pressure, and dynamic flexing of the nozzle during a mission cycle, an appropriate insulating system must have significant flexibility. Recent missions have demonstrated nozzle reentry aeroheating rates and heat loads much higher than predictions, higher than the capability of the original insulating system. A new insulating system has been developed using similar materials in an aerodynamically 'smooth' shape to both reduce the incoming heating and increase radiation cooling.

Nordlund, R. M.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Job Scheduler-Driven Power Gateway for High Performance Computing

Power gateways in the form of a microgrid can incorporate multiple distributed energy resources (DER) in either grid forming or grid following mode and support high performance computing (HPC) power profiles including the large load-follow requirements observed in multi-user HPC systems. The microgrid’s flexibility to operate in either grid forming or grid following mode and to actively switch between these modes enables baseline power from multiple non-baseline DER while maintaining high power quality metrics for the HPC system. But this enormous flexibility in demand response and time of use shifting is generally programmed independently of any integration with an HPC job scheduler which can better inform the load shaping by the microgrid. While there are many existing approaches where the HPC job scheduler takes in information from the grid to make queue scheduling decisions, this work takes the opposite view and explores a scheduler where the jobs in the queue can directly impact the settings of the grid. Several HPC scheduler strategies are tested where the jobs in the queue directly impact the settings of a microgrid designed for HPC operation which is driving a datacenter with three classes of HPC architectures. The scheduler operation is shown using a microgrid with 64 kW of solar capacity and 320 kWh of battery over a period of 21 days operating with significant low-follow swings, a throttled grid, cloudy conditions, switching between grid following and grid forming modes, and a wide range of battery states-of-charge all while maintaining high quality power metrics. The scheduler provides a mechanism for the job queue to directly impact a power gateway like a microgrid and to improve HPC power outcomes such as maximizing renewable energy usage

microgrid↗
DOE OSTI2024

End-Use Savings Shapes Measure Documentation: Thermostat Control for Load Shifting in Large Offices

This documentation focuses on a single end-use savings shape measure - thermostat control for load shifting. The thermostat control for load shifting measure applies heating and cooling temperature setpoint adjustment for pre-conditioning before the peak window. The measure takes daily peak load schedule inputs generated by the method "Dispatch Schedule Generation" described in the "Supplemental Documentation: Dispatch Schedule Generation for Demand Flexibility Measures" to determine the start time of the peak window, and then adjusts the thermostat cooling or heating setpoints by a specified offset value from original schedules to precool or preheat the space , for a specified length of time before the start of peak window, and thus shifts load in the peak window to the pre-conditioning period. The measure is flexible and allows users to adjust the heating and cooling offset values and length of pre-conditioning period, but for this study, the load shifting strategy is applied as pre-cooling only (adjusting only cooling setpoints). The default adjustment for cooling setpoints is set to -1 degrees Celsius , and the default duration of pre-cooling is 1 hour. This measure is applicable to large offices equipped with electric HVAC system, which account for approximately 8.72% of the ComStock floor area. The thermostat control for load shifting measure demonstrates -1% daily peak demand reduction and 0% total site energy savings (0 trillion British thermal units [TBtu]) for the U.S. commercial building stock modeled in ComStock.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2011

Structural Analysis of Pressurized Small Diameter Lines in a Random Vibration Environment

The pressurization and propellant feed lines for the Ares 1 Upper Stage Reaction and Roll Control Systems (ReCS and RoCS) were required to be in a high g-load random vibration flight environment. The lines connected the system components and were filled with both liquid hydrazine and gaseous helium. They are considered small and varied between one fourth to one inch in diameter. The random vibration of the lines was considered to be base excitation through the mating components and mounting hardware. It was found that reducing the amount of support structure for the lines added flexibility to the system and improved the line stresses from random vibration, but caused higher stresses from the static g-loads. The locations and number of brackets were optimized by analyzing the mode shapes of the lines causing high stresses. The use of brackets that only constrain motion in the direction of concern further reduced the stresses in the lines. Finite element analysis was used to perform the analysis. The lines were pre-stressed by temperature and internal pressure with fluid and insulation included as non-structural mass. Base excitation was added to the model using Power Spectral Density (PSD) data for the expected flight loads. The random vibration and static g-load cases were combined to obtain the total stress in the lines. This approach advances the state of the art in line analysis by using FEA to predict the stresses in the lines and to optimize the entire system based on the expected flight environment. Adding flexibility to lines has been used in piping system for temperature loads, but in flight environments flexibility has been limited for the static stresses. Adding flexibility to the system in a flight environment by reducing brackets has the benefit of reducing stresses and weight

Davis, Mark↗
NASA NTRS1990

Shaft flexibility effects on the forced response of a bladed-disk assembly

A model analysis approach is used to study the forced response of an actual flexible bladed-disk-shaft system. Both in-plane and out-of-plane flexible deformations of the bladed-disk assembly are considered, in addition to its rigid-body translations and rotations, resulting from the bending of the supporting flexible shaft in two orthogonal planes. The effects of Coriolis forces and structural coupling between flexible and rigid disk motions on the system's response are investigated. Aerodynamic loads acting on the rotating and vibrating bladed-disk assembly are accounted for through a simple quasi-steady representation, to evaluate their influence, combined with shaft flexibility and Coriolis effects.

Khader, N.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Estimating Flexibility Envelopes for Residential Customers From Utility Smart Meter Data: Preprint

Demand response from residential customers has significant potential to support power system operations, but accurate flexibility estimation is challenging due to the limited resolution of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) data. Most utility AMI measurements are recorded at hourly intervals, with only a small portion at higher resolutions, and even fewer households have appliance-level energy usage data. To address this issue, this paper proposes a two-stage long short-term memory (LSTM) framework for estimating household flexibility envelopes from low-resolution AMI data. In the first stage, the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) load and non-HVAC loads are estimated by using a model trained on a small set of households with appliance-level profiles. These estimated data are then used to compute the upper- and lower-flexibility bounds, which are subsequently down-sampled to lower-resolution data. In the second stage, these flexibility bounds serve as training inputs for another LSTM model, enabling direct prediction of flexibility envelopes for households with only hourly AMI data. This method is validated using Pecan Street data from two different areas, and the results demonstrate its applicability and effectiveness.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Main bearing response in a waked 15-MW floating wind turbine in below-rated conditions

Increased wind turbine size raises unknowns related to structural flexibility. Moreover, moving to deeper waters, component reliability becomes more critical. This work investigates main bearing response dependence on drivetrain flexibility and wake impingement in a two-turbine wind farm. A 15-MW floating direct-drive turbine is considered. Large eddy simulations (LES) are employed to model neutral, stable and unstable atmospheric conditions at below-rated mean wind speed, while the engineering codes OpenFAST and FAST.Farm simulate turbine and wake behavior. Results indicate significant sensitivities in fatigue estimates to lateral distance between the upstream and downstream turbine. The trends are most substantial in stable conditions, where the waked downwind main bearing sees twice the fatigue damage estimates of the upstream turbine for one position and 50% for another. Main bearing fatigue sensitivity to drivetrain flexibility is minor, while properly including generator rotor inertia loads is important for the axial forces of the locating (axially fixed) bearing, especially in stable conditions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Electrifying education: Exploring the electrification potential of U.S. School bus fleets

We analyze the operations of 270 diesel school buses across the United States to assess their electrification potential and evaluate the impact of various charging strategies on electricity demand. We find that school buses typically follow a two-route schedule on weekdays, featuring extended dwell times between morning and evening trips. Weekday trip distances average 25 miles, while weekend trips average 42 miles. Charging simulations indicate over 90% of the U.S. school bus fleet could be electrified using current technologies (300-mile range at 1.21 kWh/mile with 19.2-kW depot charging) without modifying existing operating patterns. Depot charging is a key enabler of school bus electrification, however, the strategic placement of charging stations at other locations (e.g., schools) can further increase electrification potential. Additionally, we find electric school bus charging to be highly flexible, with charge management capable of reducing peak charging loads at depots by up to 77%.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1977

Validation of a Flexible Aircraft Take-Off and Landing Analysis (FATOLA)

Modifications to improve the analytical simulation capabilities of a multi-degree-of-freedom flexible aircraft take-off and landing analysis (FATOLA) computer program are discussed. The FATOLA program was used to simulate the landing behavior of a stiff body X-24B reentry research vehicle and of a flexible body supersonic cruise YF-12A research airplane. The analytical results were compared with flight test data, and correlations of vehicle motions, attitudes, forces, and accelerations during the landing impact and rollout were good. For the YF-12A airplane, airframe flexibility was found to be important for nose gear loading. Based upon the correlation study presented, the versatility and validity of the FATOLA program for the study of landing dynamics of aircraft are confirmed.

Carden, H. D.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Continuum models for beam-like and plate-like lattice structures

A simple, rational approach is presented for developing continuum models for large repetitive beam-like and plate-like lattices with arbitrary configurations subjected to static, thermal and dynamic loadings. The continuum models for these structures are shear flexible beams and plates. They account for local effects in the repeating element of the actual structure and are characterized by their thermoelastic strain and kinetic energies from which the equations of motion and constitutive relations can be derived. The procedure for developing the expressions for thermoelastic strain and kinetic energies of the continuum involves introducing basic assumptions regarding the variation of the temperature, displacement and strain components in one or two directions (for plate-like and beam-like lattices) and obtaining effective thermoelastic and dynamic coefficients of the continuum in terms of material properties and geometry of the original lattice structure. The high accuracy of the continuum models developed is demonstrated by means of numerical examples.

Noor, A. K.↗
NASA NTRS1979

PEP solar array definition study

The conceptual design of a large, flexible, lightweight solar array is presented focusing on a solar array overview assessment, solar array blanket definition, structural-mechanical systems definition, and launch/reentry blanket protection features. The overview assessment includes a requirements and constraints review, the thermal environment assessment on the design selection, an evaluation of blanket integration sequence, a conceptual blanket/harness design, and a hot spot analysis considering the effects of shadowing and cell failures on overall array reliability. The solar array blanket definition includes the substrate design, hinge designs and blanket/harness flexibility assessment. The structural/mechanical systems definition includes an overall loads and deflection assessment, a frequency analysis of the deployed assembly, a components weights estimate, design of the blanket housing and tensioning mechanism. The launch/reentry blanket protection task includes assessment of solar cell/cover glass cushioning concepts during ascent and reentry flight condition.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1979

Observation of self-excited wobble in face seals

A face seal model consisting of a rigidly mounted rotor and a flexibly mounted stator was tested under conditions of eccentric loading. Self-excited oscillations in the form of combined precession and nutation of the stator were observed. The nature of the motion and its frequency are dependent on rotational speed, seal clearance, and external tilting moment. It is possible that some unexplained seal failures and waviness of seal faces are the result of such self excited wobble.

Etsion, I.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Power subsystem automation study

Generic power-system elements and their potential faults are identified. Automation functions and their resulting benefits are defined and automation functions between power subsystem, central spacecraft computer, and ground flight-support personnel are partitioned. All automation activities were categorized as data handling, monitoring, routine control, fault handling, planning and operations, or anomaly handling. Incorporation of all these classes of tasks, except for anomaly handling, in power subsystem hardware and software was concluded to be mandatory to meet the design and operational requirements of the space station. The key drivers are long mission lifetime, modular growth, high-performance flexibility, a need to accommodate different electrical user-load equipment, onorbit assembly/maintenance/servicing, and potentially large number of power subsystem components. A significant effort in algorithm development and validation is essential in meeting the 1987 technology readiness date for the space station.

Imamura, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1987

An Investigation of the Dynamic Response of Spur Gear Teeth with Moving Loads

Two concepts relating to gear dynamics were studied. The first phase of the analysis involved the study of the effect of the speed of a moving load on the dynamic deflections of a gear tooth. A single spur gear tooth modelled using finite elements was subjected to moving loads with variable velocities. The tooth tip deflection time histories were plotted, from which it was seen that the tooth tip deflection consisted of a quasistatic response with an oscillatory response superimposed on it whose amplitude was dependent on the type of load engagement. Including the rim in the analysis added flexibility to the model but did not change the general behavior of the system. The second part of the analysis involved an investigation to determine the effect on the dynamic response of the inertia of the gear tooth. A simplified analysis using meshing cantilever beams was used. In one case, the beams were assumed massless. In the other, the mass (inertia) of the beams was included. From this analysis it was found that the inertia of the tooth did not affect the dynamic response of meshing cantilever beams.

Passerello, C. E.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Shaft flexibility effects on aeroelastic stability of a rotating bladed disk

A comprehensive study of Coriolis forces and shaft flexibility effects on the structural dynamics and aeroelastic stability of a rotating bladed-disk assembly attached to a cantilever, massless, flexible shaft is presented. Analyses were performed for an actual bladed-disk assembly, used as the first stage in the fan of the 'E3' engine. In the structural model, both in-plane and out-of-plane elastic deformation of the bladed-disk assembly were considered relative to their hub, in addition to rigid disk translations and rotations introduced by shaft flexibility. Besides structural coupling between blades (through the flexible disk), additional coupling is introduced through quasisteady aerodynamic loads. Rotational effects are accounted for throughout the work, and some mode shapes for the whole structure are presented at a selected rpm.

Khader, Naim↗