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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 433 records · Page 24

Design Concepts for Cooled Ceramic Composite Turbine Vane

The objective of this work was to develop design concepts for a cooled ceramic vane to be used in the first stage of the High Pressure Turbine(HPT). To insure that the design concepts were relevant to the gas turbine industry needs, Honeywell International Inc. was subcontracted to provide technical guidance for this work. The work performed under this contract can be divided into three broad categories. The first was an analysis of the cycle benefits arising from the higher temperature capability of Ceramic Matrix Composite(CMC) compared with conventional metallic vane materials. The second category was a series of structural analyses for variations in the internal configuration of first stage vane for the High Pressure Turbine(HPT) of a CF6 class commercial airline engine. The third category was analysis for a radial cooled turbine vanes for use in turboshaft engine applications. The size, shape and internal configuration of the turboshaft engine vanes were selected to investigate a cooling concept appropriate to small CMC vanes.

vanes↗

Airfoil with varying wall thickness

An airfoil includes an airfoil body that has a peripheral wall that defines an exterior side and an interior side that bounds an internal cavity in the airfoil body. The peripheral wall has first and second wall sections joined by a transition section. The first wall section is thicker than the second wall section. The transition section provides a change in thickness between the first wall section and the second wall section. The second wall section includes a cooling hole that has a first end that opens to the internal cavity at the interior side and a second end that opens to the exterior side.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Designing Energy-Efficient Quantum Computers Through Prediction and Reduction of Cooling Requirements for Cryogenic Electronics

Quantum computing has been identified as a “wild card” by the International Energy Agency in predicting future global data center energy usage. This is primarily because both uncertainty in the extent to which quantum computing will be adopted, and uncertainty in the power consumption of individual quantum data centers. Unlike the classical counterparts, quantum computers need to be maintained at near absolute zero, requiring energy-intensive cryogenic cooling systems. Therefore, as quantum computers scale up from existing 50 qubit technology demonstrations to the 10,000 to 100,000 qubit systems that will be able to solve complex problems, the energy consumption of both the electronics and the required cooling systems will also increase. To predict this scaling, this work analyzes the energy requirements for both computation and cooling of quantum hardware. We show that the energy requirements for cooling of quantum computers is determined by several computing system parameters, including the number and type of physical qubits, the operating temperature, the packaging efficiency of the system, and the split between circuits operating at cryogenic temperatures and those operating at room temperature. The energy requirements can then be found based on thermal system parameters such as cooling efficiency and cryostat heat transfer. Analysis of these parameters shows that the energy required for cooling is significantly larger than that required for computation, a reversal from energy usage patterns seen in conventional computing. The results and discussions provide a road-map for creating energy efficient quantum computers through the selection of computer architectures and cryogenic system configurations that minimize cooling requirements.

energy efficiency↗

Control System Development for A Zero Boil-Off Hydrogen Storage Demonstration With Two-Stage Active Cooling

A NASA team is designing and building a test article to demonstrate the long duration storage of liquid hydrogen via active cooling (cryocoolers) while implementing a two-stage cooling approach. This activity is one of a large portfolio of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funded activities which focuses on the technology maturation needed for long duration storage of cryogenic liquid in-space. The current state-of-the-art for liquid hydrogen storage on-orbit is on the order of hours while NASA’s planned missions require storage for months, or even years. To enable such a long duration, Zero Boil-Off conditions must be achieved which requires passive technologies to minimize environmental heat loads, but also active cooling to intercept and reject the remaining heat to deep space. The implementation of active cooling results in a significant amount of dry mass added to the vehicle. Utilizing a Two-Stage Cooling approach, analysis and testing to date indicates the Zero Boil-Off of liquid hydrogen can be achieved with less mass and electrical power relative to a single-stage cooling approach where only one cryocooler is used. This activity will demonstrate the fully integrated suite of technologies needed to enable the Two-Stage Cooling approach which includes Multi-Layer Insulation blankets, Low Conductivity Structures, a Tube-On-Tank Heat Exchanger, Tube-On-Shield Heat Exchanger and a Two-Stage Cryogenerator (both 90 Kelvin and 20 Kelvin) with each stage having an independently controlled circulation loop. The bulk of the heat load is intercepted by the 90 Kelvin loop via a thin foil heat exchanger internal to the insulation blankets (also known as a Broad Area Cooling Shield), with the remainder removed at cryofluid temperature (20 Kelvin) by tubes directly welded to the outer tank surface. In this paper, we examine the challenges of controlling the system, and describe the development of control algorithms and software for future testing with liquid hydrogen. The interactions between the cryofans which control circulation loop mass flow rates, electrical heaters which vary the cryocooler lift to simulate the operation of variable-lift flight units, tank heaters which can vary the overall heat load, and the effects of changes in circulation loop pressure as temperatures change, can be complex and must be well understood to maintain steady-state propellant conditions and achieve Zero Boil-Off. Parallel PID loops and watchdog programs implemented on the user interface system will help bring the systems to steady state operation and keep them at selected operating points within acceptable error, while avoiding runaway feedback loops.

cryogenics↗

Design and Development of an air-cooled Temperature-Swing Adsorption Compressor for Carbon Dioxide

The air revitalization system of the International Space Station (ISS) operates in an open loop mode and relies on the resupply of oxygen and other consumables from earth for the life support of astronauts. A compressor is required for delivering the carbon dioxide from a removal assembly to a reduction unit to recover oxygen and thereby closing the air-loop. We have a developed a temperature-swing adsorption compressor (TSAC) for performing these tasks that is energy efficient, quiet, and has no wearing parts. This paper discusses the design features of a TSAC hardware that uses air as the cooling medium and has Space Station application.

Mulloth, Lila M.↗

Science Goals of the Primary Atomic Reference Clock in Space (PARCS) Experiment

The PARCS (Primary Atomic Reference Clock in Space) experiment will use a laser-cooled Cesium atomic clock operating in the microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to provide both advanced tests of gravitational theory and to demonstrate a new cold-atom clock technology for space. PARCS is a joint project of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the University of Colorado (CU). This paper concentrates on the scientific goals of the PARCS mission. The microgravity space environment allows laser-cooled Cs atoms to have Ramsey times in excess of those feasible on Earth, resulting in improved clock performance. Clock stabilities of 5x10(exp -14) at one second, and accuracies better than 10(exp -16) are projected.

Ashby, N.↗

METSiCloPs in Cooling Tower Water, Final Presentation: Water Treatment at FSI [Slides]

Motivation: According to current projections, FSI could require anywhere from 83-288 MGY of water. Reducing excessive dependence on external water supply by making operations as water-lean as possible in the face of water availability fluctuations seasonally. The amount of Silica occurring naturally in New Mexico is several multiples higher than most of the country, with average values of 90 ppm, but reaching as high as 113 ppm. Since its saturation concentration at ambient temperatures is about 150 ppm, this corresponds to cycles of concentration as low as 1-2 for untreated water in cooling towers (i.e., the water is circulated through the towers only once or twice before they are dumped into the outfall), thereby making operations highly water intensive. There is, therefore, there is a strong need and internal motivation to remove Silica from the water that is circulated in the cooling towers.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Detecting tropospheric composition and climate responses to US air pollution controls in the context of internally-arising variability

Since the 1970s, air pollutant emissions controls in the United States (US) have lowered concentrations of ozone (O 3 ) and aerosols, which have opposing radiative effects on surface temperature. Using a pair of initial-condition ensembles generated by a fully-coupled chemistry-climate model, we simulate the “world avoided” by US air pollution controls. In this counterfactual world, we find tropospheric column O 3 increases, robust to natural internal variability, extending across the Northern Hemisphere. Robust aerosol increases, dominated by sulfate, remain localized near the US. Wintertime Northwest Atlantic cloud droplet number concentration is particularly sensitive to US aerosol. While an ensemble mean US surface cooling signal (−0.4 °C) implies that aerosol-driven cooling prevails over any O 3 -induced warming, we find that large regional internal variability will confound its detection in any single transient realization. Larger signal-to-noise ratios for composition versus climate variables underscore the greater detectability of emissions-driven changes in tropospheric composition compared to their associated climate impacts.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Neutrinos from Stored Muons (nuSTORM)

The 2020 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) (see https://cds.cern.ch/record/2720129 ) recommended that muon beam R&D should be considered a high-priority future initiative and that a programme of experimentation be developed to determine the neutrino cross-sections required to extract the most physics from the DUNE and Hyper-K long-baseline experiments. The ENUBET and nuSTORM collaborations have begun to work within and alongside the CERN Physics Beyond Colliders study group and the international Muon Collider collaboration to carry out a joint, five-year R&D programme to deliver a detailed plan for the implementation of an infrastructure in which: (1) ENUBET and nuSTORM deliver the neutrino cross-section measurement programme identified in the ESPP and allow sensitive searches for physics beyond the Standard Model to be carried out; and in which (2) A 6D muon ionisation cooling experiment is delivered as part of the technology development programme defined by the international Muon Collider collaboration. This document summarises the status of development of the nuSTORM and 6D cooling experiments and identifies opportunities for collaboration in the development of the initiative outlined above.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Island scanning pattern optimization for residual deformation mitigation in laser powder bed fusion via sequential inherent strain method and sensitivity analysis

Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) has emerged as one of the mainstream additive manufacturing approaches for fabricating metal parts with complex geometries and intricate internal structures. However, large deformation associated with rapid heating and cooling can lead to build failure and requires post-processing which may increase manufacturing cost and prolong the production period. Here in this work, an island scanning pattern design method is proposed to optimize the scanning direction of each island in order to reduce part deformation after cutting off the build platform. The objective of this optimization is to minimize the upward bending of the part after sectioning, which allows the part deformation to satisfy the tolerance requirement or reduce the post heat treatment time. Inherent strain method is employed in the sequential finite element analysis consisting of layer-by-layer activations and sectioning for fast residual distortion prediction. Full sequential sensitivity analysis for the formulated optimization is provided to update the island scanning directions. To show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method, the scanning patterns of a block structure and a connecting rod were designed and parts were fabricated using an open architecture L-PBF machine. The fabrication experiments demonstrated that the residual deformation of both parts fabricated by optimized scanning pattern can be reduced by over 50% compared to the initial scanning patterns, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Predicting roughness effects in additively manufactured coolant channels with helical enhancements

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising technique for fabrication of complex geometries such as those expected to be utilized in the blanket, first wall, and divertor. In the case of cooling, metallic AM may be exploited to embed geometric enhancements (ribs, rifling, etc.) to improve cooling performance. However, due to the roughness of these unfinished internal AM surfaces, prediction of thermal hydraulic performance in such channels is difficult. In this work, we consider a methodology for predicting pressure drop and heat transfer in AM channels containing helical enhancements (e.g. helical ribs, twisted tapes) that allows the incorporation of roughness data through conventional pipe flow correlations. This methodology is tested using experimental friction factor and heat transfer coefficient data from high-pressure helium coolant flow measurements in AM stainless steel tubes fabricated by laser powder bed fusion. Both a featureless AM tube and one containing helical ribs were considered alongside a conventionally manufactured smooth tube. The AM surface roughness is obtained by profilometry and used to predict an equivalent sand-grain roughness, with this equivalent roughness confirmed through AM featureless tube measurements. Under the proposed methodology, this roughness information is incorporated into predictions of friction factor and Nusselt number for the rifled tube. Furthermore, these predictions agree well with experimental data across a large range of Reynolds numbers, encouraging the use of this methodology for thermal hydraulic analysis of similar systems and design of future coolant channel geometries.

Additive manufacturing↗

Energy Conversion Alternatives Study (ECAS), Westinghouse phase 1. Volume 9: Closed-cycle MHD

A closed-cycle MHD system for an electric power plant was studied. It consists of 3 interlocking loops, an external heating loop, a closed-cycle cesium seeded argon nonequilibrium ionization MHD loop, and a steam bottomer. A MHD duct maximum temperature of 2366 K (3800 F), a pressure of 0.939 MPa (9.27 atm) and a Mach number of 0.9 are found to give a topping cycle efficiency of 59.3%; however when combined with an integrated gasifier and optimistic steam bottomer the coal to bus bar efficiency drops to 45.5%. A 1978 K (3100 F) cycle has an efficiency of 55.1% and a power plant efficiency of 42.2%. The high cost of the external heating loop components results in a cost of electricity of 21.41 mills/MJ (77.07 mills/kWh) for the high temperature system and 19.0 mills/MJ (68.5 mills/kWh) for the lower temperature system. It is, therefore, thought that this cycle may be more applicable to internally heated systems such as some futuristic high temperature gas cooled reactor.

Tsu, T. C.↗

The development of a containment vessel and Dewar for the particle astrophysics magnet facility (ASTROMAG)

The ASTROMAG facility is the heart of a large charged particle detection and resolution system. ASTROMAG utilizes a superconducting magnet consisting of a large superconducting magnet coil with a stored magnetic energy of approximately 15 MJ. The active coil will have a mass of 1200 kg. This magnet will be cooled by a cryostat using a liquid helium Dewar for storage. The cryostat will have a series of gas-cooled shields with an external guard vacuum shield and an internal Dewar. The magnet and cryostat will be designed for shuttle or Delta launch and will be designed to withstand the internal pressure of expanded helium under full quench conditions when venting is prevented. The external guard vacuum shell is required to maintain a vacuum for Earth based testing and for cold launch of the cryostat and magnet. The magnet is designed to operate at 4.4 K with a peak field of 7.0 tesla. The superconducting material within the magnet is niobium titanium in a conductive matrix.

Source record↗

Toward mapping the UV circumstellar shells of late-type stars

Detection of spatially resolved circumstellar matter surrounding selected cool stars, using off-source observations made with the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite, is reported. The data demonstrate that: (1) the instrumental scattered light profile of IUE appears to depend on the ultraviolet color temperature of the star observed, and (2) certain red stars show signal in excess of the instrumental levels, at spatial offsets of 10 to 20 arc-seconds from the star.

Stencel, Robert E.↗

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Analysis Of Optical Payload For Lasercomm Science (OPALS) sealed enclosure module

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) using the commercial CFD package CFDesign has been performed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in support of the Phaeton Early Career Hire Program's Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) mission. The OPALS project is one which involves an International Space Station payload that will be using forced convection cooling in a hermetically sealed enclosure at 1 atm of air to cool "off-the-shelf" vendor electronics. The CFD analysis was used to characterize the thermal and fluid flow environment within a complicated labyrinth of electronics boards, fans, instrumentation, harnessing, ductwork and heat exchanger fins. The paradigm of iteratively using CAD/CAE tools and CFD was followed in order to determine the optimum flow geometry and heat sink configuration to yield operational convective film coefficients and temperature survivability limits for the electronics payload. Results from this current CFD analysis and correlation of the CFD model against thermal test data will be presented. Lessons learned and coupled thermal / flow modeling strategies will be shared in this paper.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)↗

Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) Lunar Boot Chamber B Thermal Vacuum Testing Results

NASA’s Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) is the government reference next-generation spacesuit design and is engineered to protect astronauts from extreme lunar environmental temperatures. To evaluate the xEMU hardware thermal requirements, the xEMU Testing Team invented, designed, and executed a dual-suit, uncrewed thermal vacuum (TVAC) test at Johnson Space Center’s (JSC) Chamber B. This paper details the test methodology, hardware setup, and results from the xEMU lunar boots. Eleven unique thermal profiles were tested including both cold and hot environmental cases over the course of five continuous days of testing. This paper will address only the cold environment testing results. The radiative thermal environment was controlled through exposure to liquid-nitrogen shrouds on the chamber walls and through a heater cage surrounding the boots. Notably, the xEMU boots also contacted the liquid-nitrogen chilled floor inside of Chamber B, which provided a conduction pathway to simulate the thermal effects of the lunar surface. Test hardware was developed to extend the water tubing from the Liquid Cooling Ventilation Garment (LCVG) into the boots to set the internal thermal boundary nominally provided by the astronaut’s foot. Thirty-three temperature sensors were used to collect data in critical locations in the xEMU boot assembly as well as for calorimetry to determine heat flux to and from the boots. This paper will document the testing results and provide a high-level interpretation of the testing results. To conclude, this paper will address possible forward work and knowledge gaps present in lunar boot thermal performance and testing.

xEMU↗