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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 451 records · Page 25

Static Aeroelastic Predictions for a Transonic Transport Model Using an Unstructured-Grid Flow Solver Coupled With a Structural Plate Technique

An equivalent-plate structural deformation technique was coupled with a steady-state unstructured-grid three-dimensional Euler flow solver and a two-dimensional strip interactive boundary-layer technique. The objective of the research was to assess the extent to which a simple accounting for static model deformations could improve correlations with measured wing pressure distributions and lift coefficients at transonic speeds. Results were computed and compared to test data for a wing-fuselage model of a generic low-wing transonic transport at a transonic cruise condition over a range of Reynolds numbers and dynamic pressures. The deformations significantly improved correlations with measured wing pressure distributions and lift coefficients. This method provided a means of quantifying the role of dynamic pressure in wind-tunnel studies of Reynolds number effects for transonic transport models.

Allison, Dennis O.↗

Modeling and Visualizing Uncertainty in Continuous Variables Predicted using Remotely Sensed Data

The use of remotely sensed images to map continuous biophysical variables, such as those related to terrestrial vegetation amount, sea surface temperature, and many other targets of NASA s Earth Observing System (EOS), includes variable, parametric, positional, spatial support and structural sources of uncertainty. A complete description of uncertainty will lead to a probability distribution at each location, allowing the exploration of the spatial dimension of uncertainty, that is, where the field is not well quantified. To achieve this purpose, convenient visualization tools are required. We have produced such a tool, called PDFVis, that facilitates the display of probability density functions (pdfs) on a per-grid-cell basis. The density estimate from Monte-Carlo generated realizations is interactively displayed as well as parametric and non-parametric summaries of the pdf field (such as mean, median, quartiles, standard deviation, number of modes, and locations of modes). Shaded surface renderings of pdfs along a transect can also be projected onto a plane. This tool will become more useful as richer descriptions of spatial uncertainty become available.

Dungan, Jennifer L.↗

Aeroelastic-Acoustics Simulation of Flight Systems

This paper describes the details of a numerical finite element (FE) based analysis procedure and a resulting code for the simulation of the acoustics phenomenon arising from aeroelastic interactions. Both CFD and structural simulations are based on FE discretization employing unstructured grids. The sound pressure level (SPL) on structural surfaces is calculated from the root mean square (RMS) of the unsteady pressure and the acoustic wave frequencies are computed from a fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the unsteady pressure distribution as a function of time. The resulting tool proves to be unique as it is designed to analyze complex practical problems, involving large scale computations, in a routine fashion.

Gupta, kajal K.↗

Implementation of Implicit Adaptive Mesh Refinement in an Unstructured Finite-Volume Flow Solver

This paper explores the implementation of adaptive mesh refinement in an unstructured, finite-volume solver. Unsteady and steady problems are considered. The effect on the recovery of high-order numerics is explored and the results are favorable. Important to this work is the ability to provide a path for efficient, implicit time advancement. A method using a simple refinement sensor based on undivided differences is discussed and applied to a practical problem: a shock-shock interaction on a hypersonic, inviscid double-wedge. Cases are compared to uniform grids without the use of adapted meshes in order to assess error and computational expense. Discussion of difficulties, advances, and future work prepare this method for additional research. The potential for this method in more complicated flows is described.

Schwing, Alan M.↗

Opportunities and Implications for Low-Cost Hydrogen Production from Water Electrolysis in a Decarbonizing Power Sector

Increased deployment of renewable power generation such as wind and solar photovoltaics along with electrification of transportation and other sectors are driving changes in the operation and economics of the electric power sector. Simultaneously, efforts to decarbonize other sectors of the economy such as steelmaking and heavy duty transportation will require significant amounts of electricity to drive electrons to molecules processes. Hydrogen production via water splitting electrolysis is a key near-term technology for decarbonization that interfaces between the power sector and decarbonization efforts in industrial sectors. This poster examines the implications for increased deployment of water electrolyzers in a rapidly evolving energy system. The economic opportunities for low-cost hydrogen production from electrolysis that are facilitated by highly renewable grids will be examined and discussed. Durability, cost, and operational strategies for electrolyzers interacting in these future energy systems are key to enabling hydrogen at scale. This poster will overview these considerations and ongoing work within the U.S. Department of Energy’s H2NEW consortium that is focused on addressing them.

electrolysis↗

Application of advanced grid generation techniques for flow field computations about complex configurations

In the computation of flowfields about complex configurations, it is very difficult to construct a boundary-fitted coordinate system. An alternative approach is to use several grids at once, each of which is generated independently. This procedure is called the multiple grids or zonal grids approach; its applications are investigated. The method conservative providing conservation of fluxes at grid interfaces. The Euler equations are solved numerically on such grids for various configurations. The numerical scheme used is the finite-volume technique with a three-stage Runge-Kutta time integration. The code is vectorized and programmed to run on the CDC VPS-32 computer. Steady state solutions of the Euler equations are presented and discussed. The solutions include: low speed flow over a sphere, high speed flow over a slender body, supersonic flow through a duct, and supersonic internal/external flow interaction for an aircraft configuration at various angles of attack. The results demonstrate that the multiple grids approach along with the conservative interfacing is capable of computing the flows about the complex configurations where the use of a single grid system is not possible.

Kathong, Monchai↗

High Speed Medium Voltage CHP System with Advanced Grid Support

The project was a collaboration between Clemson University and TECO Westinghouse Motor Company. The goal of the project was to develop a medium voltage commercial grid-tied system with advanced grid support functions. Current state-of-the-art in medium voltage, multi-megawatt power electronic systems do not support advanced grid functions, traditionally due to power electronic limitations and required applications. The developed system is capable of interacting with the power system at the distribution level to efficiently integrate gas turbine generation systems or any other ac generation system with up to 20MWe of power production capacity. This project demonstrated a high level of technical readiness of the 1MW, 500Hz, 15000 RPM high frequency Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generator and electric machine system, utilizing advanced grid support functions required by IEEE Std. 1547-2018.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Parametrics on 2D Navier-Stokes analysis of a Mach 2.68 bifurcated rectangular mixed-compression inlet

The supersonic diffuser of a Mach 2.68 bifurcated, rectangular, mixed-compression inlet was analyzed using a two-dimensional (2D) Navier-Stokes flow solver. Parametric studies were performed on turbulence models, computational grids and bleed models. The computer flowfield was substantially different from the original inviscid design, due to interactions of shocks, boundary layers, and bleed. Good agreement with experimental data was obtained in many aspects. Many of the discrepancies were thought to originate primarily from 3D effects. Therefore, a balance should be struck between expending resources on a high fidelity 2D simulation, and the inherent limitations of 2D analysis. The solutions were fairly insensitive to turbulence models, grids and bleed models. Overall, the k-e turbulence model, and the bleed models based on unchoked bleed hole discharge coefficients or uniform velocity are recommended. The 2D Navier-Stokes methods appear to be a useful tool for the design and analysis of supersonic inlets, by providing a higher fidelity simulation of the inlet flowfield than inviscid methods, in a reasonable turnaround time.

Mizukami, M.↗

ChatGrid: Power Grid Visualization Empowered by Large Language Model

This paper presents a novel open framework, ChatGrid, for easy, intuitive, and interactive geospatial visualization of large-scale transmission networks. ChatGrid uses state-of-the-art techniques for geospatial visualization of large networks including 2.5D views, animated flows, hierarchical and level-based filtering, and aggregation to provide visual information in an easy, cognitive manner. The highlight of ChatGrid is a natural language query based interface powered by large language model (ChatGPT) that offers an enhanced interactive experience whereby the user asks a question and ChatGrid provides the information both in text and visual. We discuss the architecture, implementation, design decisions, and usage of large language model for ChatGrid.

Jin, Sichen↗

OVERFLOW-Interaction with Industry

A Navier-Stokes flow solver, OVERFLOW, has been developed by researchers at NASA Ames Research Center to use overset (Chimera) grids to simulate the flow about complex aerodynamic shapes. Primary customers of the OVERFLOW flow solver and related software include McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, as well as the NASA Focused Programs for Advanced Subsonic Technology (AST) and High Speed Research (HSR). Code development has focused on customer issues, including improving code performance, ability to run on workstation clusters and the NAS SP2, and direct interaction with industry on accuracy assessment and validation. Significant interaction with NAS has produced a capability tailored to the Ames computing environment, and code contributions have come from a wide range of sources, both within and outside Ames.

Buning, Pieter G.↗

Machine learning reveals strong grid-scale dependence in the satellite N d –LWP relationship

The relationship between cloud droplet number concentration ( N d ) and liquid water path (LWP) is highly uncertain yet crucial for determining the impact of aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) on Earth's radiation budget. The N d -LWP relationship is examined using a machine learning (ML) random forest model applied to five years of satellite data at grid resolutions ranging from 10° to 0.05° in 12 distinct regions. In the subtropics, the shape of the N d -LWP relationship switches from an inverted-V at 1° grid-resolution to an “M” shape at 0.1° resolution with decreased $\frac{\textrm{dln⁡LWP}}{\textrm{dln⁡}N_d}$ sensitivity. Tropical and midlatitude regions generally show a more positive sensitivity. Cloud sampling and filtering also influence this slope, wherein the exclusion of thin clouds, as commonly performed to reduce retrieval uncertainty, leads to strongly negative sensitivity across all regions. Precipitation is primarily responsible for driving the strength of the sensitivity, with strong positive slopes in raining clouds and negative and/or neutral responses found in non-raining clouds. A new method to compute radiative forcing from the ML model shows a robust Twomey radiative forcing across all regions and grid resolutions. However, LWP and cloud fraction adjustments to the radiative forcing, which are ∼50 % or smaller than the Twomey effect, decrease to negligible values with higher spatial resolution data. As Earth system models move toward higher spatial resolutions in the future, evaluating the LWP and CF adjustment contributions to the radiative forcing budget at these finer resolutions will be essential for evaluation and model development.

Aerosol-Cloud Interactions↗

Reduced Navier Stokes Relaxation Procedures for Internal Flows

In spite of significant advancement in the field of high speed computing, flow calculations involving complex geometries and/or flow behavior still require large amounts of CPU time and memory. In order to predict such flows without sacrificing grid convergence and accuracy, adaptive gridding techniques that provide optimal resolution are highly desirable. The present work combines multigrid techniques and domain decomposition concepts to provide local, solution adaptive, grid refinement. Several viscous compressible and incompressible, two and three-dimensional, flows with strong inviscid interaction and/or axial flow reversal, are considered with a segmented multigrid domain decomposition (SMGDD) procedure for which uniform meshes result in each domain. A pressure-based form of flux-vector splitting is applied to the Navier-Stokes equations, which are represented by an implicit lowest-order reduced Navier-Stokes (RNS) system and a purely diffusive, higher-order, deferred-corrector. A trapezoidal or box-like form of discretization insures that all mass conservation properties are satisfied at interfacial and outflow boundaries, even for this primitive-variable non-staggered grid computation. The SMGDD technique presented herein has previously been applied for incompressible two dimensional flows. The present work offers improvement in the gridding strategy, by allowing for disjoint subdomains that provide optimal resolution of disparate flow features. It also extends the SMGDD technique to three dimensional compressible flows. Laminar and turbulent flow in a backward facing step channel is considered; although the procedure is applicable to more severe geometries. The standard K-epsilon model is applied for turbulence closure. For Re greater than 400, differences between two-dimensional theory and experiment are resolved through a three dimensional simulation, which confirms the experimentally observed three dimensionality of the recirculation patterns on the upper and lower surfaces.

Rubin, Stanley G.↗

Adaptivity and smart algorithms for fluid-structure interaction

This paper reviews new approaches in CFD which have the potential for significantly increasing current capabilities of modeling complex flow phenomena and of treating difficult problems in fluid-structure interaction. These approaches are based on the notions of adaptive methods and smart algorithms, which use instantaneous measures of the quality and other features of the numerical flowfields as a basis for making changes in the structure of the computational grid and of algorithms designed to function on the grid. The application of these new techniques to several problem classes are addressed, including problems with moving boundaries, fluid-structure interaction in high-speed turbine flows, flow in domains with receding boundaries, and related problems.

Oden, J. Tinsley↗

Prediction of secondary separation in shock wave boundary-layer interactions

A complex three-dimensional shock-wave/turbulent boundary layer interaction at Mach 4 has been investigated experimentally and computationally, using two turbulence models with substantial refinement. With the use of a fine grid model, secondary flow separation was successfully computed, and grid changes did not improve agreement with experiment for the extent of upstream influence. The use of a non-isotropic turbulence model gave a slight improvement in upstream influence, but the size of the interaction was still significantly less than in the experiment.

Horstman, C. C.↗

From Silos to Synergy: Identifying a Roadmap for Cross-Sector Research to Accelerate the Clean Energy Transition

The U.S. Department of Energy's blueprints for the transportation, buildings, and electricity sectors call for substantial reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. These plans focus on zero-emission vehicles, investments in transit, energy-efficient buildings, and the widespread adoption and deployment of renewable energy technologies like solar photovoltaics (PV), energy storage and energy-efficient appliances. However, these sectors are often studied and modeled in isolation, overlooking how household decisions to adopt clean technologies in one sector influence others. This study, led by an interdisciplinary team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), explores opportunities for cross-sector collaboration to drive more effective and equitable decarbonization. Through discussions with 22 NREL researchers across transportation, building, solar, and grid sectors, the study highlights the need for integrated tools and models that capture interactions between these sectors. Key insights include the need for data standardization and interoperability to enable cross-sector analysis and decision-making. Strengthening utility partnerships is also critical to align energy policies with decarbonization goals and manage the increased demand for renewable energy. The study also emphasizes the importance of equity in the clean energy transition, calling for targeted incentives and support to ensure that low-income and underserved communities benefit from clean technologies like electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances. To support these efforts, innovative funding mechanisms must be expanded to facilitate interdisciplinary research, such as city-specific decarbonization plans and federal projects like DOE"s Standard Scenarios. By encouraging collaboration and integrating cross-sector insights, this study aims to provide a roadmap to accelerate the clean energy transition and ensure it is both sustainable and inclusive.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

The Hydropower Game: An Interactive Learning Tool for the Future Hydropower Workforce

This report documents a Seedling project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), conducted by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR). The Seedling and Sapling Program provides small grants over short duration to enable early-stage research at national laboratories. This funding mechanism is intended to cultivate innovative ideas and expand research road maps in hydropower and marine energy technologies. Under this Seedling award, the project team developed an educational outreach tool, or “serious game”, built in Python and powered by the Pygame library, aimed at teaching fundamental hydropower concepts through an engaging, interactive learning experience. The game features multiple lessons covering several hydropower topics while allowing for expansion and customization in the instance of future funding availability: • Hydropower Plant Types: Players explore and compare the mechanics and applications of run-of-river, dam hydropower, and pumped-storage hydropower. • Flow Dynamics and Power Generation: Interactive tasks demonstrate how release rate and hydraulic head combine to determine power output. • Grid Operations and Load Following: Simulations illustrate how hydropower facilities respond to fluctuating electricity demand to balance the grid. • Market Integration: Levels scaffold understanding of how hydropower interfaces with the broader energy market, including operational and economic considerations. The tool was showcased at several science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach events, where it was demoed to students, educators, and the general public. These events provided valuable opportunities to collect feedback on the gameplay, storyline, and educational objectives from a wide audience. The game was presented at STEMapalooza, Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, STEMCON, and Clean Currents 2025. Insights gathered during these demonstrations informed refinements to the game’s user experience and strengthened its effectiveness as an educational tool for teaching hydropower concepts. This report outlines the game’s design philosophy, educational objectives, technical implementation, user experience insights, and potential for broader deployment within educational and workforce development contexts. It emphasizes how gamified learning can demystify complex hydropower science and inspire interest in water-power technologies. The project’s success demonstrates the value of Seedling funding in fostering creative, lowcost educational tools that support DOE’s mission to advance energy literacy and innovation. The report concludes with recommendations for expanding the tool by adding new levels, integrating assessment metrics, and exploring commercialization or deployment pathways through future Sapling funding. The official webpage of the Hydropower Game, which includes a link to the educational tool, can be accessed at www.anl.gov/hydropower/hydropower-game.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Status Quo in V2G/V2H: Closer Look at CA's Progress

This presentation will guide participants through the progress of V2G interconnection, using California's regulatory development as a case study. The focus will be on utility-side considerations rather than EVs themselves, and as such, EV-EVSE interactions will not be covered. Since V2G DC is already accommodated within the existing grid interconnection process, the majority of the discussion will center on V2G AC, particularly the regulatory and standards development.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Interacting boundary-layer solutions for laminar separated flow past airfoils

Numerical solutions of the interacting laminar boundary layer equations are presented for two symmetric airfoils at zero incidence: the NACA 0012 and the NACA 66 sub 3-108 airfoils. The potential flow was computed using Carlson's code, and viscous interaction was treated following a Hilbert integral scheme due to Veldman. Effects of various grid parameters are studied, and pressure and skin friction distributions are compared at several Reynolds numbers. For the NACA 0012 airfoil, Reynolds number is varied from a value just below separation (R sub N = 3000) to a value for which extensive separation occurs (R sub N = 100,000). For the 66 sub 3-018 airfoil, results are given at intermediate values (R sub N - 10,000 and 40,000). The method fails to converge for greater values of Reynolds number, corresponding to the development of very thin well separated shear layers where transition to turbulence would occur naturally.

Burggraf, O. R.↗