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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2019

Improved assessment of mangrove forests in Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary using WorldView 2 and TanDEM-X high resolution imagery

Recent developments of remote sensing techniques which can capture both the structure and function of the ecosystem provide a more representative view of the landscape. These unique Earth observations were used to help improve traditional forestry surveys by providing species-specific land cover classes for mangrove forests in the Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary. By combining optical data from WorldView2 (WV2; 2 m pixel) and a canopy height model derived using radar data from TanDEM-X (TDX; 12 m pixel), we identified nine mangrove and five non-mangrove classes by following an Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Algorithm. Three dominant mangrove species accounted for nearly 50% of the sanctuary. Heritieria fomes disproportionately covered the largest area at 43%, overturning previous field-based estimates of Excoecaria agallocha dominance. E. agallocha and Sonneratia apetala, covered 3% and 1.47% of the sanctuary, respectively. Four mixed species classes were also identified with clear vegetation zonation patterns that trended toward species homogeneity with increasing distance from shore. The overall land cover accuracy (WV2: 89.33%; WV2-TDX: 89.89%), the Kappa Coefficient (WV2:0.88; WV2-TDX: 0.89) and change statistics between WV2 and WV2-TDX landcover classifications indicate that the WV2 imagery can separate mangrove community types without structural data. The combination of the land cover classifications and the canopy height model indicated that H. fomes were not only the most dominant forest but also, on average, the tallest (12.3 m) among the other eight mangrove types. Our large-scale mapping with high resolution optical and radar platforms can capture subtle changes in mangrove vegetation and canopy structural gradients more accurately and be used to monitor biodiversity changes and Aichi Biodiversity Targets and Indicators, which would contribute to biodiversity policy updating.

Md Mizanur Rahman↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Bridging the Gap Between Finite Element Modeling and Wavefront Analysis for Streamlined Optical System Design

Traditionally, evaluating the optical performance of mirrors derived from finite element (FEA), with third-party software requires cumbersome manual effort – which impacts efficient design optimization. This paper presents a process that seamlessly integrates FEA results with wavefront analysis software, significantly simplifying performance assessment and enabling rapid design iteration. We leverage the 4D technology interferometer and "4Sight" wavefront analysis software for performance measurement and comparison with FEA predictions. Recognizing the need for efficient data exchange, we developed an application that converts FEA data into a format compatible with 4Sight. The software takes two user-defined inputs: optical surface position and deformation information, typically provided as CSV or TXT files. Within a second, it generates an output file suitable for direct import into 4Sight, enabling immediate visualization of key optical performance metrics.

Zernike Polynomial↗
DOE OSTI2020

Experimental Validation of Approximate Dynamic Programming Based Optimization and Convergence on Microgrid Applications

Stochastic optimization can better address uncertainties in power system problems. However, when state space and action space become large, many existing approaches become computationally expensive and even infeasible. Approximate dynamic programming (ADP) attracts researchers’ attention as a powerful tool for solving power system optimization problems with reduced computational cost. In this paper, in light of the existing literature, we investigate how the ADP approach with post-decision value function approximation converges to the nearly optimal solution with improved computational speed and experimentally validate the performance of the approach for a microgrid energy optimization problem. The approximation error versus the number of iteration is studied for convergence analysis of the post-decision ADP. A flowchart is provided to illustrate the proposed ADP algorithm for a microgrid energy optimization problem. The performance of ADP and dynamic programming (DP) is compared in terms of optimization error and computational time. It has found that the post-decision ADP approach can achieve competitive optimality with improved computational speed compared to the traditional DP.

Das, Avijit↗
DOE OSTI2014

ADAPTIVE ANNEALED IMPORTANCE SAMPLING FOR MULTIMODAL POSTERIOR EXPLORATION AND MODEL SELECTION WITH APPLICATION TO EXTRASOLAR PLANET DETECTION

We describe an algorithm that can adaptively provide mixture summaries of multimodal posterior distributions. The parameter space of the involved posteriors ranges in size from a few dimensions to dozens of dimensions. This work was motivated by an astrophysical problem called extrasolar planet (exoplanet) detection, wherein the computation of stochastic integrals that are required for Bayesian model comparison is challenging. The difficulty comes from the highly nonlinear models that lead to multimodal posterior distributions. We resort to importance sampling (IS) to estimate the integrals, and thus translate the problem to be how to find a parametric approximation of the posterior. To capture the multimodal structure in the posterior, we initialize a mixture proposal distribution and then tailor its parameters elaborately to make it resemble the posterior to the greatest extent possible. We use the effective sample size (ESS) calculated based on the IS draws to measure the degree of approximation. The bigger the ESS is, the better the proposal resembles the posterior. A difficulty within this tailoring operation lies in the adjustment of the number of mixing components in the mixture proposal. Brute force methods just preset it as a large constant, which leads to an increase in the required computational resources. We provide an iterative delete/merge/add process, which works in tandem with an expectation-maximization step to tailor such a number online. The efficiency of our proposed method is tested via both simulation studies and real exoplanet data analysis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2006

Kalman Filter for Calibrating a Telescope Focal Plane

The instrument-pointing frame (IPF) Kalman filter, and an algorithm that implements this filter, have been devised for calibrating the focal plane of a telescope. As used here, calibration signifies, more specifically, a combination of measurements and calculations directed toward ensuring accuracy in aiming the telescope and determining the locations of objects imaged in various arrays of photodetectors in instruments located on the focal plane. The IPF Kalman filter was originally intended for application to a spaceborne infrared astronomical telescope, but can also be applied to other spaceborne and ground-based telescopes. In the traditional approach to calibration of a telescope, (1) one team of experts concentrates on estimating parameters (e.g., pointing alignments and gyroscope drifts) that are classified as being of primarily an engineering nature, (2) another team of experts concentrates on estimating calibration parameters (e.g., plate scales and optical distortions) that are classified as being primarily of a scientific nature, and (3) the two teams repeatedly exchange data in an iterative process in which each team refines its estimates with the help of the data provided by the other team. This iterative process is inefficient and uneconomical because it is time-consuming and entails the maintenance of two survey teams and the development of computer programs specific to the requirements of each team. Moreover, theoretical analysis reveals that the engineering/ science iterative approach is not optimal in that it does not yield the best estimates of focal-plane parameters and, depending on the application, may not even enable convergence toward a set of estimates.

Kang, Bryan↗
NASA NTRS2014

Statistical Symbolic Execution with Informed Sampling

Symbolic execution techniques have been proposed recently for the probabilistic analysis of programs. These techniques seek to quantify the likelihood of reaching program events of interest, e.g., assert violations. They have many promising applications but have scalability issues due to high computational demand. To address this challenge, we propose a statistical symbolic execution technique that performs Monte Carlo sampling of the symbolic program paths and uses the obtained information for Bayesian estimation and hypothesis testing with respect to the probability of reaching the target events. To speed up the convergence of the statistical analysis, we propose Informed Sampling, an iterative symbolic execution that first explores the paths that have high statistical significance, prunes them from the state space and guides the execution towards less likely paths. The technique combines Bayesian estimation with a partial exact analysis for the pruned paths leading to provably improved convergence of the statistical analysis. We have implemented statistical symbolic execution with in- formed sampling in the Symbolic PathFinder tool. We show experimentally that the informed sampling obtains more precise results and converges faster than a purely statistical analysis and may also be more efficient than an exact symbolic analysis. When the latter does not terminate symbolic execution with informed sampling can give meaningful results under the same time and memory limits.

Reliability↗
NASA NTRS1992

Computational aspects of helicopter trim analysis and damping levels from Floquet theory

Helicopter trim settings of periodic initial state and control inputs are investigated for convergence of Newton iteration in computing the settings sequentially and in parallel. The trim analysis uses a shooting method and a weak version of two temporal finite element methods with displacement formulation and with mixed formulation of displacements and momenta. These three methods broadly represent two main approaches of trim analysis: adaptation of initial-value and finite element boundary-value codes to periodic boundary conditions, particularly for unstable and marginally stable systems. In each method, both the sequential and in-parallel schemes are used and the resulting nonlinear algebraic equations are solved by damped Newton iteration with an optimally selected damping parameter. The impact of damped Newton iteration, including earlier-observed divergence problems in trim analysis, is demonstrated by the maximum condition number of the Jacobian matrices of the iterative scheme and by virtual elimination of divergence. The advantages of the in-parallel scheme over the conventional sequential scheme are also demonstrated.

Gaonkar, Gopal H.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Rich-Text based PSA Model Transformation and Verification in RiskA

Nuclear Energy is one of the most possible alternative to fossil energy in large-scale. Nuclear safety is the lifeline of nuclear energy development, and has been an important part of national security, especially after the accident of Fukushima. On the basis of computer codes, reliability engineering and Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PSA) is effective methods to improve the safety of nuclear power plants. After many years of development, the methodologies, applications and relevant soft programs have been quite sufficient in the area of nuclear safety. However, it is still difficult for the current PSA technologies and software to meet the needs of dealing with the problems of quantitatively public risk assessment in the digital society. Especially, there are so many software that adopted different modeling and analyzing methods, which brings difficulties to the comparison, evaluation or verification for different software and models. By using its own academic advantages, the advanced nuclear energy research team, i.e., FDS Team has invested a few hundreds person-years of independent research and development of a reliability and probabilistic safety assessment software system RiskA. The system consists of three main functions: device reliability optimization management, probabilistic safety assessment and instantaneous risk monitoring, and the comprehensive public risk assessment in digital society. RiskA establishes an integrated risk evaluation system for the device reliability, nuclear power plant (NPP) risk monitoring and public risk assessment. Currently, RiskA has successfully been applied in more than 600 organizations and institutes from a variety of fields in 39 countries, involving nuclear, aerospace, defense and so on. For example, RiskA has been used in the safety analysis of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), FDS series fusion reactor, and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences 'the Future Advanced Nuclear Fission Energy - Accelerator Driven Sub-critical (ADS) transmutation system'. Also, RiskA has been used in public risk communication and risk assessment. Among them, Third Qinshan nuclear power plant Risk Monitor (TQRM), which is the China's first domestic nuclear safety analysis software used in the actual online operation, has been highly apprised by renowned experts in the field. Meanwhile, it has been identified as the first domestic nuclear power plant risk monitoring system with completely independent intellectual property rights, and has reached the international advanced level. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Multi-device analysis of energy loss duration and pellet penetration with implications for shattered pellet injection in ITER

A robust disruption mitigation system (DMS) requires accurate characterization of key disruption timescales, one of the most notable being the thermal quench (TQ). Recent modeling of shattered pellet injection (SPI) into ITER plasmas, using JOREK and INDEX, suggests long TQ durations (6–10 ms) and slow cold front propagation due to the large plasma size. If validated, these predictions would have an impact on the desired pellet parameters and mitigation strategies for the ITER DMS. To resolve these questions, a database of SPI experiments from several small-to-large sized devices (J-TEXT, KSTAR, AUG, DIII-D, and JET) has been compiled under the auspices of the International Tokamak Physics Activity MHD, disruptions, and control topical group. Analysis of the energy loss duration (proxy for the TQ duration) with machine size is presented for both mixed neon/deuterium (Ne/D) SPI and pure deuterium (D) SPI. Several metrics for the energy loss onset (e.g. soft x-ray signal drop, I p dip, and radiation flash) were considered as the conventional metric, electron cyclotron emission, is often cut-off during SPI. Several scalings with different onset metrics showed an increase in energy loss duration with machine size. The energy loss duration was additionally shown to be a function of the ratio between the number of SPI neon atoms injected and the stored energy. Analysis of the pellet shard position relative to the cold front found that in larger devices, pellets are typically found inboard of the q = 2 surface at the energy loss onset. Lastly, the delay between the pellet shards hitting the q = 2 surface and the energy loss onset was additionally found to increase with machine size. This suggests that the pellet shards in large devices will penetrate faster and further than the cooling front.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Connected three-body terms in single-reference unitary many-body theories: Iterative and perturbative approximations

This work introduces various approaches to include connected three-body terms in unitary many-body theories, focusing on the driven similarity renormalization group (DSRG). Starting from the least approximate method—the linearized DSRG truncated to one-, two-, and three-body operators [LDSRG(3)]—we develop several approximate LDSRG(3) models with reduced computational cost. Through a perturbative analysis, we motivate a family of iterative LDSRG(3)-n and -n' (n = 1, 2, 3, 4) methods that contain a subset of the LDSRG(3) diagrams. Among these variants, the LDSRG(3)-2 scheme has the same computational complexity of coupled cluster theory with singles, doubles, and triples (CCSDT), but it outperforms CCSDT in the accuracy of the predicted correlation energies. We also propose and implement two perturbative triples corrections based on the linearized DSRG truncated to one- and two-body operators augmented with recursive semi-quadratic commutators [qDSRG(2)]. Overall, the resulting qDSRG(2)+(T) approach matches the accuracy of the “gold-standard” coupled cluster theory with singles, doubles, and perturbative triples model on the energetics of twenty-eight closed-shell atoms and small molecules.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1974

Research study on stabilization and control modern sampled-data control theory

The methods of continuous and discrete describing function analysis were applied to predicting the existence of self-sustained oscillations in the single-axis model of the large space telescope system with nonlinear control moment gyroscope friction characteristics. It is shown that the stability equations may be solved by a numerical-iterative technique using the describing function analysis, instead of the usual graphical methods. The numerical method is found to be effective in leading to a convergent solution rapidly, with an appropriate guess of the initial condition.

Kuo, B. C.↗
DOE OSTI2014

Self-consistent iteration procedure in analyzing reflectivity and spectroscopic ellipsometry data of multilayered materials and their interfaces

For multilayered materials, reflectivity depends on the complex dielectric function of all the constituent layers, and a detailed analysis is required to separate them. Furthermore, for some cases, new quantum states can occur at the interface which may change the optical properties of the material. In this paper, we discuss various aspects of such analysis, and present a self-consistent iteration procedure, a versatile method to extract and separate the complex dielectric function of each individual layer of a multilayered system. As a case study, we apply this method to LaAlO{sub 3}/SrTiO{sub 3} heterostructure in which we are able to separate the effects of the interface from the LaAlO{sub 3} film and the SrTiO{sub 3} substrate. Our method can be applied to other complex multilayered systems with various numbers of layers.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
NASA NTRS2007

Status on Iterative Transform Phase Retrieval Applied to the GBT Data

This slide presentation reviews the use of iterative transform phase retrieval in the analysis of the Green Bank Radio Telescope (GBT) Data. It reviews the NASA projects that have used phase retrieval, and the testbed for the algorithm to be used for the James Webb Space Telescope. It shows the comparison of phase retrieval with an interferometer, and reviews the two approaches used for phase retrieval, iterative transform (ITA) or parametric (non-linear least squares model fitting). The concept of ITA Phase Retrieval is reviewed, and the application to Radio Antennas is reviewed. The presentation also examines the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) data from the GBT, and the Fourier model that NRAO uses to analyze the data. The challenge for ITA phase retrieval is reviewed, and the coherent approximation for incoherent data is shown. The validity of the approximation is good for a large tilt. There is a review of the proof of concept of the Phase Review simulation using the input wavefront, and the initial sampling parameters estimate from the focused GBT data.

Dean, Bruce↗
DOE OSTI2018

On semi-convergence and inexact iteration of the GSS iteration method for nonsymmetric singular saddle point problems

In this paper, the generalized shift-splitting (GSS) iteration method is used to solve nonsymmetric singular saddle point systems with the positive real (1, 1)-block sub-matrix. By a careful analysis of the spectral properties of the corresponding iteration matrix, we investigate the semi-convergence property of the GSS iteration method, give the sharper bounds of the eigenvalues for the GSS iteration method and propose the inexact GSS iteration method, also. Numerical experiments are given to show the correctness of the theoretical analysis and the feasibility of the GSS preconditioner with appropriate parameters.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2021

Matrix Microcracking Effect on the Structural Response of a Thermal Protection System

The effect of microcracking in the phenolic matrix of a three-dimensional woven thermal protection system (TPS) and resulting material stiffness reduction was studied via a comparison of finite element results from linear and iterative linear analyses. A dual-layer continuous dry weave material with a low-density phenolic resin matrix has been developed for use in extreme environments. Due to high stresses in the through-the-thickness direction, microcracks may form in the matrix. The matrix does not have structural load transfer requirements, and testing has shown that microcracked phenolic resin satisfies thermal requirements. Microcracks in the matrix would result in a reduction of stiffness, which could alter the structural performance. A study was conducted to determine if reduction in material stiffness would change the load paths or structural margins. A linear finite element analysis that did not account for microcracking and an iterative linear finite element analysis that accounted for propagation microcracks were compared. Four subcases were analyzed with results indicating that the assumed propagation strength for the microcracking is the critical parameter for determining the extent of microcracking. Phenolic microcracking does not appear to have an adverse effect on the structural response and is not a critical failure for the modeled TPS.

Thermal Protection System↗
NASA NTRS1979

Optimization of multi-element airfoils for maximum lift

Two theoretical methods are presented for optimizing multi-element airfoils to obtain maximum lift. The analyses assume that the shapes of the various high lift elements are fixed. The objective of the design procedures is then to determine the optimum location and/or deflection of the leading and trailing edge devices. The first analysis determines the optimum horizontal and vertical location and the deflection of a leading edge slat. The structure of the flow field is calculated by iteratively coupling potential flow and boundary layer analysis. This design procedure does not require that flow separation effects be modeled. The second analysis determines the slat and flap deflection required to maximize the lift of a three element airfoil. This approach requires that the effects of flow separation from one or more of the airfoil elements be taken into account. The theoretical results are in good agreement with results of a wind tunnel test used to corroborate the predicted optimum slat and flap positions.

Lawrence E Olson↗
DOE OSTI2023

Automated reactor physics analysis framework of High Flux Isotope Reactor low-enriched uranium silicide dispersion fuel designs

The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) is a versatile research reactor that provides one of the highest steady-state neutron fluxes of any reactor in the world. The HFIR reactor physics team investigated the conversion of the current 93 wt% highly enriched uranium U 3 O 8 -Al dispersion fuel to a 19.75% low-enriched uranium (LEU) U 3 Si 2 -Al dispersion fuel. The team continuously develops a Python module to streamline the analysis steps required for an LEU core design to ensure reproducible and agile design iteration. The Python module automates the data processing between analysis steps and automates the input perturbation for branch calculations and design changes. The automated framework has proven to significantly increase the efficiency and reproducibility of the reactor physics team to design High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) LEU cores and thoroughly analyze performance metrics, safety metrics, and thermal safety margins. Consequently, the team can now respond rapidly to fuel fabrication engineer and thermal-hydraulic-structural analyst requests. Numerous combinations of LEU fuel designs are explored, of which two LEU fuel designs are presented here in this paper: a low density silicide design, and a high-density silicide design. Results show that both designs meet or exceed safety and performance metrics with exception for minor differences caused by the hardened spectrum from LEU.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
NASA NTRS1992

Mode interaction in stiffened composite shells under combined mechanical and thermal loadings

Stiffened shells of various configurations fabricated out of composite materials find extensive applications in aircraft structures. Two distinctive modes of buckling dominate structural response of stiffened panels, viz. the short-wave local mode in which the shell skin buckles essentially between the stiffeners and the long-wave overall mode in which the shell skin buckles carrying the stiffeners with it. In optimized designs, the critical stresses corresponding to these modes of buckling would be close to each other. This leads to a nonlinear mode interaction which is recognized to be the principal cause of the failure of stiffened structures. If the structure is subjected to through-the-thickness thermal gradients, then large-wave bending effects would begin to occur well below the overall critical load and these would play the role of overall imperfections. The load carrying capacity would be significantly diminished as a result of interaction of local buckling with overall thermal distortions. The analysis of this problem using standard finite element techniques can be shown to be prohibitively expensive for design iterations. A concept which would greatly facilitate the analysis of mode interaction is advanced. We note that the local buckling occurs in a more or less periodic pattern in a structure having regular spacings of stiffeners. Thus it is a relatively simple matter to analyze the local buckling and the second order effects (which are essential for modeling postbuckling phenomena) using a unit cell of the structure. Once analyzed, these dormations are embedded in a shell element. Thus, a shell element could span several half-waves of local buckling and still be able to depict local buckling effects with requisite accuracy. A major consequence of the interaction of overall buckling/bending is the slow variation of the local buckling amplitude across the structure - the phenomenon of 'amplitude modulation' - and this is accounted for in the present model by letting the scaling parameter of the local mode vary according to a 'slowly varying' function. The construction of the analytical model involves essentially two stages and these are described briefly.

Sridharan, Srinivasan↗