Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Performance Analysis”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 487 records · Page 27

Simulink models for performance analysis of high speed DQPSK modulated optical link

This paper attempts to present the design approach for development of simulation models to study and analyze the transmission of 10 Gbps DQPSK signal over a single channel Peer to Peer link using Matlab Simulink. The simulation model considers the different optical components used in link design with their behavior represented initially by theoretical interpretation, including the transmitter topology, Mach Zehnder Modulator(MZM) module and, the propagation model for optical fibers etc. thus allowing scope for direct realization in experimental configurations. It provides the flexibility to incorporate the various photonic components as either user-defined or fixed and, can also be enhanced or removed from the model as per the design requirements. We describe the detailed operation and need of every component model and its representation in Simulink blocksets. Moreover the developed model can be extended in future to support Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) system, thereby allowing high speed transmission with N × 40 Gbps systems. The various compensation techniques and their influence on system performance can be easily investigated by using such models.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Performance analysis of a bio-gasification based combined cycle power plant employing indirectly heated humid air turbine

Rapid depletion of fossil fuel has forced mankind to look into alternative fuel resources. In this context, biomass based power generation employing gas turbine appears to be a popular choice. Bio-gasification based combined cycle provides a feasible solution as far as grid-independent power generation is concerned for rural electrification projects. Indirectly heated gas turbine cycles are promising alternatives as they avoid downstream gas cleaning systems. Advanced thermodynamic cycles have become an interesting area of study to improve plant efficiency. Water injected system is one of the most attractive options in this field of applications. This paper presents a theoretical model of a biomass gasification based combined cycle that employs an indirectly heated humid air turbine (HAT) in the topping cycle. Maximum overall electrical efficiency is found to be around 41%. Gas turbine specific air consumption by mass is minimum when pressure ratio is 6. The study reveals that, incorporation of the humidification process helps to improve the overall performance of the plant.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Performance Analysis and Radiation Damage Estimation of the Stopping Target Monitor Detectors in Mu2e

The Mu2e experiment aims to search for the charged lepton flavour violating (CLFV) process of a coherent, neutrinoless, conversion of a muon into an electron within the proximity of an aluminium nucleus. Mu2e seeks to measure the ratio (R μe ) of the rate of this conversion process, relative to that of ordinary muon capture. Mu2e will achieve world-leading sensitivity, improving the current limit of Rμe < 7 ×10 -13 (90% C.L.),set by the SINDRUM-II experiment, by an order of 104. This corresponds to a single-event sensitivity of Rμe < 2.87 × 10 -17 (90% C.L.). Many beyond Standard Model (BSM) theories require CLFV to occur at a rate accessible by Mu2e. Any observation of CLFV at Mu2e would have profound implications on particle physics. The Stopping Target Monitor (STM) will be comprised of both a HPGe and a LaBr3 detector which will monitor the signals of photons produced in stopped-muon processes to a required accuracy of 10%. To achieve the desired sensitivity, it is imperative that the detectors perform at their optimal level. The STM detectors are placed within a harsh radiation environment in the form of a high energy ‘flash’ of gamma radiation as well as a flux of fast neutrons. Estimations of radiation damage to HPGe in literature is limited. This thesis reports an approach which utilizes the Kinetic-Energy Released in Matter (KERMA) parameter that considers the energy dependence of the incident flux and the cross-section information for the incident particle. Resampling schemes have been adopted to give a realistic rate over the experiment run time. The results have then been normalized to the radiation damage caused by a 252 Cf source. The estimated time before annealing of the detector is necessary is found to be 75 and 78 months in the case of neutron damage and τ ~ 24 years, 11 months in the case of electron/positron induced damage. This shows significant improvement on the previous estimations.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Threshold-based queuing system for performance analysis of cloud computing system with dynamic scaling

Cloud computing is promising technology to manage and improve utilization of computing center resources to deliver various computing and IT services. For the purpose of energy saving there is no need to unnecessarily operate many servers under light loads, and they are switched off. On the other hand, some servers should be switched on in heavy load cases to prevent very long delays. Thus, waiting times and system operating cost can be maintained on acceptable level by dynamically adding or removing servers. One more fact that should be taken into account is significant server setup costs and activation times. For better energy efficiency, cloud computing system should not react on instantaneous increase or instantaneous decrease of load. That is the main motivation for using queuing systems with hysteresis for cloud computing system modelling. In the paper, we provide a model of cloud computing system in terms of multiple server threshold-based infinite capacity queuing system with hysteresis and noninstantanuous server activation. For proposed model, we develop a method for computing steady-state probabilities that allow to estimate a number of performance measures.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Experimental performance analysis of a dual source heat pump integrated with thermal energy storage

To mitigate disturbances to the electric grid resulting from the growing penetration of intermittent and decentralized renewable generation, a dual-source (air source and ground source) heat pump (DSHP) integrated with thermal energy storage (TES) was developed. The DSHP can use either ambient air or the shallow subsurface of the ground to provide space heating or space cooling to the building as the conventional heat pump and produce hot/cold water for charging TES. Using dual sources (air and ground) can reduce the required size of the expensive ground heat exchangers while retaining high energy efficiency. During the off-peak period, the DSHP cools/heats the TES with low-cost electricity or overproduced renewable power. The stored cooling/heating energy in the TES is released during peak hours of the electric grid to meet the thermal demands of the building without consuming electricity to run the DSHP. A 2-ton (7 kW) prototype DSHP was developed and integrated with a 50-gallon (189 L) TES tank filled with a phase change material. Field tests were conducted to characterize the performance of the integrated system operating in various operation modes.

Wang, Lingshi↗

Performance Analysis of Magnetohydrodynamic Drag Modulation for Actively Controlled Aerocapture at Neptune

Missions to the Ice Giants are a top priority for flagship missions this coming decade. However, a fully propulsive orbital insertion into these planets requires an immense amount of fuel, taking a significant portion of the spacecraft mass and restricting the scientific payload. To mitigate this, aerocapture has been heavily investigated. Although simulations have shown that aerodynamically controlled aerocapture can successfully insert into an orbit around both Ice Giants, the deep atmospheric pass required necessitates a complex, mass expensive, and sometimes prohibitive thermal protection system. Magnetohydrodynamic drag modulation serves as a potential alternative control method for aerocapture which could not only save propellant mass compared to fully propulsive orbital insertion, but also save thermal protection system mass compared to conventional aerocapture methods. Both aerodynamically controlled and magnetohydrodynamically controlled aerocapture methodologies were simulated in NASA Langley’s high-fidelity six degree-of-freedom flight dynamics code, the Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II. Each method was simulated to identical missions to Neptune using a numerical predictor-corrector algorithm to optimize the control towards the target orbit. The results concluded that magnetohydrodynamic drag modulation can successfully capture and performs on par with aerodynamic drag modulation while significantly reducing the heatflux and aeroshell complexity.

Danny N Nguyen↗

Lunar lander configuration study and parametric performance analysis

Future Lunar exploration plans will call for delivery of significant mounts or cargo to provide for crew habitation, surface tansportation, and scientific exploration activities. Minimization of costly surface based infrastructure is in large part directly related to the design of the cargo delivery/landing craft. This study focused on evaluating Lunar lander concepts from a logistics oriented perspective, and outlines the approach used in the development of a preferred configuration, sets forth the benefits derived from its utilization and describes the missions and system considered. Results indicate that only direct-to-surface downloading of payloads provides for unassisted cargo removal operations imperative to efficient and low risk site buildup, including the emplacement of Space Station derivative surface habitat modules, immediate cargo jettison for both descent abort and emergency surface ascent essential to piloted missions carrying cargo, and short habitat egress/ingress paths necessary to productive surface work tours for crew members carrying hand held experiments, tools and other bulky articles. Accommodating cargo in a position underneath the vehicles structural frame, landing craft described herein eliminate altogether the necessity for dedicated surface based off-loading vehicles, the operations and maintenance associated with their operation, and the precipitous ladder climbs to and from the surface that are inherent to traditional designs. Parametric evaluations illustrate performance and mass variation with respect to mission requirements.

Donahue, Benjamin B.↗

Performance analysis of a finite radon transform in OFDM system under different channel models

In this paper, a class of discrete Radon transforms namely Finite Radon Transform (FRAT) was proposed as a modulation technique in the realization of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The proposed FRAT operates as a data mapper in the OFDM transceiver instead of the conventional phase shift mapping and quadrature amplitude mapping that are usually used with the standard OFDM based on Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), by the way that ensure increasing the orthogonality of the system. The Fourier domain approach was found here to be the more suitable way for obtaining the forward and inverse FRAT. This structure resulted in a more suitable realization of conventional FFT- OFDM. It was shown that this application increases the orthogonality significantly in this case due to the use of Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) twice, namely, in the data mapping and in the sub-carrier modulation also due to the use of an efficient algorithm in determining the FRAT coefficients called the optimal ordering method. The proposed approach was tested and compared with conventional OFDM, for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, flat fading channel, and multi-path frequency selective fading channel. The obtained results showed that the proposed system has improved the bit error rate (BER) performance by reducing inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI), comparing with conventional OFDM system.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Performance Analysis of Speculative Parallel Adaptive Local Timestepping for Conservation Laws

Stable simulation of conservation laws, such as those used to model fluid dynamics and plasma physics applications, requires the satisfaction of the so-called Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition. By allowing regions of the mesh to advance with different timesteps that locally satisfy this stability constraint, significant work reduction can be attained when compared to a time integration scheme using a single timestep size. However, parallelizing this algorithm presents considerable difficulty. Since the stability condition depends on the state of the system, dependencies become dynamic and potentially non-local. In this article, we present an adaptive local timestepping algorithm using an optimistic (Timewarp-based) parallel discrete event simulation. We introduce waiting heuristics to limit misspeculation and a semi-static load balancing scheme to eliminate load imbalance as parts of the mesh require finer or coarser timesteps. Last, we outline an interface for separating the physics of the specific conservation law from the temporal integration allowing for productive adoption of our proposed algorithm. We present a misspeculation study for three conservation laws, demonstrating both the productivity of the local timestepping API, for which 74% of the lines of code are reused across different conservation laws, and the robustness of the waiting heuristics—at most 1.5% of element updates are rolled back. Our performance studies demonstrate up to a 2.8× speedup versus a baseline unoptimized local timestepping approach, a 4x improvement in per-node throughput compared to an MPI parallelization of synchronous timestepping, and scalability up to 3,072 cores on NERSC’s Cori Haswell partition.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Performance Analysis of a Hardware Implemented Complex Signal Kurtosis Radio-Frequency Interference Detector

Radio-frequency interference (RFI) is a known problem for passive remote sensing as evidenced in the L-band radiometers SMOS, Aquarius and more recently, SMAP. Various algorithms have been developed and implemented on SMAP to improve science measurements. This was achieved by the use of a digital microwave radiometer. RFI mitigation becomes more challenging for microwave radiometers operating at higher frequencies in shared allocations. At higher frequencies larger bandwidths are also desirable for lower measurement noise further adding to processing challenges. This work focuses on finding improved RFI mitigation techniques that will be effective at additional frequencies and at higher bandwidths. To aid the development and testing of applicable detection and mitigation techniques, a wide-band RFI algorithm testing environment has been developed using the Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware System (ROACH) built by the Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER) Group. The testing environment also consists of various test equipment used to reproduce typical signals that a radiometer may see including those with and without RFI. The testing environment permits quick evaluations of RFI mitigation algorithms as well as show that they are implementable in hardware. The algorithm implemented is a complex signal kurtosis detector which was modeled and simulated. The complex signal kurtosis detector showed improved performance over the real kurtosis detector under certain conditions. The real kurtosis is implemented on SMAP at 24 MHz bandwidth. The complex signal kurtosis algorithm was then implemented in hardware at 200 MHz bandwidth using the ROACH. In this work, performance of the complex signal kurtosis and the real signal kurtosis are compared. Performance evaluations and comparisons in both simulation as well as experimental hardware implementations were done with the use of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The complex kurtosis algorithm has the potential to reduce data rate due to onboard processing in addition to improving RFI detection performance.

microwaves↗

Performance Analysis of a Hardware Implemented Complex Signal Kurtosis Radio-Frequency Interference Detector

Radio-frequency interference (RFI) is a known problem for passive remote sensing as evidenced in the L-band radiometers SMOS, Aquarius and more recently, SMAP. Various algorithms have been developed and implemented on SMAP to improve science measurements. This was achieved by the use of a digital microwave radiometer. RFI mitigation becomes more challenging for microwave radiometers operating at higher frequencies in shared allocations. At higher frequencies larger bandwidths are also desirable for lower measurement noise further adding to processing challenges. This work focuses on finding improved RFI mitigation techniques that will be effective at additional frequencies and at higher bandwidths. To aid the development and testing of applicable detection and mitigation techniques, a wide-band RFI algorithm testing environment has been developed using the Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware System (ROACH) built by the Collaboration for Astronomy Signal Processing and Electronics Research (CASPER) Group. The testing environment also consists of various test equipment used to reproduce typical signals that a radiometer may see including those with and without RFI. The testing environment permits quick evaluations of RFI mitigation algorithms as well as show that they are implementable in hardware. The algorithm implemented is a complex signal kurtosis detector which was modeled and simulated. The complex signal kurtosis detector showed improved performance over the real kurtosis detector under certain conditions. The real kurtosis is implemented on SMAP at 24 MHz bandwidth. The complex signal kurtosis algorithm was then implemented in hardware at 200 MHz bandwidth using the ROACH. In this work, performance of the complex signal kurtosis and the real signal kurtosis are compared. Performance evaluations and comparisons in both simulation as well as experimental hardware implementations were done with the use of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

radiometers↗

Validation Methodology to Allow Simulated Peak Reduction and Energy Performance Analysis of Residential Building Envelope with Phase Change Materials: Preprint

Phase change materials (PCM) represent a potential technology to reduce peak loads and HVAC energy consumption in residential buildings. This paper summarizes NREL efforts to obtain accurate energy simulations when PCMs are modeled in residential buildings: the overall methodology to verify and validate Conduction Finite Difference (CondFD) and PCM algorithms in EnergyPlus is presented in thisstudy. It also shows preliminary results of three residential building enclosure technologies containing PCM: PCM-enhanced insulation, PCM impregnated drywall and thin PCM layers. The results are compared based on predicted peak reduction and energy savings using two algorithms in EnergyPlus: the PCM and Conduction Finite Difference (CondFD) algorithms.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Design and performance analysis of all-optical 1:4 and 1:8 high speed demultiplexer using InGaAsP–InP optical microring resonator in Z-domain

All-optical 1:4 and 1:8 demultiplexers are designed and demonstrated using the process of photon absorption that is induced using an external optical pumping of wavelength 532 nm in InGaAsP–InP add-drop microring resonators. The 1:4 demultiplexer is designed with two cascaded optical microring resonators (OMRRs) and 1:8 demultiplexer is designed with four OMRRs. The mathematical modeling is pursued in Z-domain. The delay has been reduced by implementing a three level parallel circuit for 1:8 demultiplexer. The nonlinearity that occurs as a resonance frequency shift in OMRR due to photon energized electron–hole pairs is used to realize the optical switching operation of OMRR. The simulation is carried using MATLAB. The circuit has less propagation delay, fast switching time and can be integrated on CMOS photonic chips.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Performance Analysis of Occurrences: January 1, 2011-December 31, 2011

This report documents the analysis of the occurrences during the period January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011. The report compares LLNL occurrences by reporting criteria and significance category to see if LLNL is reporting occurrences along similar percentages as other DOE sites. The three-year trends are analyzed. It does not include the analysis of the causes or the lessons learned from the occurrences, as they are analyzed separately. The number and types of occurrences that LLNL reports to DOE varies over time. This variation can be attributed to normally occurring changes in frequency; DOE's or LLNL's heightened interest in a particular subject area; changes in LLNL processes; or emerging problems. Since all of the DOE sites use the same reporting criteria, it is helpful to understand if LLNL is consistent with or diverging from reporting at other sites. This section compares the normalized number of occurrences reported by LLNL and other DOE sites. In order to compare LLNL occurrence reports to occurrence reports from other DOE sites, we normalized (or standardized) the data from the sites. DOE sites vary widely in their budgets, populations, and scope of work and these variations may affect reporting frequency. In addition, reports are required for a wide range of occurrence types, some of which may not be applicable to all DOE sites. For example, one occurrence reporting group is Group 3, Nuclear Safety Basis, and not all sites have nuclear operations. Because limited information is available for all sites, the sites were normalized based on best available information. Site effort hours were extracted from the DOE Computerized Accident Incident Reporting System (CAIRS) and used to normalize (or standardize) the number of occurrences by site. Effort hours are those hours that employees normally work and do not include vacation, holiday hours etc. Sites are responsible for calculating their effort hours and ensuring entry into CAIRS. Out of the 30 DOE sites that reported occurrences into ORPS during January 2011 through December 2011, 28 had effort hours available in CAIRS. Two sites had not submitted effort hours data to CAIRS as of the time data was pulled for this report. In those two cases, third quarter data was used as an estimate of fourth quarter data. The use of estimated data may introduce minor errors in the average, median, and Pearson calculations. Using the effort hours and the frequency of occurrences by site, a rate of occurrence frequency per 100 FTE workers was calculated. This rate is similar to the injury/illness frequency rate: the number of injury/illness cases per 100 FTE workers. To validate that this rate was appropriate to use, we compared the effort hours and the frequency of occurrences by site to determine if a relationship exists between the two, e.g. the more effort hours a site has, the more occurrences they tend to have. This hypothesis was tested using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient Test. The correlation coefficient measures the strength of the linear relationship between effort hours and occurrence frequency. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient Test will determine if the true correlation coefficient is equal to zero (no relationship exists), or if the correlation coefficient is not equal to zero (a relationship exists). Values approaching 1.00 show a more positive correlation. Simple linear regression was also used to display a trend line and to test if a one-way relationship exists between effort hours predicting the number of occurrences a site will have. Using the Pearson Correlation test, for the NNSA sites, effort hours and the number of occurrences are significantly and positively correlated with a correlation coefficient of 0.90, as was also seen in the previous report (correlation coefficient of 0.67). All DOE sites are positively correlated with a coefficient of 0.85. As the effort hours increase, so does the number of occurrences and vice versa. Based on the results of the simple linear regression, effort hours were found to predict the number of occurrences.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗