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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 505 records · Page 28

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NASA NTRS1979

NASA/FAA general aviation crash dynamics program - An update

Work in progress in the NASA/FAA General Aviation Crash Dynamics Program for the development of technology for increased crash-worthiness and occupant survivability of general aviation aircraft is presented. Full-scale crash testing facilities and procedures are outlined, and a chronological summary of full-scale tests conducted and planned is presented. The Plastic and Large Deflection Analysis of Nonlinear Structures and Modified Seat Occupant Model for Light Aircraft computer programs which form part of the effort to predict nonlinear geometric and material behavior of sheet-stringer aircraft structures subjected to large deformations are described, and excellent agreement between simulations and experiments is noted. The development of structural concepts to attenuate the load transmitted to the passenger through the seats and subfloor structure is discussed, and an apparatus built to test emergency locator transmitters in a realistic environment is presented.

Hayduk, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS1983

Multiple energetic injections in a strong spike-like solar burst

An intense and fast spike-like solar burst was built up of short time scale structures superimposed on an underlying gradual emission, the time evolution of which shows remarkable proportionality between hard X-ray and microwave fluxes. The finer time structure were best defined at mm-microwaves. At the peak of the event, the finer structures repeat every 30x60ms. The more slowly varying component with a time scale of about 1 second was identified in microwave hard X-rays throughout the burst duration. It is suggested that X-ray fluxes might also be proportional to the repetition rate of basic units of energy injection (quasi-quantized). The relevant parameters of one primary energy release site are estimated both in the case where hard X-rays are produced primarily by thick-target bremsstrahlung, and when they are purely thermal. The relation of this figure to global energy considerations is discussed.

Kaufmann, P.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Multiple energetic injections in a strong spike-like solar burst

An intense and fast spike-like solar burst was built up of short time scale structures superimposed on an underlying gradual emission, the time evolution of which shows remarkable proportionality between hard X-ray and microwave fluxes. The finer time structures were best defined at mm-microwaves. At the peak of the event, the finer structures repeat every 30 x 60 ms. The more slowly varying component with a time scale of about 1 second was identified in microwave hard X-rays throughout the burst duration. It is suggested that X-ray fluxes might also be proportional to the repetition rate of basic units of energy injection (quasi-quantized). The relevant parameters of one primary energy release site are estimated both in the case where hard X-rays are produced primarily by thick-target bremsstrahlung, and when they are purely thermal. The relation of this figure to global energy considerations is discussed. Previously announced in STAR as N83-35983

Kaufmann, P.↗

NASA NTRS1986

An evaluation of Ada for Al applications

Expert system technology seems to be the most promising type of Artificial Intelligence (AI) application for Ada. An expert system implemented with an expert system shell provides a highly structured approach that fits well with the structured approach found in Ada systems. The current commercial expert system shells use Lisp. In this highly structured situation a shell could be built that used Ada just as well. On the other hand, if it is necessary to deal with some AI problems that are not suited to expert systems, the use of Ada becomes more problematical. Ada was not designed as an AI development language, and is not suited to that. It is possible that an application developed in say, Common Lisp could be translated to Ada for actual use in a particular application, but this could be difficult. Some standard Ada packages could be developed to make such a translation easier. If the most general AI programs need to be dealt with, a Common Lisp system integrated with the Ada Environment is probably necessary. Aside from problems with language features, Ada, by itself, is not well suited to the prototyping and incremental development that is well supported by Lisp.

Wallace, David R.↗

NASA NTRS1989

QUICK - An interactive software environment for engineering design

QUICK, an interactive software environment for engineering design, provides a programmable FORTRAN-like calculator interface to a wide range of data structures as well as both built-in and user created functions. QUICK also provides direct access to the operating systems of eight different machine architectures. The evolution of QUICK and a brief overview of the current version are presented.

Skinner, David L.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Composite fuselage technology

The overall objective is to identify and understand, via directed experimentation and analysis, the mechanisms which control the structural behavior of fuselages in their response to damage (resistance, tolerance, and arrest). A further objective is to develop straightforward design methodologies which can be employed by structural designers in preliminary design stages to make intelligent choices concerning the material, layup, and structural configuration so that a more efficient structure with structural integrity can be designed and built.

Graves, Michael J.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Composite fuselage technology (summary of year 2)

The overall objective of this work is to identify and understand, via directed experimentation and analysis, the mechanisms which control the structural behavior of fuselages in their response to damage (resistance, tolerance, and arrest). A further objective is to develop straightforward design methodologies which can be employed by structural designers in preliminary design stages to make intelligent choices concerning the material, layup, and structural configuration so that a more efficient structure with structural integrity can be designed and built.

Graves, Michael J.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Integration mockup and process material management system

Work to define and develop a full scale Space Station Freedom (SSF) mockup with the flexibility to evolve into future designs, to validate techniques for maintenance and logistics and verify human task allocations and support trade studies is described. This work began in early 1985 and ended in August, 1991. The mockups are presently being used at MSFC in Building 4755 as a technology and design testbed, as well as for public display. Micro Craft also began work on the Process Material Management System (PMMS) under this contract. The PMMS simulator was a sealed enclosure for testing to identify liquids, gaseous, particulate samples, and specimen including, urine, waste water, condensate, hazardous gases, surrogate gasses, liquids, and solids. The SSF would require many trade studies to validate techniques for maintenance and logistics and verify system task allocations; it was necessary to develop a full scale mockup which would be representative of current SSF design with the ease of changing those designs as the SSF design evolved and changed. The tasks defined for Micro Craft were to provide the personnel, services, tools, and materials for the SSF mockup which would consist of four modules, nodes, interior components, and part task mockups of MSFC responsible engineering systems. This included the Engineering Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) testbed. For the initial study, the mockups were low fidelity, soft mockups of graphics art bottle, and other low cost materials, which evolved into higher fidelity mockups as the R&D design evolved, by modifying or rebuilding, an important cost saving factor in the design process. We designed, fabricated, and maintained the full size mockup shells and support stands. The shells consisted of cylinders, end cones, rings, longerons, docking ports, crew airlocks, and windows. The ECLSS required a heavier cylinder to support the ECLSS systems test program. Details of this activity will be covered. Support stands were designed and built for each module to sufficiently move and rotate each module. Secondary structures such as floors, ceilings, bulkheads, standoffs, racks, etc. were developed and built.

Verble, Adas James, Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Stanford Aerospace Research Laboratory research overview

Over the last ten years, the Stanford Aerospace Robotics Laboratory (ARL) has developed a hardware facility in which a number of space robotics issues have been, and continue to be, addressed. This paper reviews two of the current ARL research areas: navigation and control of free flying space robots, and modelling and control of extremely flexible space structures. The ARL has designed and built several semi-autonomous free-flying robots that perform numerous tasks in a zero-gravity, drag-free, two-dimensional environment. It is envisioned that future generations of these robots will be part of a human-robot team, in which the robots will operate under the task-level commands of astronauts. To make this possible, the ARL has developed a graphical user interface (GUI) with an intuitive object-level motion-direction capability. Using this interface, the ARL has demonstrated autonomous navigation, intercept and capture of moving and spinning objects, object transport, multiple-robot cooperative manipulation, and simple assemblies from both free-flying and fixed bases. The ARL has also built a number of experimental test beds on which the modelling and control of flexible manipulators has been studied. Early ARL experiments in this arena demonstrated for the first time the capability to control the end-point position of both single-link and multi-link flexible manipulators using end-point sensing. Building on these accomplishments, the ARL has been able to control payloads with unknown dynamics at the end of a flexible manipulator, and to achieve high-performance control of a multi-link flexible manipulator.

Ballhaus, W. L.↗

NASA NTRS2004

An Exploratory Study of Cost Engineering in Axiomatic Design: Creation of the Cost Model Based on an FR-DP Map

Large complex projects cost large sums of money throughout their life cycle for a variety of reasons and causes. For such large programs, the credible estimation of the project cost, a quick assessment of the cost of making changes, and the management of the project budget with effective cost reduction determine the viability of the project. Cost engineering that deals with these issues requires a rigorous method and systematic processes. This paper introduces a logical framework to a&e effective cost engineering. The framework is built upon Axiomatic Design process. The structure in the Axiomatic Design process provides a good foundation to closely tie engineering design and cost information together. The cost framework presented in this paper is a systematic link between the functional domain (FRs), physical domain (DPs), cost domain (CUs), and a task/process-based model. The FR-DP map relates a system s functional requirements to design solutions across all levels and branches of the decomposition hierarchy. DPs are mapped into CUs, which provides a means to estimate the cost of design solutions - DPs - from the cost of the physical entities in the system - CUs. The task/process model describes the iterative process ot-developing each of the CUs, and is used to estimate the cost of CUs. By linking the four domains, this framework provides a superior traceability from requirements to cost information.

Lee, Taesik↗

NASA NTRS2006

Single-source precursors for ternary chalcopyrite materials, and methods of making and using the same

A single source precursor for depositing ternary I-III-VI.sub.2 chalcopyrite materials useful as semiconductors. The single source precursor has the I-III-VI.sub.2 stoichiometry built into a single precursor molecular structure which degrades on heating or pyrolysis to yield the desired I-III-VI.sub.2 ternary chalcopyrite. The single source precursors effectively degrade to yield the ternary chalcopyrite at low temperature, e.g. below 500.degree. C., and are useful to deposit thin film ternary chalcopyrite layers via a spray CVD technique. The ternary single source precursors according to the invention can be used to provide nanocrystallite structures useful as quantum dots. A method of making the ternary single source precursors is also provided.

Banger, Kulbinder K.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Circuit for Driving Piezoelectric Transducers

The figure schematically depicts an oscillator circuit for driving a piezoelectric transducer to excite vibrations in a mechanical structure. The circuit was designed and built to satisfy application-specific requirements to drive a selected one of 16 such transducers at a regulated amplitude and frequency chosen to optimize the amount of work performed by the transducer and to compensate for both (1) temporal variations of the resonance frequency and damping time of each transducer and (2) initially unknown differences among the resonance frequencies and damping times of different transducers. In other words, the circuit is designed to adjust itself to optimize the performance of whichever transducer is selected at any given time. The basic design concept may be adaptable to other applications that involve the use of piezoelectric transducers in ultrasonic cleaners and other apparatuses in which high-frequency mechanical drives are utilized. This circuit includes three resistor-capacitor networks that, together with the selected piezoelectric transducer, constitute a band-pass filter having a peak response at a frequency of about 2 kHz, which is approximately the resonance frequency of the piezoelectric transducers. Gain for generating oscillations is provided by a power hybrid operational amplifier (U1). A junction field-effect transistor (Q1) in combination with a resistor (R4) is used as a voltage-variable resistor to control the magnitude of the oscillation. The voltage-variable resistor is part of a feedback control loop: Part of the output of the oscillator is rectified and filtered for use as a slow negative feedback to the gate of Q1 to keep the output amplitude constant. The response of this control loop is much slower than 2 kHz and, therefore, does not introduce significant distortion of the oscillator output, which is a fairly clean sine wave. The positive AC feedback needed to sustain oscillations is derived from sampling the current through the piezoelectric transducer. This positive AC feedback, in combination with the slow feedback to the voltage-variable resistors, causes the overall loop gain to be just large enough to keep the oscillator running. The positive feedback loop includes two 16-channel multiplexers, which are not shown in the figure. One multiplexer is used to select the desired piezoelectric transducer. The other multiplexer, which is provided for use in the event that there are significant differences among the damping times of the 16 piezoelectric transducers, facilitates changing the value of one of the resistors in the positive-feedback loop to accommodate the damping time of the selected transducer.

Randall, David P.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Shuttle Orbiter-like Cargo Carrier on Crew Launch Vehicle

The following document summarizes the results of a conceptual design study for which the goal was to investigate the possibility of using a crew launch vehicle to deliver the remaining International Space Station elements should the Space Shuttle orbiter not be available to complete that task. Conceptual designs and structural weight estimates for two designs are presented. A previously developed systematic approach that was based on finite-element analysis and structural sizing was used to estimate growth of structural weight from analytical to "as built" conditions.

Martinovic, Zoran↗

NASA NTRS2019

Observations of Non-Spherical, Graphite-Epoxy Projectiles Impacting a Thermally-Insulated, Double-Wall Shield

The DebriSat hypervelocity impact experiment, performed at the Arnold Engineering Development Center (U.S.A.F. Arnold Air Force Base), is intended to update the catastrophic break-up models for modern satellites. To this end, the DebrisSat was built with many modern materials including structural panels of carbon-fiber, reinforced polymer (CFRP). Subsequent to the experiment, fragments of the DebrisSat have been extracted from porous, catcher panels used to gather the debris from the impact event. Thus far, one of the key observations from the collected fragments is that CFRP represents a large fraction of the fragments and that these fragments tend to be thin, flake-like structures or long, needle-like structures; whereas, debris with nearly equal dimensions is less prevalent. As current ballistic-limit models are all developed based upon spherical impacting particles, the experiment has pointed to a missing component in the current approach that must be considered. To begin to understand the implications of this observation, simulations like those shown in Fig. 1 have been performed using cylindrical structures at a representative orbital speed into an externally-insulated, double-wall shield that is representative of shielding of International-Space-Station-visiting vehicles. These simulations have been performed for normal impacts to the surface with three different angles-of-attack (AOA) to capture the effect on the shield performance. This paper documents the simulated shield and the models developed to study the effect of non-spherical fragments, as well as, derives the critical characteristics of CFRP impacting particles for the selected shield as shown in Fig. 2. To assist with the design of the updated debris models, this work summarizes the simulated results into a deployable form for evaluating the relative importance of fragment structures.

Miller, Joshua E.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Bridging the Gap Between Requirements and Model Analysis : Evaluation on Ten Cyber-Physical Challenge Problems

Formal verfication and simulation are powerful tools to validate requirements against complex systems. [Problem] Requirements are developed in early stages of the software lifecycle and are typically written in ambiguous natural language. There is a gap between such requirements and formal notations that can be used by verification tools, and lack of support for proper association of requirements with software artifacts for verification. [Principal idea] We propose to write requirements in an intuitive, structured natural language with formal semantics, and to support formalization and model/code verification as a smooth, well-integrated process. [Contribution] We have developed an end-to-end, open source requirements analysis framework that checks Simulink models against requirements written in structured natural language. Our framework is built in the Formal Requirements Elicitation Tool (fret); we use fret's requirements language named fretish, and formalization of fretish requirements in temporal logics. Our proposed framework contributes the following features: 1) automatic extraction of Simulink model information and association of fretish requirements with target model signals and components; 2) translation of temporal logic formulas into synchronous dataflow cocospec specifications as well as Simulink monitors, to be used by verification tools; we establish correctness of our translation through extensive automated testing; 3) interpretation of counterexamples produced by verification tools back at requirements level. These features support a tight integration and feedback loop between high level requirements and their analysis. We demonstrate our approach on a major case study: the Ten Lockheed Martin Cyber-Physical, aerospace-inspired challenge problems.

Mavridou, Anastasia↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Feasibility Study to Dissolve Additively Manufactured Inconel 718 Support Structures

Additive manufacture (AM) component design face constrains due to support structure removal. Interior passages or delicate geometries require supports yet cannot be removed without compromising the design or complicating post-processing. A process was developed to dissolve metal AM supports where a sensitizing agent is applied post-build. During stress relief the sensitizing agent diffuses into the surface and alters the chemical composition of the top 100 to 200 μm. During an electrochemical dissolution process the sensitized region is susceptible to corrosion/dissolution and the etching reaction self-terminates once the sensitized region is dissolved. Support thickness varies from 80 to 200 μm, resulting in total dissolution or sufficiently weakened to facilitate removal. The objective of this project was to demonstrate a support structure dissolution process for IN718 components built using AM and to characterize the impact on mechanical properties, microstructure, and surface finish.

Omar R Mireles↗

DOE OSTI2024

Transfer learning for probabilistic localization of hidden cracks in concrete structures

Abstract The utility of discriminative supervised learning models built using multiple training-data sources is investigated for hidden crack localization in concrete. Feed-forward neural network (FFNN) is chosen as the model architecture, and transfer learning is used to assimilate the information obtained from different sources (computational physics simulations and laboratory experiments). The labeled training data consists of values of a damage index and the known locations of hidden cracks. The classification models need to learn how the presence of damage (hidden cracks) affects the damage index at different sensors for different test conditions. To this end, diagnostic FFNN models are built by sequentially adding and training new hidden layers to assimilate labeled information from computer models (different model geometries, test conditions, crack lengths, crack locations) and laboratory experiments on a plain cement slab. These transfer learning-based models are then used to localize damage in concrete specimens that reflect real-world conditions (i.e., specimens with steel reinforcement and randomly distributed aggregate). The actual damage state in these specimens is determined by extracting cores and performing petrographic studies on the extracted cores. The damage probability estimated by transfer learning-based models is compared with the petrographic damage rating index (DRI) to identify the most suitable approach to train the diagnostic models. The transfer learning-based diagnostic methodology shows promise and could be used in various structural health monitoring applications, where sufficient labeled data are typically not available from a single data source.

Miele, S.↗

NASA NTRS1994

A comparative study of internally and externally capped balloons using small scale test balloons

Caps have been used to structurally reinforce scientific research balloons since the late 1950's. The scientific research balloons used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) use internal caps. A NASA cap placement specification does not exist since no empirical information exisits concerning cap placement. To develop a cap placement specification, NASA has completed two in-hangar inflation tests comparing the structural contributions of internal caps and external caps. The tests used small scale test balloons designed to develop the highest possible stresses within the constraints of the hangar and balloon materials. An externally capped test balloon and an internally capped test balloon were designed, built, inflated and simulated to determine the structural contributions and benefits of each. The results of the tests and simulations are presented.

Bell, Douglas P.↗