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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 649 records · Page 36
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

Numerical Propulsion System Simulation: An Overview

The cost of implementing new technology in aerospace propulsion systems is becoming prohibitively expensive and time consuming. One of the main contributors to the high cost and lengthy time is the need to perform many large-scale hardware tests and the inability to integrate all appropriate subsystems early in the design process. The NASA Glenn Research Center is developing the technologies required to enable simulations of full aerospace propulsion systems in sufficient detail to resolve critical design issues early in the design process before hardware is built. This concept, called the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS), is focused on the integration of multiple disciplines such as aerodynamics, structures and heat transfer with computing and communication technologies to capture complex physical processes in a timely and cost-effective manner. The vision for NPSS, as illustrated, is to be a "numerical test cell" that enables full engine simulation overnight on cost-effective computing platforms. There are several key elements within NPSS that are required to achieve this capability: 1) clear data interfaces through the development and/or use of data exchange standards, 2) modular and flexible program construction through the use of object-oriented programming, 3) integrated multiple fidelity analysis (zooming) techniques that capture the appropriate physics at the appropriate fidelity for the engine systems, 4) multidisciplinary coupling techniques and finally 5) high performance parallel and distributed computing. The current state of development in these five area focuses on air breathing gas turbine engines and is reported in this paper. However, many of the technologies are generic and can be readily applied to rocket based systems and combined cycles currently being considered for low-cost access-to-space applications. Recent accomplishments include: (1) the development of an industry-standard engine cycle analysis program and plug 'n play architecture, called NPSS Version 1, (2) A full engine simulation that combines a 3D low-pressure subsystem with a 0D high pressure core simulation. This demonstrates the ability to integrate analyses at different levels of detail and to aerodynamically couple components, the fan/booster and low-pressure turbine, through a 3D computational fluid dynamics simulation. (3) Simulation of all of the turbomachinery in a modern turbofan engine on parallel computing platform for rapid and cost-effective execution. This capability can also be used to generate full compressor map, requiring both design and off-design simulation. (4) Three levels of coupling characterize the multidisciplinary analysis under NPSS: loosely coupled, process coupled and tightly coupled. The loosely coupled and process coupled approaches require a common geometry definition to link CAD to analysis tools. The tightly coupled approach is currently validating the use of arbitrary Lagrangian/Eulerian formulation for rotating turbomachinery. The validation includes both centrifugal and axial compression systems. The results of the validation will be reported in the paper. (5) The demonstration of significant computing cost/performance reduction for turbine engine applications using PC clusters. The NPSS Project is supported under the NASA High Performance Computing and Communications Program.

Lytle, John K.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Mapping unstructured grid problems to the connection machine

We present a highly parallel graph mapping technique that enables one to solve unstructured grid problems on massively parallel computers. Many implicit and explicit methods for solving discretizated partial differential equations require each point in the discretization to exchange data with its neighboring points every time step or iteration. The time spent communicating can limit the high performance promised by massively parallel computing. To eliminate this bottleneck, we map the graph of the irregular problem to the graph representing the interconnection topology of the computer such that the sum of the distances that the messages travel is minimized. We show that, in comparison to a naive assignment of processors, our heuristic mapping algorithm significantly reduces the communication time on the Connection Machine, CM-2.

Hammond, Steven W.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Boundary Layer Transition and Trip Effectiveness on an Apollo Capsule in the JAXA High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel (HIEST) Facility

Computational assessments were performed to size boundary layer trips for a scaled Apollo capsule model in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel (HIEST) facility at the JAXA Kakuda Space Center in Japan. For stagnation conditions between 2 MJ/kg and 20 MJ/kg and between 10 MPa and 60 MPa, the appropriate trips were determined to be between 0.2 mm and 1.3 mm high, which provided kappa/delta values on the heatshield from 0.15 to 2.25. The tripped configuration consisted of an insert with a series of diamond shaped trips along the heatshield downstream of the stagnation point. Surface heat flux measurements were obtained on a capsule with a 250 mm diameter, 6.4% scale model, and pressure measurements were taken at axial stations along the nozzle walls. At low enthalpy conditions, the computational predictions agree favorably to the test data along the heatshield centerline. However, agreement becomes less favorable as the enthalpy increases conditions. The measured surface heat flux on the heatshield from the HIEST facility was under-predicted by the computations in these cases. Both smooth and tripped configurations were tested for comparison, and a post-test computational analysis showed that kappa/delta values based on the as-measured stagnation conditions ranged between 0.5 and 1.2. Tripped configurations for both 0.6 mm and 0.8 mm trip heights were able to effectively trip the flow to fully turbulent for a range of freestream conditions.

Kirk, Lindsay C.↗
NASA NTRS2011

GPU Accelerated Vector Median Filter

Noise reduction is an important step for most image processing tasks. For three channel color images, a widely used technique is vector median filter in which color values of pixels are treated as 3-component vectors. Vector median filters are computationally expensive; for a window size of n x n, each of the n(sup 2) vectors has to be compared with other n(sup 2) - 1 vectors in distances. General purpose computation on graphics processing units (GPUs) is the paradigm of utilizing high-performance many-core GPU architectures for computation tasks that are normally handled by CPUs. In this work. NVIDIA's Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) paradigm is used to accelerate vector median filtering. which has to the best of our knowledge never been done before. The performance of GPU accelerated vector median filter is compared to that of the CPU and MPI-based versions for different image and window sizes, Initial findings of the study showed 100x improvement of performance of vector median filter implementation on GPUs over CPU implementations and further speed-up is expected after more extensive optimizations of the GPU algorithm .

Aras, Rifat↗
NASA NTRS1998

Parallel and Distributed System Simulation

This exploratory study initiated our research into the software infrastructure necessary to support the modeling and simulation techniques that are most appropriate for the Information Power Grid. Such computational power grids will use high-performance networking to connect hardware, software, instruments, databases, and people into a seamless web that supports a new generation of computation-rich problem solving environments for scientists and engineers. In this context we looked at evaluating the NetSolve software environment for network computing that leverages the potential of such systems while addressing their complexities. NetSolve's main purpose is to enable the creation of complex applications that harness the immense power of the grid, yet are simple to use and easy to deploy. NetSolve uses a modular, client-agent-server architecture to create a system that is very easy to use. Moreover, it is designed to be highly composable in that it readily permits new resources to be added by anyone willing to do so. In these respects NetSolve is to the Grid what the World Wide Web is to the Internet. But like the Web, the design that makes these wonderful features possible can also impose significant limitations on the performance and robustness of a NetSolve system. This project explored the design innovations that push the performance and robustness of the NetSolve paradigm as far as possible without sacrificing the Web-like ease of use and composability that make it so powerful.

Dongarra, Jack↗
NASA NTRS1990

Solving unstructured grid problems on massively parallel computers

A highly parallel graph mapping technique that enables one to efficiently solve unstructured grid problems on massively parallel computers is presented. Many implicit and explicit methods for solving discretized partial differential equations require each point in the discretization to exchange data with its neighboring points every time step or iteration. The cost of this communication can negate the high performance promised by massively parallel computing. To eliminate this bottleneck, the graph of the irregular problem is mapped into the graph representing the interconnection topology of the computer such that the sum of the distances that the messages travel is minimized. It is shown that using the heuristic mapping algorithm significantly reduces the communication time compared to a naive assignment of processes to processors.

Hammond, Steven W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

USRA/RIACS

The Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS) was established by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) on June 6, 1983. RIACS is privately operated by USRA, a consortium of universities with research programs in the aerospace sciences, under a cooperative agreement with NASA. The primary mission of RIACS is to provide research and expertise in computer science and scientific computing to support the scientific missions of NASA ARC. The research carried out at RIACS must change its emphasis from year to year in response to NASA ARC's changing needs and technological opportunities. A flexible scientific staff is provided through a university faculty visitor program, a post doctoral program, and a student visitor program. Not only does this provide appropriate expertise but it also introduces scientists outside of NASA to NASA problems. A small group of core RIACS staff provides continuity and interacts with an ARC technical monitor and scientific advisory group to determine the RIACS mission. RIACS activities are reviewed and monitored by a USRA advisory council and ARC technical monitor. Research at RIACS is currently being done in the following areas: (1) parallel computing; (2) advanced methods for scientific computing; (3) learning systems; (4) high performance networks and technology; and (5) graphics, visualization, and virtual environments. In the past year, parallel compiler techniques and adaptive numerical methods for flows in complicated geometries were identified as important problems to investigate for ARC's involvement in the Computational Grand Challenges of the next decade. We concluded a summer student visitors program during this six months. We had six visiting graduate students that worked on projects over the summer and presented seminars on their work at the conclusion of their visits. RIACS technical reports are usually preprints of manuscripts that have been submitted to research journals or conference proceedings. A list of these reports for the period July 1, 1992 through December 31, 1992 is provided.

Oliger, Joseph↗
NASA NTRS1993

High-performance mass storage system for workstations

Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) workstations and Personnel Computers (PC) are very popular tools for office automation, command and control, scientific analysis, database management, and many other applications. However, when using Input/Output (I/O) intensive applications, the RISC workstations and PC's are often overburdened with the tasks of collecting, staging, storing, and distributing data. Also, by using standard high-performance peripherals and storage devices, the I/O function can still be a common bottleneck process. Therefore, the high-performance mass storage system, developed by Loral AeroSys' Independent Research and Development (IR&D) engineers, can offload a RISC workstation of I/O related functions and provide high-performance I/O functions and external interfaces. The high-performance mass storage system has the capabilities to ingest high-speed real-time data, perform signal or image processing, and stage, archive, and distribute the data. This mass storage system uses a hierarchical storage structure, thus reducing the total data storage cost, while maintaining high-I/O performance. The high-performance mass storage system is a network of low-cost parallel processors and storage devices. The nodes in the network have special I/O functions such as: SCSI controller, Ethernet controller, gateway controller, RS232 controller, IEEE488 controller, and digital/analog converter. The nodes are interconnected through high-speed direct memory access links to form a network. The topology of the network is easily reconfigurable to maximize system throughput for various applications. This high-performance mass storage system takes advantage of a 'busless' architecture for maximum expandability. The mass storage system consists of magnetic disks, a WORM optical disk jukebox, and an 8mm helical scan tape to form a hierarchical storage structure. Commonly used files are kept in the magnetic disk for fast retrieval. The optical disks are used as archive media, and the tapes are used as backup media. The storage system is managed by the IEEE mass storage reference model-based UniTree software package. UniTree software will keep track of all files in the system, will automatically migrate the lesser used files to archive media, and will stage the files when needed by the system. The user can access the files without knowledge of their physical location. The high-performance mass storage system developed by Loral AeroSys will significantly boost the system I/O performance and reduce the overall data storage cost. This storage system provides a highly flexible and cost-effective architecture for a variety of applications (e.g., realtime data acquisition with a signal and image processing requirement, long-term data archiving and distribution, and image analysis and enhancement).

Chiang, T.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Materials Overview

The Materials and Structures for High Performance project has made excellent progress in the development of advanced high-temperature materials and computational materials science tools to enable high-performance, hgh-efficiency, and environmentally compatible propulsion systems. Ceramic matrix composite (CMC) systems with 2700 O F temperature capability are initially being developed for low NO, combustor liners and turbine vanes. The feasibility of pushing CMC technologies to 3000 O F through revolutionary concepts is also being pursued. Achieving fuel savings of 8 to 15 percent requires higher turbine inlet temperatures as well as reductions in engine weight. An advanced disk alloy has been evaluated for application in future engines. Advanced thermal barrier coatings (TBC s) will enable 3200 O F turbine rotor inlet temperature capability. Advanced alloy development and the development of computational tools for the design of these future alloys will further enable attainment of these goals. Innovative lightweight materials, and structural and nozzle aerodynamic concepts are also being developed to reduce the weight of engine static structures to contribute toward overall fuel savings. Rig tests will demonstrate long-term durability of CMC linersand vanes and advanced turbine airfoil alloy systems, as well as fabricability of components with the highest payoff potential using the lightweight materials and structures concepts being developed.

Draper, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2021

NASA SpaceCube Edge TPU SmallSat Card for Autonomous Operations and Onboard Science-Data Analysis

Using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI)frameworks onboard spacecraft is challenging because common spacecraft processors cannot provide comparable performance to datacenters with server-grade CPUs and GPUs available for terrestrial applications and advanced deep-learning networks. This limitation makes small, lo w-p o we r AI microchip architectures, such as the Google Coral Edge Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), attractive for space missions where the application-specific design enables both high-performance and power-efficient computing for AI applications. To address these challenging considerations for space deployment, this research introduces the design and capabilities of a CubeSat-sized Edge TPU-based co-processor card, known as the SpaceCube Low-power Ed g e Artificial Intelligence Resilient Node (SC-LEARN). This design conforms to NASA’s CubeSat Card Specification (CS2) for integration into next-generation SmallSat and CubeSat systems. This paper describes the overarching architecture and design of the SC-LEARN, as well as, the supporting test card designed for rapid prototyping and evaluation. The SC-LEARN was developed with three operational modes: (1) a high-performance parallel-processing mode,(2)a fault-tolerant mode for onboard resilience, and (3) a power-saving mode with cold spares. Importantly, this research also elaborates on both training and quantization of Tensor Flow models for the SC-LEARN for use onboard with representative, open-source datasets. Lastly, we describe future research plans, including radiation-beam testing and flight demonstration.

Advanced avionics↗
NASA NTRS2001

Simulation of Flow Control Using Deformable Surfaces

The goal of this investigation is to numerically simulate the effects of oscillatory actuators placed on the leading edge of an airfoil, and to quantify the effects of oscillatory blowing on an airfoil stall behavior. It has been demonstrated experimentally that periodic blowing can delay flow separation at high angle of attack. The computations are to be performed for a TAU 0015 airfoil at a high Reynolds number of approx. 1 x 10(exp 6) with turbulent flow conditions. The two-equation Wilcox k - w turbulence model has been shown to provide reliable descriptions of transition and turbulence at high Reynolds numbers. The results are to be compared to Seifert's experimental data.

Truman, C. Randall↗
NASA NTRS2004

SANs and Large Scale Data Migration at the NASA Center for Computational Sciences

Evolution and migration are a way of life for provisioners of high-performance mass storage systems that serve high-end computers used by climate and Earth and space science researchers: the compute engines come and go, but the data remains. At the NASA Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS), disk and tape SANs are deployed to provide high-speed I/O for the compute engines and the hierarchical storage management systems. Along with gigabit Ethernet, they also enable the NCCS's latest significant migration: the transparent transfer of 300 Til3 of legacy HSM data into the new Sun SAM-QFS cluster.

Salmon, Ellen M.↗
NASA NTRS1989

The role of graphics super-workstations in a supercomputing environment

A new class of very powerful workstations has recently become available which integrate near supercomputer computational performance with very powerful and high quality graphics capability. These graphics super-workstations are expected to play an increasingly important role in providing an enhanced environment for supercomputer users. Their potential uses include: off-loading the supercomputer (by serving as stand-alone processors, by post-processing of the output of supercomputer calculations, and by distributed or shared processing), scientific visualization (understanding of results, communication of results), and by real time interaction with the supercomputer (to steer an iterative computation, to abort a bad run, or to explore and develop new algorithms).

Levin, E.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Computer extension and analytic continuation of Stokes' expansion for gravity waves

Stokes' infinitesimal-wave expansion for steady progressive free-surface waves has been extended to high order using a computer to perform the coefficient arithmetic. Stokes' expansion has been found to be incapable of yielding the highest wave for any value of the water depth since convergence is limited by a square-root branch-point some distance short of the maximum. By reformulating the problem using a different independent parameter, the highest waves are obtained correctly. Series summation and analytic continuation are facilitated by the use of Pade approximants. The method is valid in principle for any finite value of the wavelength and solutions of high accuracy can be obtained for most values of the wave height and water depth.

Schwartz, L. W.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Closed-Loop Simulations of Human-Scale Mars Lander Descent Trajectories on Frontier

A computational campaign was performed to run high-fidelity, free-flight simulations of a human-scale Mars lander concept vehicle decelerating under retropropulsion through the Martian atmosphere with closed-loop flight control. A novel approach is used to couple computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with a mature flight mechanics package, where the two applications communicate in real-time across two geographically-dispersed computational facilities. The CFD is performed on the Frontier exascale system located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the flight mechanics are executed on a system located at NASA Langley Research Center. In the current campaign, CFD is performed using finite-rate chemistry to account for the interactions between the LOXCH 4 engines and the CO 2 Martian atmosphere. A simulation of a closed-loop main engine throttling and RCS actuation is presented, demonstrating that the vehicle and model are able to maintain stability in a long-duration CFD-in-the-loop flight simulation. Comparisons are made to a reduced order model ignoring aero-propulsive interactions.

CFD↗
NASA NTRS1989

Experimental and computational results for 5 degree blunt cones with shock generators at high velocity

Experiments and computations have been performed under laminar conditions in air on 5-deg blunt cones at velocities of 5 km/s and 6 km/s and at Reynolds numbers of 100,000 and 1 million. The computations were performed using ideal-, equilibrium- and nonequilibrium-chemistry models for air. At the conditions of the tests, the aerodynamic coefficients are sensitive to the real-gas effects present, and both experimental and computational aerodynamic coefficients show real-gas and nonlinear effects. The nonequilibrium computations show that a large amount of oxygen is dissociated in the blunt nose region of the flow and much of the oxygen remains dissociated over the entire length of the body, providing an insight into the source of the observed effects in the aerodynamic coefficients. The experimental and computational shock-shapes are in good agreement.

Strawa, A. W.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Implementation of ADI: Schemes on MIMD parallel computers

In order to simulate the effects of the impingement of hot exhaust jets of High Performance Aircraft on landing surfaces a multi-disciplinary computation coupling flow dynamics to heat conduction in the runway needs to be carried out. Such simulations, which are essentially unsteady, require very large computational power in order to be completed within a reasonable time frame of the order of an hour. Such power can be furnished by the latest generation of massively parallel computers. These remove the bottleneck of ever more congested data paths to one or a few highly specialized central processing units (CPU's) by having many off-the-shelf CPU's work independently on their own data, and exchange information only when needed. During the past year the first phase of this project was completed, in which the optimal strategy for mapping an ADI-algorithm for the three dimensional unsteady heat equation to a MIMD parallel computer was identified. This was done by implementing and comparing three different domain decomposition techniques that define the tasks for the CPU's in the parallel machine. These implementations were done for a Cartesian grid and Dirichlet boundary conditions. The most promising technique was then used to implement the heat equation solver on a general curvilinear grid with a suite of nontrivial boundary conditions. Finally, this technique was also used to implement the Scalar Penta-diagonal (SP) benchmark, which was taken from the NAS Parallel Benchmarks report. All implementations were done in the programming language C on the Intel iPSC/860 computer.

Vanderwijngaart, Rob F.↗
NASA NTRS1988

An analysis for high speed propeller-nacelle aerodynamic performance prediction. Volume 1: Theory and application

A computer program, the Propeller Nacelle Aerodynamic Performance Prediction Analysis (PANPER), was developed for the prediction and analysis of the performance and airflow of propeller-nacelle configurations operating over a forward speed range inclusive of high speed flight typical of recent propfan designs. A propeller lifting line, wake program was combined with a compressible, viscous center body interaction program, originally developed for diffusers, to compute the propeller-nacelle flow field, blade loading distribution, propeller performance, and the nacelle forebody pressure and viscous drag distributions. The computer analysis is applicable to single and coaxial counterrotating propellers. The blade geometries can include spanwise variations in sweep, droop, taper, thickness, and airfoil section type. In the coaxial mode of operation the analysis can treat both equal and unequal blade number and rotational speeds on the propeller disks. The nacelle portion of the analysis can treat both free air and tunnel wall configurations including wall bleed. The analysis was applied to many different sets of flight conditions using selected aerodynamic modeling options. The influence of different propeller nacelle-tunnel wall configurations was studied. Comparisons with available test data for both single and coaxial propeller configurations are presented along with a discussion of the results.

Egolf, T. Alan↗