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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 703 records · Page 39
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1971

Preliminary radar systems analysis for Venus orbiter missions

A short, preliminary analysis is presented of the problems involved in mapping the surface of Venus with radar from an orbiting spacecraft. Two types of radar, the noncoherent sidelooking and the focused synthetic aperture systems, are sized to fulfill two assumed levels of Venus exploration. The two exploration levels, regional and local, assumed for this study are based on previous Astro Sciences work (Klopp 1969). The regional level is defined as 1 to 3 kilometer spatial and 0.5 to 1 km vertical resolution of 100 percent 0 of the planet's surface. The local level is defined as 100 to 200 meter spatial and 50-10 m vertical resolution of about 100 percent of the surfAce (based on the regional survey). A 10cm operating frequency was chosen for both radar systems in order to minimize the antenna size and maximize the apparent radar cross section of the surface.

Brandenburg, R. K.↗
DOE OSTI2011

Design of an Unattended Environmental Aerosol Sampling and Analysis System for Gaseous Centrifuge Enrichment Plants

The resources of the IAEA continue to be challenged by the rapid, worldwide expansion of nuclear energy production. Gaseous centrifuge enrichment plants (GCEPs) represent an especially formidable dilemma to the application of safeguard measures, as the size and enrichment capacity of GCEPs continue to escalate. During the early part of the 1990's, the IAEA began to lay the foundation to strengthen and make cost-effective its future safeguard regime. Measures under Part II of 'Programme 93+2' specifically sanctioned access to nuclear fuel production facilities and environmental sampling by IAEA inspectors. Today, the Additional Protocol grants inspection and environmental sample collection authority to IAEA inspectors at GCEPs during announced and low frequency unannounced (LFUA) inspections. During inspections, IAEA inspectors collect environmental swipe samples that are then shipped offsite to an analytical laboratory for enrichment assay. This approach has proven to be an effective deterrence to GCEP misuse, but this method has never achieved the timeliness of detection goals set forth by IAEA. Furthermore it is questionable whether the IAEA will have the resources to even maintain pace with the expansive production capacity of the modern GCEP, let alone improve the timeliness in reaching current safeguards conclusions. New safeguards propositions, outside of familiar mainstream safeguard measures, may therefore be required that counteract the changing landscape of nuclear energy fuel production. A new concept is proposed that offers rapid, cost effective GCEP misuse detection, without increasing LFUA inspection access or introducing intrusive access demands on GCEP operations. Our approach is based on continuous onsite aerosol collection and laser enrichment analysis. This approach mitigates many of the constraints imposed by the LFUA protocol, reduces the demand for onsite sample collection and offsite analysis, and overcomes current limitations associated with the in-facility misuse detection devices. Onsite environmental sample collection offers the ability to collect fleeting uranium hexafluoride emissions before they are lost to the ventilation system or before they disperse throughout the facility, to become deposited onto surfaces that are contaminated with background and historical production material. Onsite aerosol sample collection, combined with enrichment analysis, provides the unique ability to quickly detect stepwise enrichment level changes within the facility, leading to a significant strengthening of facility misuse deterence. We report in this paper our study of several GCEP environmental sample release scenarios and simulation results of a newly designed aerosol collection and particle capture system that is fully integrated with the Laser Ablation, Absorbance Ratio Spectrometry (LAARS) uranium particle enrichment analysis instrument that was developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS1975

System analysis of a piston steam engine employing the uniflow principle, a study in optimized performance

Results are reported which were obtained from a mathematical model of a generalized piston steam engine configuration employing the uniflow principal. The model accounted for the effects of clearance volume, compression work, and release volume. A simple solution is presented which characterizes optimum performance of the steam engine, based on miles per gallon. Development of the mathematical model is presented. The relationship between efficiency and miles per gallon is developed. An approach to steam car analysis and design is presented which has purpose rather than lucky hopefulness. A practical engine design is proposed which correlates to the definition of the type engine used. This engine integrates several system components into the engine structure. All conclusions relate to the classical Rankine Cycle.

Peoples, J. A.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Simulations of single- and two-phase shock tubes and gravity-driven wave problems with the RELAP-7 nuclear reactor system analysis code

Propagation of pressure waves in single and two-phase flows is of key interest for nuclear safety analyses, reactor design, construction and life extension of nuclear reactors. In this work, we assess the capabilities of RELAP-7, the next-generation nuclear reactor system code, to solve single- and two-phase flows developing pressure waves. RELAP-7 is based on a 7-equation, two-phase flow model, with distinct phasic pressures. It is well established that these hyperbolic conservation laws can develop shocks and discontinuities and thus, require a stabilization numerical method. The all-Mach flow Entropy Viscosity Method (EVM) is now employed in RELAP-7 as a viscous stabilization approach. In this paper, we briefly describe the implementation of the EVM and use open-literature test cases that exhibit pressure waves to show that the entropy viscosity method performs adequately for these single- and two-phase cases.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS1965

Computer programs simplify optical system analysis

The optical ray-trace computer program performs geometrical ray tracing. The energy-trace program calculates the relative monochromatic flux density on a specific target area. This program uses the ray-trace program as a subroutine to generate a representation of the optical system.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1994

Use of Video Analysis System for Working Posture Evaluations

In a work environment, it is important to identify and quantify the relationship among work activities, working posture, and workplace design. Working posture may impact the physical comfort and well-being of individuals, as well as performance. The Posture Video Analysis Tool (PVAT) is an interactive menu and button driven software prototype written in Supercard (trademark). Human Factors analysts are provided with a predefined set of options typically associated with postural assessments and human performance issues. Once options have been selected, the program is used to evaluate working posture and dynamic tasks from video footage. PVAT has been used to evaluate postures from Orbiter missions, as well as from experimental testing of prototype glove box designs. PVAT can be used for video analysis in a number of industries, with little or no modification. It can contribute to various aspects of workplace design such as training, task allocations, procedural analyses, and hardware usability evaluations. The major advantage of the video analysis approach is the ability to gather data, non-intrusively, in restricted-access environments, such as emergency and operation rooms, contaminated areas, and control rooms. Video analysis also provides the opportunity to conduct preliminary evaluations of existing work areas.

McKay, Timothy D.↗
DOE OSTI2018

IMG/M v.5.0: an integrated data management and comparative analysis system for microbial genomes and microbiomes

The Integrated Microbial Genomes & Microbiomes system v.5.0 (IMG/M: https://img.jgi.doe.gov/m/) contains annotated datasets categorized into: archaea, bacteria, eukarya, plasmids, viruses, genome fragments, metagenomes, cell enrichments, single particle sorts, and metatranscriptomes. Source datasets include those generated by the DOE's Joint Genome Institute (JGI), submitted by external scientists, or collected from public sequence data archives such as NCBI. All submissions are typically processed through the IMG annotation pipeline and then loaded into the IMG data warehouse. IMG's web user interface provides a variety of analytical and visualization tools for comparative analysis of isolate genomes and metagenomes in IMG. IMG/M allows open access to all public genomes in the IMG data warehouse, while its expert review (ER) system (IMG/MER: https://img.jgi.doe.gov/mer/) enabled registered users to access their private genomes and to store their private datasets in workspace for sharing and for further analysis. IMG/M data content has increased by 60% since the last report published in the 2017 NAR Database Issue. IMG/M v.5.0 has a new and more powerful genome search feature, new statistical tools, and supports metagenome binning.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2010

3D GeoWall Analysis System for Shuttle External Tank Foreign Object Debris Events

An analytical, advanced imaging method has been developed for the initial monitoring and identification of foam debris and similar anomalies that occur post-launch in reference to the space shuttle s external tank (ET). Remote sensing technologies have been used to perform image enhancement and analysis on high-resolution, true-color images collected with the DCS 760 Kodak digital camera located in the right umbilical well of the space shuttle. Improvements to the camera, using filters, have added sharpness/definition to the image sets; however, image review/analysis of the ET has been limited by the fact that the images acquired by umbilical cameras during launch are two-dimensional, and are usually nonreferenceable between frames due to rotation translation of the ET as it falls away from the space shuttle. Use of stereo pairs of these images can enable strong visual indicators that can immediately portray depth perception of damaged areas or movement of fragments between frames is not perceivable in two-dimensional images. A stereoscopic image visualization system has been developed to allow 3D depth perception of stereo-aligned image pairs taken from in-flight umbilical and handheld digital shuttle cameras. This new system has been developed to augment and optimize existing 2D monitoring capabilities. Using this system, candidate sequential image pairs are identified for transformation into stereo viewing pairs. Image orientation is corrected using control points (similar points) between frames to place the two images in proper X-Y viewing perspective. The images are then imported into the WallView stereo viewing software package. The collected control points are used to generate a transformation equation that is used to re-project one image and effectively co-register it to the other image. The co-registered, oriented image pairs are imported into a WallView image set and are used as a 3D stereo analysis slide show. Multiple sequential image pairs can be used to allow forensic review of temporal phenomena between pairs. The observer, while wearing linear polarized glasses, is able to review image pairs in passive 3D stereo.

Brown, Richard↗
NASA NTRS2021

Adaptive-Sweep Algorithm for Spacecraft Carrier Acquisition and Tracking: System Analysis and Implementation

This paper presents an adaptive-sweep algorithm that can be used in conjunction with a Phased-Lock Loop to acquire and track the carrier of a Binary Phase-shift Keying signal with residual carrier. This algorithm is useful in proximity links where no Doppler pre-compensation is available at the transmitter, and allows the receiver to acquire the incoming carrier even if the experienced Doppler shift is several orders of magnitude larger than the PLL bandwidth. Other applications for this algorithm include Multiple Uplink per Antenna at the Deep Space Network, and generation of observables (Doppler shift, Doppler rate, range rate) for in-situ navigation purposes. This paper enhances a previously presented adaptive-sweep algorithm and its performance analysis in two fronts. First, the algorithm now uses the direction function to automatically estimate the required frequency jump to achieve PLL lock. This enables a fully adaptive-sweep scheme in which system implementer does not need to manually select thresholds. On the other hand, we study the system performance in the presence of Additive White Gaussian Noise and derive necessary conditions for the system to operate at low signal-to-noise conditions. This allows us to create design rules that specify all parameters of the algorithm given a set of system-level requirements. To test the performance of the proposed algorithm, we implement it in GNU Radio, an open-source Software-Defined Radio that interfaces with several commercial radio peripherals. We use this implementation to demonstrate carrier lock and quantify system performance under different noise conditions. We also test the algorithm using open-loop recordings of two downlinks between the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Deep Space Network. We show that even after large frequency jumps (tens of kHz), the proposed system is able to rapidly reacquire the carrier and continue operation.

Divsalar, Dariush↗
NASA NTRS1979

Power Extension Package (PEP) system definition extension, orbital service module systems analysis study. Volume 3: PEP analysis and tradeoffs

The objectives, conclusions, and approaches for accomplishing 19 specific design and analysis activities related to the installation of the power extension package (PEP) into the Orbiter cargo bay are described as well as those related to its deployment, extension, and retraction. The proposed cable handling system designed to transmit power from PEP to the Orbiter by way of the shuttle remote manipulator system is described and a preliminary specification for the gimbal assembly, solar array drive is included.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1992

CELIAS: Charge, Element and Isotope Analysis System for the SOHO mission

The status and further development as well as first calibration of the CELIAS experiment on SOHO is presented. CELIAS is designed to measure the mass, ionic charge, and energy of low and high speed solar wind of suprathermal ions and of low energy flare particles. Through analysis of the elemental and isotopic abundances (the ionic charge state and velocity distributions of ions originating on the solar atmosphere), the investigation focuses on studying the plasma processes in various temporal and spatial scales in the solar chromosphere, transition zone, and corona. Additionally, the CELIAS experiment includes the Solar EUV Monitor (SEM). This unit, which consists of an EUV transmission grating spectrometer and three isolated silicon photodiodes as detectors, is described. The three mass and charge discriminating sensors based on the time of flight technique are also described.

Hovestadt, D.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Systems Analysis for a Venus Aerocapture Mission

Previous high level analysis has indicated that significant mass savings may be possible for planetary science missions if aerocapture is employed to place a spacecraft in orbit. In 2001 the In-Space Propulsion program identified aerocapture as one of the top three propulsion technologies for planetary exploration but that higher fidelity analysis was required to verify the favorable results and to determine if any supporting technology gaps exist that would enable or enhance aerocapture missions. A series of three studies has been conducted to assess, from an overall system point of view, the merit of using aerocapture at Titan, Neptune and Venus. These were chosen as representative of a moon with an atmosphere, an outer giant gas planet and an inner planet. The Venus mission, based on desirable science from plans for Solar System Exploration and Principal Investigator proposals, to place a spacecraft in a 300km polar orbit was examined and the details of the study are presented in this paper.

Lockwood, Mary Kae↗
NASA NTRS1982

Space Operations Center system analysis study extension. Volume 2: Programmatics and cost

A summary of Space Operations Center (SOC) orbital space station costs, program options and program recommendations is presented. Program structure, hardware commonality, schedules and program phasing are considered. Program options are analyzed with respect to mission needs, design and technology options, and anticipated funding constraints. Design and system options are discussed.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1987

Teleoperator and robotics system analysis

The Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) was designed to operate as a remotely controlled space teleoperator. The design and implementation of OMM (a mathematical model of the OMV) are discussed. The State Vector Transformation Module (SVX), an interface between the OMV simulation model and the mobile base (TOM-B) of the flat floor simulation system is described. A summary of testing procedures and conclusions are presented together with the test data obtained.

Teoh, William↗
NASA NTRS2000

Systems Analysis of Life Support for Long-Duration Missions

Work defining advanced life support (ALS) technologies and evaluating their applicability to various long-duration missions has continued. Time-dependent and time-invariant costs have been estimated for a variety of life support technology options, including International Space Station (ISS) environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) technologies and improved options under development by the ALS Project. These advanced options include physicochemical (PC) and bioregenerative (BIO) technologies, and may in the future include in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) in an attempt to reduce both logistics costs and dependence on supply from Earth. PC and bioregenerative technologies both provide possibilities for reducing mission equivalent system mass (ESM). PC technologies are most advantageous for missions of up to several years in length, while bioregenerative options are most appropriate for longer missions. ISRU can be synergistic with both PC and bioregenerative options.

IN SITU RESOURCES UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

A coupled human–natural system analysis of freshwater security under climate and population change

Limited water availability, population growth, and climate change have resulted in freshwater crises in many countries. Jordan’s situation is emblematic, compounded by conflict-induced population shocks. Integrating knowledge across hydrology, climatology, agriculture, political science, geography, and economics, we present the Jordan Water Model, a nationwide coupled human–natural-engineered systems model that is used to evaluate Jordan’s freshwater security under climate and socioeconomic changes. The complex systems model simulates the trajectory of Jordan’s water system, representing dynamic interactions between a hierarchy of actors and the natural and engineered water environment. A multiagent modeling approach enables the quantification of impacts at the level of thousands of representative agents across sectors, allowing for the evaluation of both systemwide and distributional outcomes translated into a suite of water-security metrics (vulnerability, equity, shortage duration, and economic well-being). Model results indicate severe, potentially destabilizing, declines in freshwater security. Per capita water availability decreases by approximately 50% by the end of the century. Without intervening measures, >90% of the low-income household population experiences critical insecurity by the end of the century, receiving <40 L per capita per day. Widening disparity in freshwater use, lengthening shortage durations, and declining economic welfare are prevalent across narratives. To gain a foothold on its freshwater future, Jordan must enact a sweeping portfolio of ambitious interventions that include large-scale desalinization and comprehensive water sector reform, with model results revealing exponential improvements in water security through the coordination of supply- and demand-side measures.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS1975

Multirate sampled-data systems analysis via vector operators

The primary difficulties of both the time-domain switch decomposition method and the frequency-domain decomposition method are overcome by introducing certain matrix operators and performing spectral factorization of resulting matrices of polynomials in the z-transform variable. Topological operations of the switch-decomposition method are simplified. This new approach eliminates the need to solve a system of equations with rational polynomial coefficients such as arises in the frequency-decomposition method. The determination of a multirate sampled-data system's characteristic polynomial no longer requires the evaluation of a determinant of rational polynomial elements. New results on obtaining modified z-transforms from standard z-transforms at a faster rate and vice versa are presented.

Boykin, W. H.↗