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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Inspection and Mapping of Savannah River Site (SRS) Waste Tanks via Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) – 25351

The CSTF at SRS contain 51 waste tanks with 8 closed waste tanks between FTF and HTF. SRMC is the LW contractor. The LW mission includes removing legacy nuclear waste from these tanks and treating it for final disposition. Once the bulk of the waste has been removed from a tank, it will undergo inspection and sampling to characterize the remaining waste in the tank prior to it being operationally closed. There are multiple points in the tank closure process where an inspection is performed, and there are multiple parts of a tank that get inspected. Waste tanks have a primary containment vessel (referred to as the “Primary”) and a secondary containment vessel (referred to as the “Annulus”) that surrounds the primary. Both of these sections of a tank receive multiple inspections throughout the closure process.

Murphy, Lucas D. [Savannah River Mission Completio↗
DOE OSTI2024

Aircraft electric motor with integrated cooling system

Aircraft electric motors include a motor unit having a rotor and a stator. The stator includes a plurality of windings and cooling channels arranged to provide cooling thereto. A drive unit is configured to drive operation of the motor unit. A cooling system includes a working fluid arranged within a cooling fluid flow path, wherein the cooling fluid flow path includes a liquid cooling path configured to direct flow of the working fluid through, at least, the cooling channels of the motor unit and a vapor cooling path configured to direct flow of the working fluid through the drive unit and a separator arranged upstream of each of the liquid cooling path and the vapor cooling path and configured to direct a liquid portion of the working fluid into the liquid cooling path and configured to direct a vapor portion of the working fluid into the vapor cooling path.

Alahyari, Abbas A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Selectable inlet for aircraft propulsion system heat exchanger

A propulsion system for an aircraft includes a propulsor rotor, an engine core, a housing, a flowpath and a heat exchange system. The engine core is configured to power rotation of the propulsor rotor. The housing includes an inner structure and an outer structure. The outer structure is radially outboard of and axially overlaps the inner structure. The flowpath is downstream of the propulsor rotor and radially between the inner structure and the outer structure. The heat exchange system includes a duct, an exterior orifice, an interior orifice, a flow regulator and a heat exchanger disposed within the duct. The exterior orifice is formed by the outer structure and disposed along an exterior of the housing. The interior orifice is formed by the outer structure and disposed along the flowpath. The flow regulator is configured to selectively fluidly couple the exterior orifice and the interior orifice to the duct.

Sobanski, Jon E.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Toward on-demand measurements of greenhouse gas emissions using an uncrewed aircraft AirCore system

This paper evaluates the performance of a multirotor uncrewed aircraft and AirCore system (UAAS) for measuring vertical profiles of wind velocity (speed and direction) and the mole fractions of methane (CH 4 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), and it presents a use case that combines UAAS measurements and dispersion modeling to quantify CH 4 emissions from a dairy farm. To evaluate the atmospheric sensing performance of the UAAS, four field deployments were performed at three locations in the San Joaquin Valley of California where CH 4 hotspots were observed downwind of dairy farms. A comparison of the observations collected on board the UAAS and an 11 m meteorological tower show that the UAAS can measure wind velocity trends with a root mean squared error varying between 0.4 and 1.1 m s -1 when the wind magnitude is less than 3.5 m s -1 . Findings from UAAS flight deployments and a calibration experiment also show that the UAAS can reliably resolve temporal variations in the mole fractions of CH 4 and CO 2 occurring over periods of 10 s or longer. Results from the UAAS and dispersion modeling use case further demonstrate that UAASs have great potential as low-cost tools for detecting and quantifying CH 4 emissions in near real time.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems for Post-closure Waste Site Maintenance and Surveillance - 20143

The P- and R-Area Reactor buildings, located at SRS near Aiken, SC, were in-situ decommissioned by grouting below-grade portions of the buildings and demolishing some above-grade structures to grade level. Other reactor building structures were left above-grade and sealed to prevent human or animal access. Because the above grade-structures are expected to continue in their present state for hundreds of years, the condition of the building roofs is critical to mitigate rainwater intrusion. For this reason, building roof areas were strengthened with high strength concrete to ensure the long-term integrity of the roof structure. Periodic inspections of the roof structures are required to ensure that the roofs are functioning properly and to identify damage areas. The traditional method of inspecting closed reactor buildings requires the use of a helicopter and photographer to generate photographs and videos for review. This method proved sufficient but lacked the resolution and clarity that is required for a thorough inspection of the building structure. Fortunately, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has established a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) program using commercially available and custom-built remote-controlled aircraft. EC and ACP contacted the SRNL program to evaluate whether the sUAS technology could be employed for periodic reactor building inspections. The sUAS can fly within a few meters of the reactor buildings and hover, allowing for a more thorough aerial inspection. The initial sUAS inspection of the P-Area Reactor building was completed in February 2018 and at the R-Area Reactor building in August 2018 and were successful in providing higher resolution photos and videos. The sUAS inspections also revealed that vegetation had begun to grow on the roofs that could potentially damage the structure integrity. SRNL partnered with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University to build a custom heavy lift sUAS that could be equipped with herbicides to remotely treat the vegetative growth. Herbicides were successfully applied to the R-Area Reactor building roof using the custom sUAS in September 2018. The use of unmanned aircraft systems at SRS to perform aerial inspections and herbicide treatment in otherwise inaccessible areas has proven to be an efficient and cost-effective technology that provides high value, increases knowledge of facility conditions, and provides for early detection of damage. Periodic inspections of the reactor building roofs using sUAS technology are performed safely, efficiently, and at a significant cost and schedule savings while reducing emissions, noise, and fossil fuel use. The use of sUAS equipment for building inspections and herbicide application at SRS is unique within the DOE complex. The goal of SRS is to apply this remote technology to other waste unit operations and maintenance activities in the future. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2022

UAS Activity Profile Survey

Commercial vendors, trying to tap into the physical protection of critical infrastructure, are offering nuclear facilities the opportunity to borrow detection counter-unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) equipment to survey the airspace over and around the facility. However, using one vendor or method of detection (e.g., radio frequency [RF], radar, acoustic, visual) will not necessarily provide a complete airspace profile since no single method can detect all UAS threats. Using several detection technologies, the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) Team, who supports the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of International Nuclear Security (INS), would like to offer partners a comprehensive airspace profile of the types and frequency of UAS that fly within and around critical infrastructure. Improved UAS awareness will aid in the risk assessment process.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modular autopilot design and development featuring bayesian non-parametric adaptive control

According to an embodiment, there is provided an onboard integrated computational system for an unmanned aircraft system (“Stabilis” autopilot). This is an integrated suite of hardware, software, and data-to-decisions services that are designed to meet the needs of business and research developers of UAS. Stabilis is designed to accelerate the development of any UAS platform and avionics system; it does so with hardware modularity and software adaptation. The Stabilis offers multiple technological advantages technological advantages including: Plug-and-adapt functionality; Data-to-decisions capability; and, On board parallelization capability.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Multi-spool CO2 aircraft power system for operating multiple generators

A CO 2 bottoming cycle system includes a first compressor operatively connected to a first turbine through a first shaft. A first generator is operatively connected to the first shaft. A second compressor is fluidically connected to the first compressor. The second compressor is operatively connected to a second turbine through a second shaft. A second generator is operatively connected to the second shaft. The first turbine is fluidically connected to the second turbine.

Taylor, Stephen H.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Remote-sensing and radiosonde datasets collected in the San Luis Valley during the LAPSE-RATE campaign

Abstract. In July 2018, the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely piloted Aircraft (ISARRA) hosted a flight week to showcase the role remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) can have in filling the atmospheric data gap. This campaign was called Lower Atmospheric Process Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE). In support of this campaign, ground-based remote and in situ systems were also deployed for the campaign. The University of Oklahoma deployed the Collaborative Lower Atmospheric Mobile Profiling System (CLAMPS), the University of Colorado deployed two Doppler wind lidars, and the National Severe Storms Laboratory deployed a mobile mesonet with the ability to launch radiosondes. This paper focuses on the data products from these instruments that result in profiles of the atmospheric state. The data are publicly available in the Zenodo LAPSE-RATE community portal (https://zenodo.org/communities/lapse-rate/, 19 January 2021). The profile data discussed are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3780623 (Bell and Klein, 2020), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3780593 (Bell et al., 2020b), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727224 (Bell et al., 2020a), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738175 (Waugh, 2020b), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3720444 (Waugh, 2020a), and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3698228 (Lundquist et al., 2020).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗