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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
NASA NTRS1994

An overview of Space Shuttle anthropometry and biomechanics research with emphasis on STS/Mir recumbent seat system design

The Anthropometry and Biomechanics Laboratory (ABL) at JSC conducts multi-disciplinary research focusing on maximizing astronaut intravehicular (IVA) and extravehicular (EVA) capabilities to provide the most effective work conditions for manned space flight and exploration missions. Biomechanics involves the measurement and modeling of the strength characteristics of the human body. Current research for the Space Shuttle Program includes the measurement of torque wrench capability during weightlessness, optimization of foot restraint, and hand hold placement, measurements of the strength and dexterity of the pressure gloved hand to improve glove design, quantification of the ability to move and manipulate heavy masses (6672 N or 1500 lb) in weightlessness, and verification of the capability of EVA crewmembers to perform Hubble Space Telescope repair tasks. Anthropometry is the measurement and modeling of the dimensions of the human body. Current research for the Space Shuttle Program includes the measurement of 14 anthropometric parameters of every astronaut candidate, identification of EVA finger entrapment hazards by measuring the dimensions of the gloved hand, definition of flight deck reach envelopes during launch and landing accelerations, and measurement of anthropometric design parameters for the recumbent seat system required for the Shuttle/Mir mission (STS-71, Spacelab M) scheduled for Jun. 1995.

Klute, Glenn K.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Analysis of high speed flow, thermal and structural interactions

Research for this grant focused on the following tasks: (1) the prediction of severe, localized aerodynamic heating for complex, high speed flows; (2) finite element adaptive refinement methodology for multi-disciplinary analyses; (3) the prediction of thermoviscoplastic structural response with rate-dependent effects and large deformations; (4) thermoviscoplastic constitutive models for metals; and (5) coolant flow/structural heat transfer analyses.

Thornton, Earl A.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Chemical compositions of primitive solar system particles

Chemical studies of micrometeorites are of fundamental importance primarily because atmospheric entry selection effects (such as destruction of friable objects) are less significant than those for conventional meteorites. As a result, particles that have experienced very little postaccretional processing have a significant chance of surviving the Earth encounter and subsequent collection. Thus, chemical analyses of these relatively unaltered micrometeorites may lead to a better understanding of the compositions of the most primitive materials in the solar system and thereby constrain the conditions (physical and chemical) that existed in the early solar nebula. Micrometeorites have been collected from the stratosphere, polar ices, and ocean sediments, but the stratospheric collection is the best source for the most unaltered material because they are small and are not heated to their melting points. Despite the fact that the stratospheric micrometeorites have masses in the nanogram range, a variety of microanalytical techniques have been applied to bulk chemical analyses with part-per-million sensitivity. In some cases, multi-disciplinary studies (e.g., chemistry and mineralogy) have been performed on individual particles. The first-order conclusion is that the chondrite-like particles are chemically similar to carbonaceous chondrites but in detail are distinct from members of the conventional meteorite collection. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the results to date and identify important areas for further study.

Sutton, Steve R.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Residents' reactions to long-term sonic boom exposure: Preliminary results

This presentation is about residents' reactions to sonic booms in a long-term sonic boom exposure environment. Although two phases of the data collection have been completed, the analysis of the data has only begun. The results are thus preliminary. The list of four authors reflects the complex multi-disciplinary character of any field study such as this one. Carey Moulton is responsible for Wyle Laboratories' acoustical data collection effort. Robert Baumgartner and Jeff Thomas of HBRS, a social science research firm, are responsible for social survey field work and data processing. The study is supported by the NASA Langley Research Center. The study has several objectives. The preliminary data addresses two of the primary objectives. The first objective is to describe the reactions to sonic booms of people who are living where sonic booms are a routine, recurring feature of the acoustical environment. The second objective is to compare these residents' reactions to the reactions of residents who hear conventional aircraft noise around airports. Here is an overview of the presentation. This study will first be placed in the context of previous community survey research on sonic booms. Next the noise measurement program will be briefly described and part of a social survey interview will be presented. Finally data will be presented on the residents' reactions and these reactions will be compared with reactions to conventional aircraft. Twelve community studies of residents' reactions to sonic booms were conducted in the United States and Europe in the 1960's and early 1970's. None of the 12 studies combined three essential ingredients that are found in the present study. Residents' long-term responses are related to a measured noise environment. Sonic booms are a permanent feature of the residential environment. The respondents' do not live on a military base. The present study is important because it provides the first dose/response relationship for sonic booms that could be expected to apply to residents in civilian residential areas.

Fields, James M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Portable parallel stochastic optimization for the design of aeropropulsion components

This report presents the results of Phase 1 research to develop a methodology for performing large-scale Multi-disciplinary Stochastic Optimization (MSO) for the design of aerospace systems ranging from aeropropulsion components to complete aircraft configurations. The current research recognizes that such design optimization problems are computationally expensive, and require the use of either massively parallel or multiple-processor computers. The methodology also recognizes that many operational and performance parameters are uncertain, and that uncertainty must be considered explicitly to achieve optimum performance and cost. The objective of this Phase 1 research was to initialize the development of an MSO methodology that is portable to a wide variety of hardware platforms, while achieving efficient, large-scale parallelism when multiple processors are available. The first effort in the project was a literature review of available computer hardware, as well as review of portable, parallel programming environments. The first effort was to implement the MSO methodology for a problem using the portable parallel programming language, Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM). The third and final effort was to demonstrate the example on a variety of computers, including a distributed-memory multiprocessor, a distributed-memory network of workstations, and a single-processor workstation. Results indicate the MSO methodology can be well-applied towards large-scale aerospace design problems. Nearly perfect linear speedup was demonstrated for computation of optimization sensitivity coefficients on both a 128-node distributed-memory multiprocessor (the Intel iPSC/860) and a network of workstations (speedups of almost 19 times achieved for 20 workstations). Very high parallel efficiencies (75 percent for 31 processors and 60 percent for 50 processors) were also achieved for computation of aerodynamic influence coefficients on the Intel. Finally, the multi-level parallelization strategy that will be needed for large-scale MSO problems was demonstrated to be highly efficient. The same parallel code instructions were used on both platforms, demonstrating portability. There are many applications for which MSO can be applied, including NASA's High-Speed-Civil Transport, and advanced propulsion systems. The use of MSO will reduce design and development time and testing costs dramatically.

Sues, Robert H.↗
NASA NTRS1994

EURECA mission control experience and messages for the future

EURECA is a retrievable space platform which can perform multi-disciplinary scientific and technological experiments in a Low Earth Orbit for a typical mission duration of six to twelve months. It is deployed and retrieved by the NASA Space Shuttle and is designed to support up to five flights. The first mission started at the end of July 1992 and was successfully completed with the retrieval in June 1993. The operations concept and the ground segment for the first EURECA mission are briefly introduced. The experiences in the preparation and the conduction of the mission from the flight control team point of view are described.

Huebner, H.↗
NASA NTRS1993

EOS-AM precision pointing verification

The Earth Observing System (EOS) AM mission requires tight pointing knowledge to meet scientific objectives, in a spacecraft with low frequency flexible appendage modes. As the spacecraft controller reacts to various disturbance sources and as the inherent appendage modes are excited by this control action, verification of precision pointing knowledge becomes particularly challenging for the EOS-AM mission. As presently conceived, this verification includes a complementary set of multi-disciplinary analyses, hardware tests and real-time computer in the loop simulations, followed by collection and analysis of hardware test and flight data and supported by a comprehensive data base repository for validated program values.

Throckmorton, A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Condition monitoring requirements for the development of a space nuclear propulsion module

To facilitate the development of a space nuclear propulsion module for manned flights to Mars, requirements must be established early in the technology cycle. The long lead times for the acquisition of the engine system and nuclear test facilities demands that the engine system, size, performance, safety goals and condition monitoring philosophy be defined at the earliest possible time. These systems are highly complex and require a large multi-disciplinary systems engineering team to develop and track the requirements and to ensure that the as-built system reflects the intent of the mission. An effective methodology has been devised coupled with sophisticated computer tools to effectivly develop and interpret the functional requirements. These requirements can then be decomposed down to the specification level for implementation. This paper discusses the application of the methodology and the analyses to develop condition monitoring requirements under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center (LeRC) Nuclear Propulsion Office (NPO).

Wagner, Robert C.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Data management and scientific integration within the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program has been developed by the U.S. Department of Energy with the goal to improve the predictive capabilities of General Circulation Models (GCM's) in their treatment of clouds and radiative transfer effects. To achieve this goal, three experimental testbeds were designed for the deployment of instruments that will collect atmospheric data used to drive the GCM's. Each site, known as a Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART), consists of a highly available, redundant data system for the collection of data from a variety of instrumentation. The first CART site was deployed in April 1992 in the Southern Great Plains (SGP), Lamont, Oklahoma, with the other two sites to follow in September 1995 in the Tropical Western Pacific and in 1997 on the North Slope of Alaska. Approximately 400 MB of data are transferred per day via the Internet from the SGP site to the ARM Experiment Center at Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, Washington. The Experiment Center is central to the ARM data path and provides for the collection, processing, analysis, and delivery of ARM data. Data are received from the CART sites from a variety of instrumentation, observational systems, amd external data sources. The Experiment Center processes these data streams on a continuous basis to provide derived data products to the ARM Science Team in near real-time while providing a three-month running archive of data. A primary requirement of the ARM Program is to preserve and protect all data produced or acquired. This function is performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where leading edge technology is employed for the long-term storage of ARM data. The ARM Archive provides access to data for participation outside of the ARM Program. The ARM Program involves a collaborative effort by teams from various DOE National Laboratories, providing multi-disciplinary areas of expertise. This paper will discuss the collaborative methods in which the ARM teams translate the scientific goals of the Program into data products. By combining atmospheric scientists, systems engineers, and software engineers, the ARM Program has successfully designed and developed an environment where advances in understanding the parameterizations of GCM's can be made.

Gracio, Deborah K.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Development of a Prototype Simulation Executive with Zooming in the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation

A major difficulty in designing aeropropulsion systems is that of identifying and understanding the interactions between the separate engine components and disciplines (e.g., fluid mechanics, structural mechanics, heat transfer, material properties, etc.). The traditional analysis approach is to decompose the system into separate components with the interaction between components being evaluated by the application of each of the single disciplines in a sequential manner. Here, one discipline uses information from the calculation of another discipline to determine the effects of component coupling. This approach, however, may not properly identify the consequences of these effects during the design phase, leaving the interactions to be discovered and evaluated during engine testing. This contributes to the time and cost of developing new propulsion systems as, typically, several design-build-test cycles are needed to fully identify multidisciplinary effects and reach the desired system performance. The alternative to sequential isolated component analysis is to use multidisciplinary coupling at a more fundamental level. This approach has been made more plausible due to recent advancements in computation simulation along with application of concurrent engineering concepts. Computer simulation systems designed to provide an environment which is capable of integrating the various disciplines into a single simulation system have been proposed and are currently being developed. One such system is being developed by the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) project. The NPSS project, being developed at the Interdisciplinary Technology Office at the NASA Lewis Research Center is a 'numerical test cell' designed to provide for comprehensive computational design and analysis of aerospace propulsion systems. It will provide multi-disciplinary analyses on a variety of computational platforms, and a user-interface consisting of expert systems, data base management and visualization tools, to allow the designer to investigate the complex interactions inherent in these systems. An interactive programming software system, known as the Application Visualization System (AVS), was utilized for the development of the propulsion system simulation. The modularity of this system provides the ability to couple propulsion system components, as well as disciplines, and provides for the ability to integrate existing, well established analysis codes into the overall system simulation. This feature allows the user to customize the simulation model by inserting desired analysis codes. The prototypical simulation environment for multidisciplinary analysis, called Turbofan Engine System Simulation (TESS), which incorporates many of the characteristics of the simulation environment proposed herein, is detailed.

Reed, John A.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Structural Dynamic/CFD Interaction for Computation of Vertical Tail Buffet

The multi-disciplinary problem of tail buffeting is solved using three sets of equations. The first set is the unsteady, compressible, full Navier Stokes equations which are used for obtaining the flow-field vector and the aerodynamic loads. The second set is the coupled aeroelastic equations which are used for obtaining the bending and torsional deflections of the tail. The third set is the grid-displacement equations which are used for updating the grid coordinates due to the tail deflections. For the computational applications a sharp-edged delta wing of aspect ratio one and a rectangular vertical tail of aspect ratio one placed in the plane of geometric symmetry behind the wing are considered. The configuration is pitched at a critical angle of attack (alpha = 38 deg.) which produces asymmetric, vortex-breakdown flow of the delta wing primary vortices. The results show the effects of coupled and uncoupled bending-torsional responses and the effects of the Reynolds number.

Kandil, Osama A.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Aerodynamics of magnetic levitation (MAGLEV) trains

High-speed (500 kph) trains using magnetic forces for levitation, propulsion and control offer many advantages for the nation and a good opportunity for the aerospace community to apply 'high tech' methods to the domestic sector. One area of many that will need advanced research is the aerodynamics of such MAGLEV (Magnetic Levitation) vehicles. There are important issues with regard to wind tunnel testing and the application of CFD to these devices. This talk will deal with the aerodynamic design of MAGLEV vehicles with emphasis on wind tunnel testing. The moving track facility designed and constructed in the 6 ft. Stability Wind Tunnel at Virginia Tech will be described. Test results for a variety of MAGLEV vehicle configurations will be presented. The last topic to be discussed is a Multi-disciplinary Design approach that is being applied to MAGLEV vehicle configuration design including aerodynamics, structures, manufacturability and life-cycle cost.

Schetz, Joseph A.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Adaptive grid methods for RLV environment assessment and nozzle analysis

Rapid access to highly accurate data about complex configurations is needed for multi-disciplinary optimization and design. In order to efficiently meet these requirements a closer coupling between the analysis algorithms and the discretization process is needed. In some cases, such as free surface, temporally varying geometries, and fluid structure interaction, the need is unavoidable. In other cases the need is to rapidly generate and modify high quality grids. Techniques such as unstructured and/or solution-adaptive methods can be used to speed the grid generation process and to automatically cluster mesh points in regions of interest. Global features of the flow can be significantly affected by isolated regions of inadequately resolved flow. These regions may not exhibit high gradients and can be difficult to detect. Thus excessive resolution in certain regions does not necessarily increase the accuracy of the overall solution. Several approaches have been employed for both structured and unstructured grid adaption. The most widely used involve grid point redistribution, local grid point enrichment/derefinement or local modification of the actual flow solver. However, the success of any one of these methods ultimately depends on the feature detection algorithm used to determine solution domain regions which require a fine mesh for their accurate representation. Typically, weight functions are constructed to mimic the local truncation error and may require substantial user input. Most problems of engineering interest involve multi-block grids and widely disparate length scales. Hence, it is desirable that the adaptive grid feature detection algorithm be developed to recognize flow structures of different type as well as differing intensity, and adequately address scaling and normalization across blocks. These weight functions can then be used to construct blending functions for algebraic redistribution, interpolation functions for unstructured grid generation, forcing functions to attract/repel points in an elliptic system, or to trigger local refinement, based upon application of an equidistribution principle. The popularity of solution-adaptive techniques is growing in tandem with unstructured methods. The difficultly of precisely controlling mesh densities and orientations with current unstructured grid generation systems has driven the use of solution-adaptive meshing. Use of derivatives of density or pressure are widely used for construction of such weight functions, and have been proven very successful for inviscid flows with shocks. However, less success has been realized for flowfields with viscous layers, vortices or shocks of disparate strength. It is difficult to maintain the appropriate mesh point spacing in the various regions which require a fine spacing for adequate resolution. Mesh points often migrate from important regions due to refinement of dominant features. An example of this is the well know tendency of adaptive methods to increase the resolution of shocks in the flowfield around airfoils, but in the incorrect location due to inadequate resolution of the stagnation region. This problem has been the motivation for this research.

Thornburg, Hugh J.↗
NASA NTRS1996

SEDSAT-1 Technology Development

The Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Satellite (SEDSAT-1) is an ambitious project to design, build, and fly a generally-accessible low-cost satellite which will 1) act as a technology demonstration to verify the suitability of novel optical, battery, microprocessor, and memory hardware for space flight environments, (2) to advance the understanding of tether dynamics and environmental science through the development of advanced imaging experiments, (3) to act as a communication link for radio amateurs, and (4) to provide graduate and undergraduate students with a unique multi-disciplinary experience in designing complex real-world hardware/software. This report highlights the progress made on this project during the time period from January 2, 1996 to June 1, 1996 at the end of which time the SEASIS 0.7 version software was completed and integrated on the SEASIS breadboard, a functional prototype of the Panoramic Annual Lenses (PAL) camera was developed, the preferred image compression technique was selected, the layout of the SEASIS board was begun, porting of the SCOS operating system to the command data system (CDS) board was begun, a new design for a tether release mechanism was developed, safety circuitry to inhibit tether cutting was developed and prototyped, material was prepared to support a comprehensive safety review of the project which was held at Johnson Space Center (JSC) (which was personally attended by one of the Principal Investigators), and prototype ground software was developed.

Maier, Mark W.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Natural Rolling Responses of a Delta Wing in Transonic and Subsonic Flows

The unsteady, three-dimensional, full Navier-Stokes (NS) equations and the Euler equations of rigid-body dynamics are sequentially solved to simulate the natural rolling response of slender delta wings of zero thickness at moderate to high angles of attack, to transonic and subsonic flows. The governing equations of fluid flow and dynamics of the present multi-disciplinary problem are solved using the time-accurate solution of the NS equations with the implicit, upwind, Roe flux-difference splitting, finite-volume scheme and a four-stage Runge-Kutta scheme, respectively. The main focus is to analyze the effect of Mach number and angle of attack on the leading edge vortices and their breakdown, the resultant rolling motion, and overall aerodynamic response of the wing. Three cases demonstrate the natural response of a 65 deg swept, cropped delta wing in a transonic flow with breakdown of the leading edge vortices and an 80 deg swept delta wing in a subsonic flow undergoing either damped or self-excited limit-cycle rolling oscillations as a function of angle of attack. Comparisons with an experimental investigation completes this study, validating the analysis and illustrating the complex details afforded by computational investigations.

Menzies, Margaret A.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Life and Microgravity Sciences Spacelab Mission: Human Research Pilot Study

The Life Sciences, Microgravity Science and Spacelab Mission contains a number of human experiments directed toward identifying the functional, metabolic and neurological characteristics of muscle weakness and atrophy during space flight. To ensure the successful completion of the flight experiments, a ground-based pilot study, designed to mimic the flight protocols as closely as possible, was carried out in the head-down tilt bed rest model. This report records the rationales, procedures, preliminary results and estimated value of the pilot study, the first of its kind, for 12 of the 13 planned experiments in human research. The bed rest study was conducted in the Human Research Facility at Ames Research Center from July 11 - August 28, 1995. Eight healthy male volunteers performed the experiments before, during and after 17 days bed rest. The immediate purposes of this simulation were to integrate the experiments, provide data in a large enough sample for publication of results, enable investigators to review individual experiments in the framework of a multi-disciplinary study and relay the experience of the pilot study to the mission specialists prior to launch.

Arnaud, Sara B.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Goddard's New Approach to Information Technology: The Information Systems Center an Overview

The Information Center (ISC) at Goddard was created as part of the Goddard reorganization and was located within the Applied Engineering and Technology (AET) Directorate. The creation of ISC was to: (1) focus expertise and leadership in information system development; (2) Promote organizational collaboration, partnerships, and resource sharing; (3) Stimulate design/development of seamless end-to-end flight and ground systems; (4) Enable flexibility to effectively support many simultaneous projects by improved access to critical mass of discipline expertise; (5) Enhance career growth and opportunities including multi-disciplinary opportunities; and (6) to improve communications among information system professionals. This paper presents a general overview of the Information Systems Center as well as the role of the Software Engineering Laboratory within the center.

Kea, Howard E.↗
NASA NTRS1993

IMAGE: A Design Integration Framework Applied to the High Speed Civil Transport

Effective design of the High Speed Civil Transport requires the systematic application of design resources throughout a product's life-cycle. Information obtained from the use of these resources is used for the decision-making processes of Concurrent Engineering. Integrated computing environments facilitate the acquisition, organization, and use of required information. State-of-the-art computing technologies provide the basis for the Intelligent Multi-disciplinary Aircraft Generation Environment (IMAGE) described in this paper. IMAGE builds upon existing agent technologies by adding a new component called a model. With the addition of a model, the agent can provide accountable resource utilization in the presence of increasing design fidelity. The development of a zeroth-order agent is used to illustrate agent fundamentals. Using a CATIA(TM)-based agent from previous work, a High Speed Civil Transport visualization system linking CATIA, FLOPS, and ASTROS will be shown. These examples illustrate the important role of the agent technologies used to implement IMAGE, and together they demonstrate that IMAGE can provide an integrated computing environment for the design of the High Speed Civil Transport.

Hale, Mark A.↗