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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 NTRS2006

YAM- A Framework for Rapid Software Development

YAM is a software development framework with tools for facilitating the rapid development and integration of software in a concurrent software development environment. YAM provides solutions for thorny development challenges associated with software reuse, managing multiple software configurations, the development of software product-lines, multiple platform development and build management. YAM uses release-early, release-often development cycles to allow developers to incrementally integrate their changes into the system on a continual basis. YAM facilitates the creation and merging of branches to support the isolated development of immature software to avoid impacting the stability of the development effort. YAM uses modules and packages to organize and share software across multiple software products. It uses the concepts of link and work modules to reduce sandbox setup times even when the code-base is large. One side-benefit is the enforcement of a strong module-level encapsulation of a module s functionality and interface. This increases design transparency, system stability as well as software reuse. YAM is in use by several mid-size software development teams including ones developing mission-critical software.

simulations↗
DOE OSTI2021

Advancing Construction through the Buildings Workforce: Preprint

Buildings are America's energy hogs, consuming over 70 percent of all electricity and over 50 percent of all natural gas produced across the country. Achieving a clean energy future requires us to reinvent how buildings manage energy resources and how consumers demand it. The U.S. Department of Energy is investing in a range of technological advancements that are paving the way to a future where buildings are no longer simply energy consumers, but rather are part of an integrated system that help manage energy resources in a way that supports the electricity grid. This paradigm shift presents an opportunity to increase the efficiency of the built environment, but will only be realized if we build a knowledgeable workforce to design, construct, and operate these high-performance buildings in step with the rate of technological advancement.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Soil management legacy interacts with wheat genotype to determine access to organic N in a dryland system

Organic nutrient management through the application of compost and/or cover crops provides mineralizable sources of nutrients for plants while often building soil organic matter (SOM) and various aspects of soil health. Variability in nutrient acquisition strategies between crop genotypes may confer advantages under different soil health contexts and could be important for crop selection and breeding, but crop response under field conditions remains unexplored. We investigated the ability of different genotypes of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) to access nitrogen (N) from newly added cover crop residues in two soils with contrasting levels of SOM and biological activity. We planted three previously characterized wheat genotypes in a long-term dryland compost amendment field trial: 1) Byrd (modern, deep roots, low exudation), 2) Cheyenne (historic, drought susceptible, intermediate exudation), and 3) Snowmass (modern, drought-susceptible, high exudation). 15 N-labelled cover crop residue was added to each plot and traced into wheat tissue. In the low SOM soil, the high exudate genotype Snowmass and historic genotype Cheyenne took up the most residue-derived N (6.4–8.1 kg N ha −1 ) compared to the low-exudate genotype Byrd (4.4 kg N ha −1 ), suggesting a strong exudate effect in the more carbon-limited soil. However, in the high SOM soil, the low-exudate, deep rooted genotype, Byrd, took up the most residue N (4.6 kg N ha −1 vs. 2.8 and 3.3 hg N ha −1 for Cheyenne and Snowmass, respectively), which indicated higher native N cycling activities and greater importance of drought resistance. Enzyme activity, inorganic N, and microbial communities were not influenced by genotype, though did show strong effects of compost application legacy. Furthermore, our results show that belowground allocation strategies that favor microbial stimulation may be less successful under water limitation, especially when high native SOM and biological activity can support mineralization of residue N without added investment in root inputs. Increased soil health through SOM-building management likely enhances nutrient cycling, and may better support root strategies that invest less in microbial stimulation in favor of other limiting resources.

Compost↗
DOE OSTI2023

Laboratory testing methods to evaluate the reliability of occupancy sensors for commercial building applications

The energy performance of commercial buildings is greatly influenced by occupants which are highly variable and among the most unpredictable components of a building's operation. While most building control systems use fixed, predetermined occupancy schedules, these fixed occupancy levels can be quite different from actual occupancy. This can cause unnecessary energy consumption, particularly from heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting systems which are responsible for approximately 60% of commercial buildings' energy use. The use of occupancy counting sensor systems integrated with building management system controls is one method that can be used to improve the energy-consuming performance of buildings. However, there is no standardized universal methodology and metrics to evaluate their reliability. The aim of this research is to develop a uniform evaluation methodology to assess the reliability of occupancy counting sensor systems in a controlled laboratory environment. The developed testing methodology includes both “typical” scenarios representing the occupancy scenarios of a typical commercial building, and “failure” testing scenarios which represent a range of potential scenarios that may impact a sensor system's reliability. These methods were then implemented in a case study to evaluate the performance of two novel occupancy counting sensor systems (i.e., door-centric, and camera-based). Results suggest that typical testing results can be used to compare the overall performance of the occupancy counting sensor systems; however, failure testing is also important to understand the weaknesses of the sensor system in order to select the suitable one for the intended use of the commercial building. In addition, the proposed methodology includes a modified confusion matrix which enables the ability to identify if failures are caused by over or under counting occupants and to what extent this occurs over the testing period.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

BETTER Together

The Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED) and Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) platforms are both developed by the Department of Energy and work better together. SEED is a database to manage building characteristics and performance data from a variety of sources. BETTER provides simple energy efficiency measure analyses based on high level data about the building or portfolio of buildings. A demonstration of each platform and their integration will be provided. The inputs for BETTER are building type, floor area, location, utility data, and whether PV shall be included in the analysis. The BETTER analysis can be manually set up through the web application or data can be uploaded with a BuildingSync XML file either directly or through the API. SEED can be the source of this data and the data can be sent to BETTER through the SEED application after the BETTER API token has been entered. The benefit of utilizing SEED is that it has connections to many other sources of data such as ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, Audit Template, and Salesforce. Therefore, it is likely that a user of SEED will already have the required inputs for BETTER in SEED already and can create BETTER analyses across their whole portfolio in a couple mouse clicks. This is a major time savings and enables decision makers an easy path to identify buildings that should undergo more detailed audits or retrofit pathways.

ASHRAE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Energy Northwest — Advanced Grid Interactive Load Efficiency (AGILE) : A Techno-economic Assessment

The Advanced Grid Interactive Load Efficiency project team, led by Energy Northwest, was awarded funding as part of the fourth round of the Clean Energy Fund program to investigate, co-create, and complete a preliminary design for grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) for a number of schools served by Grays Harbor PUD. The project team has evaluated different combinations of systems at selected school buildings and the potential to respond to grid and customer needs, and develop a preliminary system technical design, including specifying desired GEB technology options, determining communication and electrical interface requirements, assessing control software sensor requirements, and interfacing with building management systems. PNNL led the techno-economic assessment efforts, leveraging its advanced modeling and analytical methods and tools developed for building-to-grid integration. This report documents the economic assessment for different GEB design options, encompassing an in-depth examination of use cases and value propositions, assumptions and inputs, models, methods, case studies, as well as key findings.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ultra-Low SWaP CO 2 Sensing for Demand Control Ventilation (Final Report)

In this project PARC and Energy ETC aimed to develop an ultra-low cost, size, weight, and power (SWaP) printed CO 2 sensor system for occupancy detection to enable Demand Control Ventilation (DCV) on a per-room basis. The CO 2 sensor technology is based on the temperature variation when CO 2 reversibly physisorbs to a highly conductive and high surface area sorbent surface, and is compatible with integration with PARC innovations in printed sensors and flexible electronics, for which PARC is a globally leading research center. The printed CO 2 sensor itself is designed to be compatible with PARC’s “peel-and-stick” platform of ultra-low power, low-cost, distributed sensors, and to facilitate real-time DCV based on overall indoor air quality (IAQ). Previously, PARC has developed flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) compatible materials to measure humidity, temperature, light, strain, and gases such as carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. Through this project, PARC developed FHE-compatible materials to measure CO 2 . Thus, with one <$15 FHE “peel-and-stick” based sensor node, a building management system (BMS) will be able to capture a complete picture of the indoor environment. This includes IAQ, light, temperature, and other comfort factors that impact building operations. Combined with optimized DCV, this low-cost sensor capability can be a key enabler of annual primary energy savings of ~ 0.3-0.4 Quad in commercial buildings while ensuring healthy IAQ. Energy ETC is a leader in supplier-agnostic BMS deployments and will design the commissioning and deployment procedures to maximize system interoperability.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Model predictive control for integrated control of air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation, lighting and shading systems

Modern buildings are increasingly automated and often equipped with multiple building services (e.g., air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV), dynamic shading, dimmable lighting). These systems are conventionally controlled individually without considering their interactions, affecting the building’s overall energy inefficiency and occupant comfort. A model predictive control (MPC) system that features a multi-objective MPC scheme to enable coordinated control of multiple building services for overall optimized energy efficiency, indoor thermal and visual comfort, as well as a hybrid model for predicting indoor visual comfort and lighting power is proposed. The MPC system was implemented in a test facility having two identical, side-by-side experimental cells to facilitate comparison with a building management system (BMS) employing conventional reactive feedback control. The MPC system coordinated the control of the ACMV, dynamic façade and automated dimmable lighting systems in one cell while the BMS controlled the building services in the other cell in a conventional manner. The MPC side achieved 15.1–20.7% electricity consumption reduction, as compared to the BMS side. Simultaneously, the MPC system improved indoor thermal comfort by maintaining the room within the comfortable range (-0.5 < predicted mean vote < 0.5) for 98.3% of the time, up from 91.8% of the time on the BMS side. Visual comfort, measured by indoor daylight glare probability (DGP) and horizontal illuminance level at work plane height, was maintained for the entire test period on the MPC side, improving from having visual comfort for 94.5% and 85.7% of the time, respectively, on the BMS side.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2002

Mechanics of Granular Materials-3 (MGM-3)

Scientists are going to space to understand how earthquakes and other forces disturb grains of soil and sand. They will examine how the particle arrangement and structure of soils, grains and powders are changed by external forces and gain knowledge about the strength, stiffness and volume changes properties of granular materials at low pressures. The Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM) experiment uses the microgravity of orbit to test sand columns under conditions that cannot be obtained in experiments on Earth. Research can only go so far on Earth because gravity-induced stresses complicate the analysis and change loads too quickly for detailed analysis. This new knowledge will be applied to improving foundations for buildings, managing undeveloped land, and handling powdered and granular materials in chemical, agricultural, and other industries. NASA wants to understand the way soil behaves under different gravity levels so that crews can safely build habitats on Mars and the Moon. Future MGM experiments will benefit from extended tests aboard the International Space Station, including experiments under simulated lunar and Martian gravity in the science centrifuge.

Stein Sture↗
DOE OSTI2020

Simulating dispatchable grid services provided by flexible building loads: State of the art and needed building energy modeling improvements

End-use electrical loads in residential and commercial buildings are evolving into flexible and cost-effective resources to improve electric grid reliability, reduce costs, and support increased hosting of distributed renewable generation. This article reviews the simulation of utility services delivered by buildings for the purpose of electric grid operational modeling. We consider services delivered to (1) the high-voltage bulk power system through the coordinated action of many, distributed building loads working together, and (2) targeted support provided to the operation of low-voltage electric distribution grids. Although an exhaustive exploration is not possible, we emphasize the ancillary services and voltage management buildings can provide and summarize the gaps in our ability to simulate them with traditional building energy modeling (BEM) tools, suggesting pathways for future research and development.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Real time side-by-side experimental validation of energy and comfort performance of a zero net energy retrofit package for small commercial buildings

Making buildings zero-net energy (ZNE) is one of the major strategies for achieving carbon emission reduction goals. For this strategy to be successful, it entails a very significant reduction in energy use – 50% or more. In small commercial buildings, however, owners and building management teams usually have limited resources for identifying, analyzing, and procuring appropriate retrofit measures for reducing such use. An approach to overcome this limitation is the development of bundles of energy efficiency measures that can be presented to building owners/operators as a comprehensive package. The research presented in this paper focuses on an experimental evaluation of the impacts of a retrofit package developed for small office buildings in California. Performing this evaluation in a full-scale whole-building integrated systems test facility allowed a side-by-side evaluation in real time, against a reference case, of the impact of the retrofit package not only on energy use but also on visual and thermal comfort. Here, the retrofit package evaluated is comprised of a combination of HVAC, lighting (including daylighting), and plug load measures. The evaluation occurred at different times of the year in order to account for seasonal variations in environmental conditions, including solar angles and weather. The experimental facility allowed testing for two different façade orientations: south and west. Results show that the proposed ZNE retrofit package can save significant amounts of energy for small commercial buildings. During cooling-prevalent periods, total energy savings were 65% for south orientation and 68% for west orientation; during heating-prevalent periods total energy savings were 22% for south orientation and 25% for west orientation. Measurements indicate that the ZNE retrofit package resulted in small but not very significant changes in comfort levels for building occupants.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Automatic Digitization and Orientation of Scanned Mesh Data for Floor Plan and 3D Model Generation

This paper describes a novel approach for generating accurate floor plans and 3D models of building interiors using scanned mesh data. Unlike previous methods, which begin with a high resolution point cloud from a laser range-finder, our approach begins with triangle mesh data, as from a Microsoft HoloLens. It generates two types of floor plans, a “pen-and-ink” style that preserves details and a drafting-style that reduces clutter. It processes the 3D model for use in applications by aligning it with coordinate axes, annotating important objects, dividing it into stories, and removing the ceiling. Its performance is evaluated on commercial and residential buildings, with experiments to assess quality and dimensional accuracy. Our approach demonstrates promising potential for automatic digitization and orientation of scanned mesh data, enabling floor plan and 3D model generation in various applications such as navigation, interior design, furniture placement, facilities management, building construction, and HVAC design.

Sharma, Ritesh↗
DOE OSTI2020

Citizen-Led Community Innovation for Food Energy Water Nexus Resilience

Food-energy-water (FEW) resources are necessary for the function of multiple socio-natural systems. Understanding the synergies and trade-offs in the FEW nexus, and how these interconnections impact earth’s systems, is critical to ensure adequate access to these resources in the future; an essential component for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (Scanlon et al., 2017). Although, over the last decade, the identification of FEW nexus complexities has increased at a global (IPCC, 2018; D’Orodico et al., 2018), national (Lant et al., 2019), and city scale (Rushforth and Ruddell, 2018), these findings are yet to be adequately translated into ‘on the ground’ action due a lack of technical and political capacity (Weitz et al., 2017). Specifically, local FEW systems have been overlooked in these analyses (Scanlon et al., 2017; Lant et al., 2019), thus leaving small and medium towns vulnerable due to a lack of data and inadequate FEW system management. Building on three years of field-tested FEW nexus research in the Ruddell Lab, we argue that participatory citizen science projects, such as our FEWSION for Community Resilience initiative, can bridge the data-policy gaps that exist within local FEW system management by: 1) providing last mile data on the FEW system, and 2) translating local data into evidence-based solutions at a grassroots level. Thus, we present a broadly applicable framework and call to action for local scale participatory citizen science to solve complex FEW nexus issues at a local, regional, and national scale.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

On-policy learning-based deep reinforcement learning assessment for building control efficiency and stability

Artificial intelligence technologies have emerged as a game changer not only in specific applications such as image recognition and machine translation but also in many scientific domains. In particular, as deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has shown great success in complex control problems, DRL-based control has been considered as a potential solution to efficiently control and manage building systems. However, broad assessment of DRL-based building control is still required to characterize their pros and cons in comparison with conventional building control methods (e.g., rule-based feedback controls). In this paper, we assessed DRL-based controls with on-policy learning-based algorithms and continuous control actions for cooling control of large office buildings in the summer season to minimize whole-building energy use and occupant discomfort. We compared DRL-based control methods with two baseline control methods: (1) a pre-determined schedule with supply temperature and static pressure setpoints, and (2) advanced reset method that adjusts setpoints based on heuristic rules, i.e., ASHRAE Guideline 36. We also tested the DRL algorithms to evaluate their performances in multiple climate locations. We found that DRL-based control methods outperformed the baseline control methods in terms of energy savings while maintaining a thermal comfort. DRL reduced energy use between ~4%–22% on average compared to the baseline methods, depending on climate location. We also evaluated DRL-based control in terms of control stability and showed that DRL-based methods should address the span of hardware lifetimes in practical operations.

control stability↗
DOE OSTI2021

Optimizing Ventilation Using Low-Cost Sensors to Improve Health, Safety, and Energy Efficiency

Air is the primary carrier of hazards within a space, whether it be hazardous byproducts of laboratory research activities or airborne pathogens. As a result, building ventilation is a primary defense against unseen airborne hazards. Critical laboratory facilities require effective mitigation of exposure to research-related, airborne hazards, providing a proving ground for effective ventilation strategies that optimize safety of occupants and reduce energy use. The heart of smart laboratory building operation is dynamic, analytics-based ventilation, which requires an in-depth intimate knowledge of building environmental conditions achieved through contaminant-detection systems. Unfortunately, currently many contaminant-detection solutions are expensive, elaborate systems that raise barriers for building managers. Through the successful deployment of a novel low-cost, modular sensor technology, we have developed a demand-control ventilation protocol effective in improving safety and reducing energy in critical laboratory environments. In this article, we will highlight best practices and lessons learned through this deployment that can be applied beyond laboratories. This article describes a low-cost sensor to support providing a safe, healthy building environment and reduce energy use through effective and efficient ventilation.

dynamic management of indoor air quality↗
DOE OSTI2024

Numerical Investigation of High Delta T Sensible Storage Integrated CO2 Heat Pump: Preprint

To assist building heating electrification, this paper numerically investigates a load flexible heat pump system for commercial buildings. The system consists of a CO2 vapor compression cycle, a sensible thermal storage tank, and an air handling unit. The thermal storage medium is inexpensive, non-toxic and stable anti-freeze solution (30% potassium acetate). The air handing unit has an indoor coil and a ventilation coil. The system can be used to manage building electric load. During peak hours, the heat pump is off and the hot solution water is discharged from the tank to heat up the indoor air and ventilation air. During the hour of charge, the heat pump delivers hot solution water to the tank and to the air. The tank can also stand by while the heat pump provides space heating directly. We selected a medium sized office building located in Minnesota as the representative building and used EnergyPlus to obtain its 24 hour load data. We designed three storage tank volumes assuming 50 degrees C, 65 degrees C and 80 degrees C tank temperatures to independently provide the building load for 4 hours in the morning. The higher the tank temperature, the smaller the required volume, and thus higher energy density. The effective energy density is 78 with an 80 degrees C tank, and 40 kWhth/m3 with 50 degrees C. We simulated the tank integrated heat pump performance subjected to the 24-hour building load profile and ambient data. The baseline is the same system without storage tank. There was a trade-off between the storage energy density and the charging COP. The charge hour COP was 2.77 to charge the tank to 80 degrees C, and 3.01 to 50 degrees C. The proposed system could shift building load from the peak hours (8:00 - 12:00) to off-business hour (23:00 - 7:00+1). It eliminated 100% compressor electricity use during the peak hours, and avoided a peak electric power of 34 kW. The 65 degrees C tank saved 9.5 kWhe (4%) considering all day operation, which was the best balance between energy density and the system operation efficiency among the three options.

CO2 heat pump↗
DOE OSTI2022

Tides on South Mill Apartment Complex

This dataset includes data from the building management system for a large multi-family rental property located in Tempe, Arizona. The name of this rental property is “Tides on South Mill” and it is owned by the FCP which is a real-estate investment company based in Maryland with a large portfolio of rental properties that spreads out throughout the U.S. FCP’s portfolio includes large multi-family housing and commercial buildings. The property is split into four quadrants. Each quadrant has roughly 130 apartments. The total floor area of each Quadrant is about 94,000 sq. ft. The campus of Solara spreads over 27 acres. The mechanical system consists of a 2-pipe system that runs chilled or hot water thru individual Fan Coil Units depending upon the season. The gas-fired boiler will supply hot water when seasonal change-over will take place. This dataset spans October to December 2021 and includes time-series measurements corresponding electricity meter data (Cooling Tower Fan, Pumps, Chillers,) with 1-minute resolution, chilled water temperature data and outside air data with 5-minute resolution etc. as CSV files. In addition to the measurements, a metadata .json file, and a .pdf dataset description file are also included.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Optimizing Ventilation Using Low-Cost Sensors to Improve Health, Safety, and Energy Efficiency

Air is the primary carrier of hazards within a space, whether it be hazardous bi-products of research activities or airborne pathogens. As a result, building ventilation is the primary defense against unseen airborne hazards. Critical laboratory facilities already demand the need for effective mitigation of exposure to research-related, airborne hazards, providing a proving ground for effective ventilation strategies that optimize safety of occupants and reduce energy use. The heart of smart laboratory building operation is dynamic, analytics-based ventilation, which requires an intimate knowledge of building environmental conditions achieved through contaminant-detection systems. Unfortunately, currently available contaminant-detection solutions are expensive, elaborate systems that raise barriers for building managers on a limited budget. Through the successful deployment of a novel low-cost, modular sensor technology, we have developed a demand-control ventilation protocol effective in improving safety and reducing energy in the critical laboratory environment. In this session, we will highlight best practices and lessons learned through this deployment that can be applied beyond laboratories without breaking the bank. This paper describes a low-cost solution for providing a safe, healthy building environment and reducing energy use through effective, efficient ventilation.

ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION↗