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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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NASA NTRS2005

Cost-Cutting Powdered Lubricant

Scientists at NASA's Glenn Research Center developed a high-temperature, solid lubricant coating material that is saving the manufacturing industry millions of dollars. The material came out of 3 decades of tribological research, work studying high-temperature friction, lubrication, and the wearing of interacting surfaces that are in relative motion. It was developed as a shaft coating deposited by thermal spraying to protect foil air bearings used in oil-free turbomachinery, like gas turbines, and is meant to be part of a larger project: an oil-free aircraft engine capable of operating at high temperatures with increased reliability, lowered weight, reduced maintenance requirements, and increased power. This advanced coating, PS300, is a self-lubricating bearing material containing chromium oxide, with additions of a low-temperature start up lubricant (silver) and a high-temperature lubricant, making it remarkably stable at high temperatures, and better suited than previously available materials for high-stress conditions. It improves efficiency, lowers friction, reduces emissions, and has been used by NASA in advanced aeropropulsion engines, refrigeration compressors, turbochargers, and hybrid electrical turbogenerators. PS300 is ideal in any application where lowered weight and reduced maintenance are desired, and high-temperature uses and heavy operating speeds are expected. It has notable uses for the Space Agency, but it has even further-reaching potential for the industrial realm.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2006

A New Heavy-Lift Capability for Space Exploration: NASA's Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is developing new launch systems in preparation for the retirement of the Space Shuttle by 2010, as directed in the United States (U.S.) Vision for Space Exploration. The Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) and the Ares V heavy-lift Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) systems will build upon proven, reliable hardware derived from the Apollo Saturn (1961 to 1975) and Space Shuttle (1972 to 2010) programs to deliver safe, reliable, affordable space transportation solutions. This approach leverages existing aerospace talent and a unique infrastructure, as well as the vast amount of legacy knowledge gained from almost a half-century of hard-won experience in the space enterprise. Beginning early next decade, the Ares I will launch the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to the International Space Station (ISS) or to low-Earth orbit for trips to the Moon and, ultimately, Mars. Late next decade, the Ares V's Earth Departure Stage will carry larger payloads such as the lunar lander into orbit, and the Crew Exploration Vehicle will dock with it for missions to the Moon, where astronauts will explore new territories and conduct science and technology experiments. Both the Ares I and Ares V systems are being designed to support longer future trips to Mars. The Exploration Launch Projects Office, located at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, is designing, developing, testing, and evaluating both launch vehicle systems in partnership with other NASA Centers, Government agencies, and industry contractors. This paper provides top-level information regarding the genesis and evolution of the baseline configuration for the Ares V heavy-lift system. It also touches on risk-based management strategies, such as building on powerful hardware and promoting common features between the Ares I and Ares V systems to reduce technical, schedule, and cost risks, as well as development and operations costs. Finally, it gives a summary of several notable accomplishments over the past year, since the Exploration Launch Projects effort officially kicked off in October 2005, and looks ahead at work planned for 2007 and beyond.

Sumrall, John P.↗
NASA NTRS1963

Processing of Water on the Moon

The electrolytic dissociation of water into gaseous forms of hydrogen and oxygen is a well known process that can quickly be summarized in a series of illustrations. Table 1 presents some physical properties of hydrogen and oxygen for purposes of reference. Figure 1 illustrates the chemical process and the equipment used in the industrial production of hydrogen and oxygen by the electrolysis of water. Table 2 summarizes the characteristics of electrolytic H2-O2 cells used in industrial practice. It is of interest to note that substantial amounts of power are required for the process and that rather heavy equipments are common to the land-based systems now in use. Very little can be done to reduce the power requirements, for the process as now carried out is relatively efficient, but undoubtedly great savings in weight can be realized.

Fowle, A. A.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Nuclear Science Symposium, 23rd, Scintillation and Semiconductor Counter Symposium, 15th, and Nuclear Power Systems Symposium, 8th, New Orleans, La., October 20-22, 1976, Proceedings

The volume includes papers on semiconductor radiation detectors of various types, components of radiation detection and dosimetric systems, digital and microprocessor equipment in nuclear industry and science, and a wide variety of applications of nuclear radiation detectors. Semiconductor detectors of X-rays, gamma radiation, heavy ions, neutrons, and other nuclear particles, plastic scintillator arrays, drift chambers, spark wire chambers, and radiation dosimeter systems are reported on. Digital and analog conversion systems, digital data and control systems, microprocessors, and their uses in scientific research and nuclear power plants are discussed. Large-area imaging and biomedical nucleonic instrumentation, nuclear power plant safeguards, reactor instrumentation, nuclear power plant instrumentation, space instrumentation, and environmental instrumentation are dealt with. Individual items are announced in this issue.

Wagner, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Flight Testing and Real-Time System Identification Analysis of a UH-60A Black Hawk Helicopter with an Instrumented External Sling Load

Helicopter external air transportation plays an important role in today's world. For both military and civilian helicopters, external sling load operations offer an efficient and expedient method of handling heavy, oversized cargo. With the ability to reach areas otherwise inaccessible by ground transportation, helicopter external load operations are conducted in industries such as logging, construction, and fire fighting, as well as in support of military tactical transport missions. Historically, helicopter and load combinations have been qualified through flight testing, requiring considerable time and cost. With advancements in simulation and flight test techniques there is potential to substantially reduce costs and increase the safety of helicopter sling load certification. Validated simulation tools make possible accurate prediction of operational flight characteristics before initial flight tests. Real time analysis of test data improves the safety and efficiency of the testing programs. To advance these concepts, the U.S. Army and NASA, in cooperation with the Israeli Air Force and Technion, under a Memorandum of Agreement, seek to develop and validate a numerical model of the UH-60 with sling load and demonstrate a method of near real time flight test analysis. This thesis presents results from flight tests of a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter with various external loads. Tests were conducted as the U.S. first phase of this MOA task. The primary load was a container express box (CONEX) which contained a compact instrumentation package. The flights covered the airspeed range from hover to 70 knots. Primary maneuvers were pitch and roll frequency sweeps, steps, and doublets. Results of the test determined the effect of the suspended load on both the aircraft's handling qualities and its control system's stability margins. Included were calculations of the stability characteristics of the load's pendular motion. Utilizing CIFER(R) software, a method for near-real time system identification was also demonstrated during the flight test program.

McCoy, Allen H.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Foundation for Heavy Lift - Early Developments in the Ares V Launch Vehicle

The Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) is NASA's primary vessel for safe, reliable delivery of the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) and other resources into Earth orbit, as articulated in the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration. The Ares V launch concept is shown. The foundation for this heavy-lift companion to the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) is taking shape within NASA and with its government and industry partners. This paper will address accomplishments in the Ares V Launch Vehicle during 2006 and 2007 and offer a preview of future activities.

McArthur, J. Craig↗
NASA NTRS2007

Foundation for Heavy Lift: Early Developments in the Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle

The Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) is NASA's primary vessel for safe, reliable delivery of the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) and other resources into Earth orbit, as articulated in the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration.' The Ares V launch concept is shown. The foundation for this heavy-lift companion to the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) is taking shape within NASA and with its government and industry partners. This paper will address accomplishments in the Ares V Launch Vehicle during 2006 and 2007 and offer a preview of future activities.

Sumrall, John P.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Emission control system

Methods and apparatus utilizing hydrogen peroxide are useful to reduce SOx and mercury (or other heavy metal) emissions from combustion flue gas streams. The methods and apparatus may further be modified to reduce NOx emissions. Continuous concentration of hydrogen peroxide to levels approaching or exceeding propellant-grade hydrogen peroxide facilitates increased system efficiency. In this manner, combustion flue gas streams can be treated for the removal of SOx and heavy metals, while isolating useful by-products streams of sulfuric acid as well as solids for the recovery of the heavy metals. Where removal of NOx emissions is included, nitric acid may also be isolated for use in fertilizer or other industrial applications.

Parrish, Clyde F.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Federal R and D Reductions, Market Share, and Aerospace Information Usage

Reductions in federally funded research have a rippling effect over the entire aerospace industry. The decline in federal R&D spending in aerospace in recent years coincides with declines in U.S. aerospace market share, One of the lesser-understood factors in the declining U.S. market share may be the differing ways and intensity with which the U.S. and its competitors approach another trend, the increasing availability of large amounts of aerospace research information on the World Wide Web. The U.S. has been a pioneer in making research information available in electronic form, and the international community has long been a heavy consumer of that information. In essence, the U.S. contributes to the research efforts of its competitors, thus contributing to foreign aerospace consortiums efforts to gain market share in the aerospace industry, This may be a cautionary note to the U.S. aerospace industry to consider the use of R&D output in its own development and strategy because the foreign competition is using the U.S. scientific and technical literature.

Rocker, JoAnne↗
NASA NTRS1976

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: Preliminary Science Report

This document summarizes the experimental concepts and preliminary analyses (as of December 1975) for each of the 28 scientific experiments conducted during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project from July 15 to 24, 1975. The scientific topics are X- ray and extreme ultraviolet astronomy, solar astronomy, gamma- ray detectors, Earth studies (including the upper atmosphere, meteorological phenomena, hydrology, oceanography, geology, desert studies, and gravity field studies), microbiology, heavy cosmic particle interaction with live cells, vestibular system studies, and materials processing (including high-temperature and ambient-temperature processing of industrial materials and electrophoretic processing of biological materials) .

Orbital science↗
NASA NTRS1992

Materials SIG quantification and characterization of surface contaminants

When LDEF entered orbit its cleanliness was approximately a MIL-STD-1246B Level 2000C. Its burden of contaminants included particles from every part of its history including a relatively small contribution from the shuttle bay itself. Although this satellite was far from what is normally considered clean in the aerospace industry, contaminating events in orbit and from processing after recovery were easily detected. The molecular contaminants carried into orbit were dwarfed by the heavy deposition of UV polymerized films from outgassing urethane paints and silicone based materials. Impacts by relatively small objects in orbit could create particulate contaminants that easily dominated the particle counts within a centimeter of the impact site. During the recovery activities LDEF was 'sprayed' with a liquid high in organics and water soluble salts. With reentry turbulence, vibration, and gravitational loading particulate contaminants were redistributed about LDEF and the shuttle bay.

Crutcher, E. Russ↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Composition and Climate Impacts of Increasing Launches to Low Earth Orbit

We present simulations of an Earth system model in which launch vehicles inject gaseous and particulate combustion products into the stratosphere. We considered two plausible scenarios representative for the year 2050, one with 1000 launches per year and another with 10 times more, all of which assuming heavy lift (80 tons to low Earth orbit; LEO) launches using methane as a proxy for liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel. An industry-standard plume flowfield model was used to predict emission of gaseous species including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and water vapor. Black carbon was introduced assuming vacuum emission equal 25% of equivalent kerosene engine. The gas emissions showed marginal or insignificant changes in atmospheric composition, while the black carbon emission was found to be the most influential component. Feedbacks involve tropopause and stratospheric warming, followed by a moistening of the stratosphere via tropospheric water vapor intrusions, together with a reduction in global albedo. The fact that LNG-fueled rockets could be a concern from aerosol emissions in our simulations, despite burning more efficiently than conventional fuels, underscores the need to better understand actual black carbon emissions from rocket engines in order to accurately predict the global impacts of launch vehicles on future climate.

Earth system model↗
NASA NTRS1996

Hypercars: The next industrial revolution

The auto industry -- one-seventh of the GNP, and the highest expression of the Iron Age -- is about to trigger the biggest transformation in industrial structure since the microchip. Ultralight cars molded from net-shape advanced composites can be several-fold lighter than present steel cars, yet safer, sportier, and more comfortable, durable, and beautiful. Modern hybrid-electric drives boost efficiency approximately 1.3-1.5x in heavy steel cars, but approximately 5-20x in ultralight, very slippery plafforms. Synergistically combined into ultralight-hybrid 'hypercars,' these elements can yield state-of-the-shelf family cars that average 150-300+ mi/gal -- twice that with state-of-the-art technologies -- yet can also be superior in all other respects, probably including cost: carbon-fiber monocoques can actually be cheaper to mass-produce that steel unibodies. Designing cars more like aircraft and less like tanks requires not only an approximately 400-500 kg curb mass and very low air and road drag, but also an aerospace philosophy of engineering integration. Mass, cost, and complexity turn out to compound with heavy hybrids but to decompound with ultralight hybrids, owing partly to radical simplification. Excellent aerodynamics, preferable including advanced techniques for passive boundary-layer control, will be the key to successful design integration. Transforming automaking is a competitive and environmental imperative, could form the nucleus of a green industrial Renaissance, and would enhance national security by, among other things, saving as much oil as OPEC now extracts. However, this transformation faces serious cultural barriers. For example, hypercars will be more like computers with wheels than like cars with chips -- they'll have an order of magnitude more code than today's cars -- but Detroit is not a software culture. Just the transition from stamped and welded steel to integrated and adhesive-joined synthetics is difficult enough. Nonetheless, hypercars are rapidly heading to market in the late 1990s, because approximately 25 current and intending automakers are eager to capture their potentially decisive competitive advantages -- including order-of-magnitude reductions in product cycle time, tooling cost, assembly effort, and parts count. Hypercars will succeed, and may well sweep the market, not because of mandates or subsidies, but because of manufacturers' quest for competitive advantage and customers' desire for better, smarter cars.

Lovins, Amory B.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Low NO/x/ heavy fuel combustor program

The paper deals with the 'Low NO/x/ Heavy Fuel Combustor Program'. Main program objectives are to generate and demonstrate the technology required to develop durable gas turbine combustors for utility and industrial applications, which are capable of sustained, environmentally acceptable operation with minimally processed petroleum residual fuels. The program will focus on 'dry' reductions of oxides of nitrogen (NO/x/), improved combustor durability and satisfactory combustion of minimally processed petroleum residual fuels. Other technology advancements sought include: fuel flexibility for operation with petroleum distillates, blends of petroleum distillates and residual fuels, and synfuels (fuel oils derived from coal or shale); acceptable exhaust emissions of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides and smoke; and retrofit capability to existing engines.

Lister, E.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Deposition and material response from Mach 0.3 burner rig combustion of SRC 2 fuels

Collectors at 1173K (900 C) were exposed to the combustion products of a Mach 0.3 burner rig fueled with various industrial turbine liquid fuels from solvent refined coals. Four fuels were employed: a naphtha, a light oil, a wash solvent and a mid-heavy distillate blend. The response of four superalloys (IN-100, U 700, IN 792 and M-509) to exposure to the combustion gases from the SRC-2 naphtha and resultant deposits was also determined. The SRC-2 fuel analysis and insights obtained during the combustion experience are discussed. Particular problems encountered were fuel instability and reactions of the fuel with hardware components. The major metallic elements which contributed to the deposits were copper, iron, chromium, calcium, aluminum, nickel, silicon, titanium, zinc, and sodium. The deposits were found to be mainly metal oxides. An equilibrium thermodynamic analysis was employed to predict the chemical composition of the deposits. The agreement between the predicted and observed compounds was excellent. No hot corrosion was observed. This was expected because the deposits contained very little sodium or potassium and consisted mainly of the unreactive oxides. However, the amounts of deposits formed indicated that fouling is a potential problem with the use of these fuels.

Santoro, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Portable Electron Microscopy for ISS and Beyond

Advances in space exploration have evolved in lockstep with key technology advances in diverse fields such as materials science, biological science, and engineering risk management. Research in these areas, where structure and physical processes come together, can proceed rapidly in part due to sophisticated ground-based analytical tools that help re-searchers develop technologies and engineering processes that push frontiers of human space exploration. Electron microscopes (EM) are an example of such a workhorse tool, lending a unique blend of strong optical scattering, high native resolution, large depth of focus, and spectroscopy via characteristic X-ray emission, providing exquisite high-magnification structural imaging and chemical analysis. Ground-based EM’s have been essential in NASA research for many years. In particular, in mineralogy and petrology, EM is used to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system, particularly rocky bodies. In microbiology, EM has helped visualize the architecture of tissues and cells. In engineering/materials science, EM has been used to characterize particulate debris in air and water samples, determine pore sizes in ceramics/catalysts, understand the nature of fibers, determine composition and morphology of new and existing materials, and characterize micro-textures of vapor deposited films. EM is highly effective at investigating a wide variety of nanoscale materials/biomaterials at the core of many of NASA’s inquiries. Despite exquisite optical performance and versatility, EM’s are traditionally large, heavy, and have high power consumption. They are also expensive so they tend to be housed at universities and large research institutions, or at major industrial laboratory sites with support staff, supplies, and skilled operators. Since most organizations cannot support their own EM, samples are often sent to these large institutions and service centers to be imaged, at great expense and of-ten with delay of weeks to months for complex analyses. Complexity, high cost, and maintenance associated with collecting EM image data has until now severely limited fields in which EM is used. Making EM accessible outside constrained terrestrial laboratory environments will bring EM’s performance and versatility to a much broader range of scientific and engineering endeavors, including in space.

Own, C. S.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Low NO(x) heavy fuel combustor program

The 'low nitrogen oxides heavy fuel combustor' program is described. Main program objectives are to generate and demonstrate the technology required to develop durable gas turbine combustors for utility and industrial applications, which are capable of sustained, environmentally acceptable operation with minimally processed petroleum residual fuels. The program will focus on 'dry' reductions of oxides of nitrogen, improved combustor durability, and satisfactory combustion of minimally processed petroleum residual fuels. Other technology advancements sought include: fuel flexibility for operation with petroleum distillates, blends of petroleum distillates and residual fuels, and synfuels (fuel oils derived from coal or shale); acceptable exhaust emissions of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides and smoke; and retrofit capability to existing engines.

Lister, E.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Future heavy duty trucking engine requirements

Developers of advanced heavy duty diesel engines are engaged in probing the opportunities presented by new materials and techniques. This process is technology driven, but there is neither assurance that the eventual users of the engines so developed will be comfortable with them nor, indeed, that those consumers will continue to exist in either the same form, or numbers as they do today. To ensure maximum payoff of research dollars, the equipment development process must consider user needs. This study defines motor carrier concerns, cost tolerances, and the engine parameters which match the future projected industry needs. The approach taken to do that is to be explained and the results presented. The material to be given comes basically from a survey of motor carrier fleets. It provides indications of the role of heavy duty vehicles in the 1998 period and their desired maintenance and engine performance parameters.

Strawhorn, L. W.↗