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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 721 records · Page 40
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2008

Impact of Urban Growth on Surface Climate: A Case Study in Oran, Algeria

We develop a land use map discriminating urban surfaces from other cover types over a semiarid region in North Africa and use it in a land surface model to assess the impact of urbanized land on surface energy, water and carbon balances. Unlike in temperate climates where urbanization creates a marked heat island effect, this effect is not strongly marked in semiarid regions. During summer, the urban class results in an additional warming of 1.45 C during daytime and 0.81 C at night compared to that simulated for needleleaf trees under similar climate conditions. Seasonal temperatures show urban areas warmer than their surrounding during summer and slightly cooler in winter. The hydrological cycle is practically "shut down" during summer and characterized by relatively large amount of runoff in winter. We estimate the annual amount of carbon uptake to 1.94 million metric tons with only 11.9% assimilated during the rainy season. However, if urbanization expands to reach 50% of the total area excluding forests, the annual total carbon uptake will decline by 35% and the July mean temperature would increase only 0.10 C, compared to current situation. In contrast, if urbanization expands to 50% of the total land excluding forests and croplands but all short vegetation is replaced by native broadleaf deciduous trees, the annual carbon uptake would increase 39% and the July mean temperature would decrease by 0.9 C, compared to current configuration. These results provide guidelines for urban planners and land use managers and indicate possibilities for mitigating the urban heat.

Bounoua, Lahouari↗
NASA NTRS2006

New Software for Predicting Charging of Spacecraft

Charging System Analyzer Program (Nascap-2K) is a comprehensive update, revision, and extension of several NASA and Air Force codes for predicting electrical charging of spacecraft. Nascap-2K integrates the capabilities and models included in four independent programs: NASCAP/LEO for low-Earth orbits, NASCAP/GEO for geosynchronous orbits, POLAR for auroral charging in polar orbits, and DynaPAC (Dynamic Plasma Analysis Code) for time-dependent plasma interactions. While each of the earlier codes works well for the range of problems for which it was designed, by today s standards these codes are difficult to learn, cumbersome to use, and overly restrictive in their geometric modeling capabilities. Nascap-2K incorporates these models into a single software package that includes spacecraft surface modeling, spatial gridding, environmental specifications, calculating scripting, and post-processing analysis and visualization. The provided material properties database includes values from earlier programs as well as values from recent measurements. Development of Nascap-2K continues with future capabilities to include interactions with dense plasma such as those produced by electric propulsion.

Mandell, Myron↗
NASA NTRS2016

RotCFD Analysis of the AH-56 Cheyenne Hub Drag

In 2016, the U.S. Army Aviation Development Directorate (ADD) conducted tests in the U.S. Army 7- by 10- Foot Wind Tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center of a nonrotating 2/5th-scale AH-56 rotor hub. The objective of the tests was to determine how removing the mechanical control gyro affected the drag. Data for the lift, drag, and pitching moment were recorded for the 4-bladed rotor hub in various hardware configurations, azimuth angles, and angles of attack. Numerical simulations of a selection of the configurations and orientations were then performed, and the results were compared with the test data. To generate the simulation results, the hardware configurations were modeled using Creo and Rhinoceros 5, three-dimensional surface modeling computer-aided design (CAD) programs. The CAD model was imported into Rotorcraft Computational Fluid Dynamics (RotCFD), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool used for analyzing rotor flow fields. RotCFD simulation results were compared with the experimental results of three hardware configurations at two azimuth angles, two angles of attack, and with and without wind tunnel walls. The results help validate RotCFD as a tool for analyzing low-drag rotor hub designs for advanced high-speed rotorcraft concepts. Future work will involve simulating additional hub geometries to reduce drag or tailor to other desired performance levels.

AH-56 Cheyenne↗
NASA NTRS2018

Evaluation of Modeling NO2 Concentrations Driven by Satellite-Derived and Bottom-Up Emission Inventories Using In-Situ Measurements Over China

Chemical transport models together with emission inventories are widely used to simulate NO2 concentrations over China, but validation of the simulations with in situ measurements has been extremely limited. Here we use ground measurements obtained from the air quality monitoring network recently developed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China to validate modeling surface NO2 concentrations from the CHIMERE regional chemical transport model driven by the satellite-derived DECSO and the bottom-up MIX emission inventories. We applied a correction factor to the observations to account for the interferences of other oxidized nitrogen compounds (NOz), based on the modeled ratio of NO2 to NOz. The model accurately reproduces the spatial variability in NO2 from in situ measurements, with a spatial correlation coefficient of over 0.7 for simulations based on both inventories. A negative and positive bias is found for the simulation with the DECSO (slopeD0.74 and 0.64 for the daily mean and daytime only) and the MIX (slopeD1.3 and 1.1) inventories, respectively, suggesting an underestimation and overestimation of NOx emissions from corresponding inventories. The bias between observed and modeled concentrations is reduced, with the slope dropping from 1.3 to 1.0 when the spatial distribution of NOx emissions in the DECSO inventory is applied as the spatial proxy for the MIX inventory, which suggests an improvement of the distribution of emissions between urban and suburban or rural areas in the DECSO inventory compared to that used in the bottom-up inventory. A rough estimate indicates that the observed concentrations, from sites predominantly placed in the populated urban areas, may be 10-40% higher than the corresponding model grid cell mean. This reduces the estimate of the negative bias of the DECSO-based simulation to the range of -30 to 0% on average and more firmly establishes that the MIX inventory is biased high over major cities. The performance of the model is comparable over seasons, with a slightly worse spatial correlation in summer due to the difficulties in resolving the more active NOx photochemistry and larger concentration gradients in summer by the model. In addition, the model well captures the daytime diurnal cycle but shows more significant disagreement between simulations and measurements during nighttime, which likely produces a positive model bias of about 15% in the daily mean concentrations. This is most likely related to the uncertainty in vertical mixing in the model at night.

NO2 modelling↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Rapid Aero Modeling of a Lift+Cruise UAM Configuration for Stability and Control Using Overset Grid CFD

This talk will address some aspects of an effort to develop both static and dynamic stability and control derivatives of a generic Lift+Cruise Urban Air Mobility vehicle. In particular, the use of NASA overset grid CFD packages OVERFLOW and Chimera Grid Tools allowed for rapid grid and solution generation while varying many database factors. Approach details include coarse gridding and control effectors, rotor disk modeling, convergence evaluation, and parallel execution on a midrange compute resource. A brief *description of the Rapid Aero Modeling (RAM) approach, including design of experiments and response surface modeling, will be given, and recent simulations of powered and unpowered dynamic multisine maneuvers will be presented.

Overset Grid CFD↗
NASA NTRS2011

Validation and Verification of Operational Land Analysis Activities at the Air Force Weather Agency

The NASA developed Land Information System (LIS) is the Air Force Weather Agency's (AFWA) operational Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) combining real time precipitation observations and analyses, global forecast model data, vegetation, terrain, and soil parameters with the community Noah land surface model, along with other hydrology module options, to generate profile analyses of global soil moisture, soil temperature, and other important land surface characteristics. (1) A range of satellite data products and surface observations used to generate the land analysis products (2) Global, 1/4 deg spatial resolution (3) Model analysis generated at 3 hours

Shaw, Michael↗
NASA NTRS1991

RIPPLE - A new model for incompressible flows with free surfaces

A new free surface flow model, RIPPLE, is summarized. RIPPLE obtains finite difference solutions for incompressible flow problems having strong surface tension forces at free surfaces of arbitrarily complex topology. The key innovation is the continuum surface force model which represents surface tension as a (strongly) localized volume force. Other features include a higher-order momentum advection model, a volume-of-fluid free surface treatment, and an efficient two-step projection solution method. RIPPLE's unique capabilities are illustrated with two example problems: low-gravity jet-induced tank flow, and the collision and coalescence of two cylindrical rods.

Kothe, D. B.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Uncertainty Estimation for SMAP Level-1 Brightness Temperature Assimilation at Different Timescales

Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission brightness temperature (T(b) ) observations are assimilated into NASA’s Catchment Land Surface Model using an Ensemble Kalman filter to update simulations of surface and root-zone soil moisture. Different time series components of the T(b) observations are assimilated including anomalies, inter-annual variations, and high frequency variations. To optimize the weights that the data assimilation (DA) puts on the observations, the ratio between the uncertainties of modeled and observed T(b) is approximated using modeled and observed soil moisture uncertainties estimated using triple collocation analysis. In a benchmark experiment, T(b) observations are assimilated using a spatially constant 4 Kelvin (K) observation uncertainty, as in the operational SMAP Level-4 algorithm. All DA experiments exhibit notable skill improvements in most regions. Improvements are largest for the inter-annual variations in the simulations of both surface and root-zone soil moisture (mean improvements in terms of Pearson correlation (-) are 0.08 and 0.06, respectively). Anomaly simulations improve similarly (0.07), and improvements in the high-frequency variations are only observed for surface soil moisture simulations (0.06). No notable difference in skill - neither improvement nor deterioration - is observed between the experiments that use optimized observation uncertainty parameters and the 4 K benchmark experiment. This may be explained by the presence of large observation operator errors, which are analytically shown to have the potential to render post-update uncertainty insensitive to inaccuracies in estimates of the Kalman gain. These results have important implications for the design of soil moisture DA systems, in particular for parameterizing model and observation uncertainties.

Hydrology↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evaluating three evapotranspiration estimates from model of different complexity over China using the ILAMB benchmarking system

The land surface models range in complexity of terrestrial evapotranspiration, yet it is unknown how model complexity translates to accuracy of modeled evapotranspiration estimates. Here, we use the International Land Model Benchmarking system to assess ET estimates from three models of varying complexity driven by the same forcing datasets: an earth system model, a terrestrial biosphere model, and a stand-alone ET model. The performance assessment includes both temporal and spatial evaluation, and different plant functional types across China. Our results indicate that the most complex model, an earth system model, performed best against the benchmarking datasets and metrics. Terrestrial biosphere model performed best in simulating inter-annual variability of ET, while earth system model performed best in simulating the seasonal cycle. The more complex models (earth system model and terrestrial biosphere model) perform better in forest, shrub and crop ecosystems, while the simpler model (stand-alone ET model) perform better in grass ecosystems. Our study demonstrates the impact of model complexity on ET estimates and highlights directions for future ET model improvements.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2006

Solid Modeling of Crew Exploration Vehicle Structure Concepts for Mass Optimization

Parametric solid and surface models of the crew exploration vehicle (CEV) command module (CM) structure concepts are developed for rapid finite element analyses, structural sizing and estimation of optimal structural mass. The effects of the structural configuration and critical design parameters on the stress distribution are visualized, examined to arrive at an efficient design. The CM structural components consisted of the outer heat shield, inner pressurized crew cabin, ring bulkhead and spars. For this study only the internal cabin pressure load case is considered. Component stress, deflection, margins of safety and mass are used as design goodness criteria. The design scenario is explored by changing the component thickness parameters and materials until an acceptable design is achieved. Aluminum alloy, titanium alloy and an advanced composite material properties are considered for the stress analysis and the results are compared as a part of lessons learned and to build up a structural component sizing knowledge base for the future CEV technology support. This independent structural analysis and the design scenario based optimization process may also facilitate better CM structural definition and rapid prototyping.

Mukhopadhyay, Vivek↗
NASA NTRS1978

Computed and observed ocean topography - A comparison

The Goddard Space Flight Center's latest Gravity Earth Model, GEM-8, was used to construct a static sea surface. Such a surface corresponds to the surface of an ocean without the time-varying effects of atmospheric pressure, surface wind friction, tides, and currents. It conforms to a surface dictated by the earth's gravitational and rotational forces. The sea surface model is the result of analyzing more than 500,000 satellite observations together with about 1600 5 deg x 5 deg and about 38,000 1 deg x 1 deg surface gravity anomalies. Preliminary comparisons between the computed and measured sea surface topography indicate that they agree quite well and differ by less than 1 m in many places including the Atlantic test area. Sea-surface features such as undulations caused by trenches and ridges are clearly and accurately detectable. The use of altimeter data for orbit computation reduces the uncertainty of the spacecraft height and thus the errors of the sea-surface topography.

Vonbun, F. O.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

North American Land Data Assimilation (NLDAS) Data and Services at NASA GES DISC

The North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS, https://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/nldas) integrates a large quantity of observation-based and model reanalysis data to drive offline (not coupled to the atmosphere) land surface models (LSMs) to produce fields of soil moisture, snow, and surface fluxes. The NLDAS-2 data sets currently archived at, and distributed by, the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC, https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov) have been updated to NLDAS Version 2.0 (NLDAS-2.0). This presentation provides an overview of the updated NLDAS-2.0 data at NASA GES DISC and discusses the methods for the public to access the data as well as the data services available.

Ashley Heath↗
NASA NTRS2015

An Empirical Jet-Surface Interaction Noise Model with Temperature and Nozzle Aspect Ratio Effects

An empirical model for jet-surface interaction (JSI) noise produced by a round jet near a flat plate is described and the resulting model evaluated. The model covers unheated and hot jet conditions (1 less than or equal to jet total temperature ratio less than or equal to 2.7) in the subsonic range (0.5 less than or equal to M(sub a) less than or equal to 0.9), surface lengths 0.6 less than or equal to (axial distance from jet exit to surface trailing edge (inches)/nozzle exit diameter) less than or equal to 10, and surface standoff distances (0 less than or equal to (radial distance from jet lipline to surface (inches)/axial distance from jet exit to surface trailing edge (inches)) less than or equal to 1) using only second-order polynomials to provide predictable behavior. The JSI noise model is combined with an existing jet mixing noise model to produce exhaust noise predictions. Fit quality metrics and comparisons to between the predicted and experimental data indicate that the model is suitable for many system level studies. A first-order correction to the JSI source model that accounts for the effect of nozzle aspect ratio is also explored. This correction is based on changes to the potential core length and frequency scaling associated with rectangular nozzles up to 8:1 aspect ratio. However, more work is needed to refine these findings into a formal model.

Noise↗
NASA NTRS2021

Digital Elevation Models: Terminology and Definitions

Abstract:Digital elevation models (DEMs) provide fundamental depictions of the three-dimensionalshape of the Earth’s surface and are useful to a wide range of disciplines. Ideally, DEMs record theinterface between the atmosphere and the lithosphere using a discrete two-dimensional grid, withcomplexities introduced by the intervening hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere.The treatment of DEM surfaces, affected by these intervening spheres, depends on their intendeduse, and the characteristics of the sensors that were used to create them. DEM is a general term,and more specific terms such as digital surface model (DSM) or digital terrain model (DTM) recordthe treatment of the intermediate surfaces. Several global DEMs generated with optical (visible andnear-infrared) sensors and synthetic aperture radar (SAR), as well as single/multi-beam sonars andproducts of satellite altimetry, share the common characteristic of a georectified, gridded storagestructure. Nevertheless, not all DEMs share the same vertical datum, not all use the same conventionfor the area on the ground represented by each pixel in the DEM, and some of them have variable dataspacings depending on the latitude. This paper highlights the importance of knowing, understandingand reflecting on the sensor and DEM characteristics and consolidates terminology and definitions ofkey concepts to facilitate a common understanding among the growing community of DEM users,who do not necessarily share the same background

Peter L Guth↗
DOE OSTI2024

Beyond the visible: Accounting for ultraviolet and far‐red radiation in vegetation productivity and surface energy budgets

Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is typically defined as light with a wavelength within 400–700 nm. However, ultra-violet (UV) radiation within 280–400 nm and far-red (FR) radiation within 700–750 nm can also excite photosystems, though not as efficiently as PAR. Vegetation and land surface models (LSMs) typically do not explicitly account for UV's contribution to energy budgets or photosynthesis, nor FR's contribution to photosynthesis. However, whether neglecting UV and FR has significant impacts remains unknown. Here, we explored how canopy radiative transfer (RT) and photosynthesis are impacted when explicitly implementing UV in the canopy RT model and accounting for UV and FR in the photosynthesis models within a next-generation LSM that can simulate hyperspectral canopy RT. We validated our improvements using photosynthesis measurements from plants under different light sources and intensities and surface reflection from an eddy-covariance tower. Our model simulations suggested that at the whole plant level, after accounting for UV and FR explicitly, chlorophyll content, leaf area index (LAI), clumping index, and solar radiation all impact the modeling of gross primary productivity (GPP). At the global scale, mean annual GPP within a grid would increase by up to 7.3% and the increase is proportional to LAI; globally integrated GPP increases by 4.6 PgC year −1 (3.8% of the GPP without accounting for UV + FR). Further, using PAR to proxy UV could overestimate surface albedo by more than 0.1, particularly in the boreal forests. Our results highlight the importance of improving UV and FR in canopy RT and photosynthesis modeling and the necessity to implement hyperspectral or multispectral canopy RT schemes in future vegetation and LSMs.

energy budget↗
DOE OSTI2020

Developing single-site Pt catalysts for the preferential oxidation of CO: A surface science and first principles-guided approach

Here, we report a comprehensive study combining surface science, Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations, and catalyst synthesis, characterization, and testing to investigate the preferential oxidation of CO in the presence of H 2 over single-site Pt 1 /Cu x O catalysts. Surface science studies show that while Pt 1 /Cu x O model surfaces enable low-temperature CO oxidation via a Mars-van Krevelen mechanism, there was no evidence for H 2 activation or oxidation. DFT-based calculations explain these results and demonstrate that the H 2 oxidation barrier is high as compared to H 2 desorption from Pt 1 /Cu x O. Inspired by these model catalyst studies, nanoporous Pt 1 /Cu x O catalysts were synthesized and demonstrated to be active and highly selective for the preferential oxidation of CO. This work highlights the potential of combined surface science, theory, and catalyst studies for identifying new catalytic materials, which in this case led to the development of a promising single-site Pt 1 /Cu x O catalyst for the preferential oxidation of CO.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Diffusion-Limited Kinetics in Reactive Systems

A proper representation of chemical kinetics is vital to understanding, modeling, and optimizing many important chemical processes. In liquid and surface phases, where diffusion is slow, the rate at which the reactants diffuse together limits the overall rate of many elementary reactions. Commonly, the textbook Smoluchowski theory is utilized to estimate effective rate coefficients in the liquid phase. On surfaces, modelers commonly resort to much more complex and expensive Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations. Here, in this study, we extend the Smoluchowski model to allow the diffusing species to undergo chemical reactions and derive analytical formulas for the diffusion-limited rate coefficients for 3D, 2D, and 2D/3D interface cases. With these equations, we are able to demonstrate that when species react faster than they diffuse they can react orders of magnitude faster than predicted by Smoluchowski theory, through what we term “the reactive transport effect”. We validate the derived steady-state equations against particle Monte Carlo (PMC) simulations, KMC simulations, and non-steady-state solutions. Furthermore, using PMC and KMC simulations, we propose corrections that agree with all limits and the computed data for the 2D and 2D/3D interface steady-state equations, accounting for unique limitations in the associated derived equations. Additionally, we derive equations to handle couplings between diffusion-limited rate coefficients in reaction networks. We believe these equations should make it possible to run much more accurate mean-field simulations of liquids, surfaces, and liquid–surface interfaces accounting for diffusion limitations and the reactive transport effect.

Johnson, Matthew Sean↗