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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 757 records · Page 42
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2019

The Kon-Tiki Mission – Demonstrating Large Solar Sails for Deep Space Missions

Two key NASA strategic documents, Our Dynamic Space Environment: Heliophysics Science and Technology Roadmap for 2014-2033 and 2013 Solar and Space Physics: Science for a Technological Society, contain over a dozen references describing the value of solar sails to enable revolutionary new observational capabilities. Based on these needs, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) developed the Kon-Tiki mission concept to mature solar sail technology for use in future Heliophysics missions, as well as missions of interest across a broad user community (e.g., space weather and Earth polar observatories). Kon-Tiki would serve as a pathfinder for missions that observe the solar environment from unique vantage points such as the Solar Polar Imager (SPI), opening a fundamentally new range of observational capabilities for the Heliophysics Program and for space weather monitoring. Observations away from the Sun-Earth line (SEL) present unique opportunities for answering the outstanding science questions of Heliophysics, for improving space-weather monitoring and prediction, and for revealing new discoveries about our Sun and solar system. High solar inclinations are particularly compelling. Investment in, and demonstration of, the technology needed to enable polar missions is essential to making this unique vantage point a reality in the next decade. Propellantless solar sails can be used to create artificial equilibria and indefinite station-keeping at locations sunward of L1 along the SEL, or at any desired offset from the SEL leading or trailing the Earth in its orbit. They can change the heliocentric inclination of a spacecraft from the ecliptic to as high as solar polar, stopping and remaining at any intermediate inclination orbit in between. Sails can be used to hover over the Earth’s poles, using solar photon pressure to offset the Earth’s gravitational attraction, creating functional equivalents of geostationary earth orbits. The Kon-Tiki mission would fly a small spacecraft with a large (>1200 square meter) solar sail containing embedded reflectivity control devices (RCDs) and photovoltaic cells. The mission concept includes successful deployment of the solar sail, validation of all sail subsystems, controlled station-keeping inside of the Sun-Earth L1 point, attitude control of the sail with the RCDs (including spinning and despinning), demonstration of pointing performance for science imaging, and finally an increase in heliocentric inclination (out of the ecliptic).

Johnson, Les↗
NASA NTRS2022

RVLT Concept Vehicle Powertrain Arrangement Study and Candidate Powertrain System Test Arrangements

This work was motivated by the vision of the NASA’s Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) Project and project goals to support the Urban Air Mobility mission. A RVLT concept vehicle, namely the side-by-side helicopter with hybrid electric propulsion, was selected to conduct a powertrain study. The specific objectives of this work were to explore powertrain designs for the RVLT side by side hybrid electric concept vehicle to assess powertrain configurations, and in the process identify general trends for design tradeoffs, technology barriers, and research needs. A notional powertrain for the vehicle was created, and this led to identifying some mechanical components for development and testing. Three powertrain component concepts designs were created, namely a pericyclic drive mast gearbox, a control clutch, and an overrunning cutch. The design approach and evolution are documented. A universal combining gearbox was conceived and designed that would extend the capability of a NASA test facility for testing and demonstration of technologies for urban air mobility vehicle powertrains. Candidate powertrain test arrangements as enabled by the proposed universal combining gearbox are explained and depicted.

gears↗
NASA NTRS2023

The Friendly Argument Notation (FAN): 2023 Version

This document constitutes the official description of the current iteration of the Friendly Argument Notation (FAN). This new version provides several enhancements to the original 2020 instantiation, while maintaining essential compatibility with it. Specifically, the new version enables distinguishing between deductive and non-deductive arguments, removes the requirement for always providing an explicit statement of reasoning, and relaxes the rules for when labels may be used. The primary intended use of FAN is unchanged: creating and evaluating arguments about safety-critical systems, specifically the types of arguments common within safety and assurance cases.

language↗
DOE OSTI2022

Fluid Properties for MOOSE

The Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) enables a wide range of advanced nuclear reactor simulations. Under the guidance of MOOSE's Finite Volume Team, we worked on the fluid properties module. Significant contributions include enabling Tabulated Fluid Properties (TFP) for systems thermal hydraulics analysis, Temperature and Pressure functionalized Fluid Properties, and Lead & Lead-Bismuth properties. Along with improving the capabilities of the fluid properties module, we also improved the documentation to allow for future users and developers to understand how the module works.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Machine Learning Enabled Quantitative Risk Assessment of Aerial Wildfire Response

Aerial wildfire operations are high risk and account for a large number of firefighter deaths. Increasing intensity of wildfires is driving a surge in aerial operations, while simultaneously there is growing interest in improving system safety and performance. In this work, wildfire aviation mishaps documented using the SAFECOM system are analyzed using a previously developed framework for hazard extraction and analysis of trends (HEAT). Hazards and specific failure modes are extracted from the narrative data in SAFECOM forms using natural language processing techniques. Metrics for each hazard are calculated, including frequency, rate, and severity. We examine whether these metrics change over time, and whether they are related to metadata, such as region and aircraft type. The results of the hazard analysis are presented in a risk matrix, identifying the highest and lowest risk hazards based on rate of occurrence and average severity. Results identify jumper operations hazards as high-risk, in addition to bucket drop failures, cargo let down failures, and severe weather as medium risk.

machine learning↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Machine Learning Enabled Quantitative Risk Assessment of Aerial Wildfire Response

Aerial wildfire operations are high risk and account for a large number of firefighter deaths. Increasing intensity of wildfires is driving a surge in aerial operations, while simultaneously there is growing interest in improving system safety and performance. In this work, wildfire aviation mishaps documented using the SAFECOM system are analyzed using a previously developed framework for hazard extraction and analysis of trends (HEAT). Hazards and specific failure modes are extracted from the narrative data in SAFECOM forms using natural language processing techniques. Metrics for each hazard are calculated, including frequency, rate, and severity. We examine whether these metrics change over time, and whether they are related to metadata, such as region and aircraft type. The results of the hazard analysis are presented in a risk matrix, identifying the highest and lowest risk hazards based on rate of occurrence and average severity. Results identify jumper operations hazards as high-risk, in addition to bucket drop failures, cargo let down failures, and severe weather as medium risk.

machine learning↗
DOE OSTI2023

29 th International Training Course on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and Nuclear Facilities (Project Summary)

Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) has hosted the International Training Course on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and Nuclear Facilities since 1978. This course is the flagship training course of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). On behalf of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Sandia manages, develops, and coordinates all course materials, and works closely with the IAEA to arrange all logistical details for the course ITC-29 incorporated some updates to the facility models, based on feedback received in ITC-28 and the ITC-29 dry run. In addition, all the graphics were refreshed after ITC-28 and implemented in the posters, data handbooks, etc. As in ITC-28, the ITC-29 staff worked closely with the IAEA on course materials, including a peer review process to ensure all course materials were aligned with Nuclear Security Series No. 13 and other relevant international guidance documentation from the IAEA. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ITC-29 was postponed twice and eventually took place in the late summer/early fall of 2022. Due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions and safety requirements, the number of participants was reduced by about 31 percent from 59 participants in ITC-28 to 41 in ITC-29. As a result, the number of subgroups also decreased from eight in ITC-28 to six for ITC-29. This enabled the Sandia team to implement more opportunities for social distancing, particularly in the large classrooms. Despite the challenges, ITC-29 still passed a significant milestone, with the one-thousandth participant of the international training course attending during this event. Finally, the ITC staff continued the use of its improved method of evaluation to capture participants’ satisfaction with the updated course and to gather feedback concerning future improvements. This document provides a brief description of ITC-29, including a summary of lessons learned and key recommendations for future development efforts.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2023

SOLAr Critical Infrastructure Energization (SOLACE): Leveraging Distributed Energy Resources to Provide Local Power

This document is a technical report based on a large-scale DOE-funded project conducted between 2019 and 2022. The project, called SOLAr Critical infrastructure Energization (SOLACE), is aimed at leveraging distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide local power to communities, feeders, or other regions. The project included a particular focus on high-value critical loads such as municipal water supply, telecommunication hubs, and disaster shelters. The key developments of the project were: (1) A comprehensive pre-event power system analysis methodology that identifies and characterizes the viable local power options. (2) A DMS-based example control system for activating and operating the local power solution during a time of crisis. (3) Grid-forming inverter technology to enable isolated local power operation and black-starting. (4) Cyber-security considerations for isolated systems when wider-area communication may be offline. This report describes the overall process that identifies and assesses the viable DER-based local power solutions for a given facility, region, or community. The report documents the process, including the key analysis steps, tools required, data requirements, and recommended pass/fail criteria for each step. It also provides a sample implementation of this process through a test case. Finally, it provides details of how a viable pre-event plan can be selected and activated at go-time when an event has occurred.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Muon Collider

Muons offer a unique opportunity to build a compact high-energy electroweak collider at the 10 TeV scale. A Muon Collider enables direct access to the underlying simplicity of the Standard Model and unparalleled reach beyond it. It will be a paradigm-shifting tool for particle physics representing the first collider to combine the high-energy reach of a proton collider and the high precision of an electron-positron collider, yielding a physics potential significantly greater than the sum of its individual parts. A high-energy muon collider is the natural next step in the exploration of fundamental physics after the HL-LHC and a natural complement to a future low-energy Higgs factory. Such a facility would significantly broaden the scope of particle colliders, engaging the many frontiers of the high energy community. The last European Strategy for Particle Physics Update and later the Particle Physics Project Prioritisation Panel in the US requested a study of the muon collider, which is being carried on by the International Muon Collider Collaboration. In this comprehensive document we present the physics case, the state of the work on accelerator design and technology, and propose an R\&D project that can make the muon collider a reality.

Accelerator Physics (physics.acc-ph)↗
DOE OSTI2021

PSTN-051: Survey Strategy and Cadence Choices for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)

A summary of survey strategy and cadence choices, simulated and evaluated by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Scheduler Team, prepared for the Survey Cadence and Optimization Committee (SCOC). A large telescope survey, covering the entire visible sky repeatedly every few days in multiple bandpasses over the course of ten years, is the core idea of the LSST. An area of about 20,000 square degrees observed under a wide range of conditions to deep coadded limiting magnitudes in bandpasses ugrizy enables cosmological studies and studies of the Milky Way structure with unprecedented precision; the same survey, when cadenced well, can serve to open new windows into our understanding of transient and variable stars, and extend our knowledge of small bodies throughout the Solar System by orders of magnitude. The outlines of, and some basic necessary requirements for these goals are outlined in the LSST Science Requirements Document (SRD). Finding options for the observing strategy to meet more detailed needs of an even wider range of science goals, as well as building the LSST Scheduler and Metrics Analysis Framework, has been the work of the LSST Scheduler Team with support and input from the astronomical community, including the Community Observing Strategy Evaluation Paper (COSEP), the Call for White Papers, numerous performance metrics, and guidance from the LSST Science Advisory Committee in their Recommendations for Operations Simulator Experiments. This report will help enable the SCOC to make its recommendation for the preferred survey strategy.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Community Energy Planning: Best Practices and Lessons Learned in NREL's Work with Communities

Whether driven by local goals and actions, external market forces, or both, the clean energy transition is accelerating. The associated increase in clean energy deployment occurs on the ground in communities. As a result, communities increasingly need technical expertise and assistance in planning for and managing the energy transition. Building on decades of work with state, local, and tribal jurisdictions, NREL's work providing modeling, analysis, and technical expertise to enable more data-driven community energy planning is expanding. To inform and enhance NREL's capabilities in community energy planning and provide a resource for others working in this space, NREL developed this best-practices document through interviews with seasoned NREL practitioners and a review of the literature on equitable community planning. Findings include five best practices for community energy planning that NREL practitioners can apply to increase the impact of their work.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS1984

SCM Handbooks for dc-to-dc Converters

Two documents aid in design of control modules for dc-to-dc converters. Features of SCM include: Adaptive stability, power component stress limiting, implementation of various control laws, unified design approach. Analysis and quidelines contained in handbooks enable engineer to design SCM circuit and confidently predict resulting overall performance.

Lee, F.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Natural language processing and advanced information management

Integrating diverse information sources and application software in a principled and general manner will require a very capable advanced information management (AIM) system. In particular, such a system will need a comprehensive addressing scheme to locate the material in its docuverse. It will also need a natural language processing (NLP) system of great sophistication. It seems that the NLP system must serve three functions. First, it provides an natural language interface (NLI) for the users. Second, it serves as the core component that understands and makes use of the real-world interpretations (RWIs) contained in the docuverse. Third, it enables the reasoning specialists (RSs) to arrive at conclusions that can be transformed into procedures that will satisfy the users' requests. The best candidate for an intelligent agent that can satisfactorily make use of RSs and transform documents (TDs) appears to be an object oriented data base (OODB). OODBs have, apparently, an inherent capacity to use the large numbers of RSs and TDs that will be required by an AIM system and an inherent capacity to use them in an effective way.

Hoard, James E.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program 250K Hybrid Motor

The Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program (HPDP) program was formed to mature hybrid propulsion technology to a readiness level sufficient to enable commercialization for various space launch applications. The goal of the HPDP was to develop and test a 250,000 pound vacuum thrust hybrid booster in order to demonstrate hybrid propulsion technology and enable manufacturing of large hybrid boosters for current and future space launch vehicles. The HPDP has successfully conducted four tests of the 250,000 pound thrust hybrid rocket motor at NASA's Stennis Space Center. This paper documents the test series.

Story, George↗
NASA NTRS2001

Next-Generation Ion Propulsion Being Developed

The NASA Glenn Research Center ion-propulsion program addresses the need for high specific-impulse systems and technology across a broad range of mission applications and power levels. One activity is the development of the next-generation ion-propulsion system as a follow-on to the successful Deep Space 1 system. The system is envisioned to incorporate a lightweight ion engine that can operate over 1 to 10 kW, with a 550-kg propellant throughput capacity. The engine concept under development has a 40-cm beam diameter, twice the effective area of the Deep Space 1 engine. It incorporates mechanical features and operating conditions to maximize the design heritage established by the Deep Space 1 engine, while incorporating new technology where warranted to extend the power and throughput capability. Prototype versions of the engine have been fabricated and are under test at NASA, with an engineering model version in manufacturing. Preliminary performance data for the prototype engine have been documented over 1.1- to 7.3-kW input power. At 7.3 kW, the engine efficiency is 0.68, at 3615-sec specific impulse. Critical component temperatures, including those of the discharge cathode assembly and magnets, have been documented and are within established limits, with significant margins relative to the Deep Space 1 engine. The 1- to 10-kW ion thruster approach described here was found to provide the needed power and performance improvement to enable important NASA missions. The Integrated In-Space Transportation Planning (IISTP) studies compared many potential technologies for various NASA, Government, and commercial missions. These studies indicated that a high-power ion propulsion system is the most important technology for development because of its outstanding performance versus perceived development and recurring costs for interplanetary solar electric propulsion missions. One of the best applications of a highpower electric propulsion system was as an integral part of a solar electric propulsion (SEP) stage to send a payload to outer planet targets. The IISTP studies showed that either trip time or launch vehicle class could be significantly reduced when compared with state-of-the-art systems.

Patterson, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Innovative Trajectory Designs to meet Exploration Challenges

This document is a viewgraph presentation of the conference paper. Missions incorporated into NASA's Vision for Space Exploration include many different destinations and regions; are challenging to plan; and need new and innovative trajectory design methods to enable them. By combining proven methods with chaos dynamics, exploration goals that require maximum payload mass or minimum duration can be achieved. The implementation of these innovative methods, such as weak stability boundaries, has altered NASA's approach to meet exploration challenges and is described to show how exploration goals may be met in the next decade. With knowledge that various perturbations play a significant role, the mission designer must rely on both traditional design strategies as well as these innovative methods. Over the past decades, improvements have been made that would at first glance seem dramatic. This paper provides a brief narrative on how a fundamental shift has occurred and how chaos dynamics improve the design of exploration missions with complex constraints.

Folta, David C.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Upgrades of Two Computer Codes for Analysis of Turbomachinery

Major upgrades have been made in two of the programs reported in "ive Computer Codes for Analysis of Turbomachinery". The affected programs are: Swift -- a code for three-dimensional (3D) multiblock analysis; and TCGRID, which generates a 3D grid used with Swift. Originally utilizing only a central-differencing scheme for numerical solution, Swift was augmented by addition of two upwind schemes that give greater accuracy but take more computing time. Other improvements in Swift include addition of a shear-stress-transport turbulence model for better prediction of adverse pressure gradients, addition of an H-grid capability for flexibility in modeling flows in pumps and ducts, and modification to enable simultaneous modeling of hub and tip clearances. Improvements in TCGRID include modifications to enable generation of grids for more complicated flow paths and addition of an option to generate grids compatible with the ADPAC code used at NASA and in industry. For both codes, new test cases were developed and documentation was updated. Both codes were converted to Fortran 90, with dynamic memory allocation. Both codes were also modified for ease of use in both UNIX and Windows operating systems.

Chima, Rodrick V.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Crew Health and Performance (CHP) Technology Roadmaps

The Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) – Crew Health and Performance (CHP) Systems Capability Leadership Team (SCLT) is a community of practice (not a funded program) sponsored by Headquarters to develop, retain, and infuse the ECLSS and CHP capabilities necessary to enable the human exploration of the Moon and Mars through the integration and empowerment of experts across NASA, other government agencies, commercial industry, and academia. The goals of the SCLT are as follows: Use the Architecture Definition Document use cases and functions to identify gaps in NASA’s current technological capabilities to meet Agency objectives and develop strategies and roadmaps for closing such gaps Make technical/strategic recommendations on ECLSS and CHP technology development efforts and investments for PPBE, acquisition strategies, and leveraging NASA’s critical capabilities Establish key performance parameters and participate in key program and project reviews Maintain cognizance of relevant ECLSS and CHP national and international technology activities in government, industry, and academia, specifically, emerging innovations and technologies, trends, and opportunities Coordinate with commercial and international partners to identify areas of mutual interest and cooperation Support future mission and system architecture studies for human exploration This document is intended to be a comprehensive overview of the strategic development plans, or Roadmaps, of key technologies and capabilities identified by the SCLT. Each Roadmap is organized by Capability Gap as the gap name and number appears in STARPort, follows a fiscal year timeline, and displays any additional information on milestones, decision points, or important details on the right-hand side of the page. The Roadmaps should be used to facilitate discussion, decision making, and planning for programs and development projects, but are not expected to accurately depict the details and statuses of the projects and tasks appearing within the plans.

Human Health and Performance↗