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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

NSUF CoMET Project, Implementation Plan FY2019

The Combined Materials and Experiment Toolkit (CoMET) is an NSUF information management resource designed to give users access to the information and tools necessary for designing meaningful experiments and writing clear, structured proposals. NSUF has a milestone to deploy an experiment design expert system to the NSUF website to support applications for the FY2020 CINR, due on August 30, 2019. To meet this milestone, the CoMET project work for FY2019 focuses on three main objectives: 1.) Integrate the three NSUF web applications by linking data fields in one application with the data found in the others. The NSUF web applications are: The Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) Proposal Solicitation system, the Nuclear Fuels and Materials Library (NFML) and the Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Database (NEID) and the researcher and technical staff account and profile management systems. 2.) Build an Experiment Design Wizard (expert system) that will guide users through the process of writing a statement of work for a CINR or RTE experiment. 3.) Build an Irradiation Effects Calculator to help a PI choose the best neutron irradiation facility for their needs, estimate the time needed to achieve their goals, and estimate the resulting radioactivity of their samples, post-irradiation. These objectives are designed to support the mission of the NSUF and optimize the experiment design portion of the proposal processes. The new researcher database will make finding collaborators easier. The wizard will provide the PI with early NSUF expertise so that their proposed experiments, at the “Letter of Intent” and “Pre-Application” stages are better designed to work within the available NSUF facilities. Utilization of these tools should reduce the proportion of proposals that are judged to be infeasible or “not ready” for NSUF access. It should also improve the efficiency of the NSUF technical leads since the PI will be starting with a better statement of work for the project. The tools will also provide resources for NSUF staff to more efficiently screen and score incoming proposals. This implementation plan will layout the work breakdown structure, activities, resources required, and plan for completion of the activities for CoMET in FY2019.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS2017

NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute: Building Collaboration Through International Partnerships

The NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) is a virtual institute focused on re-search at the intersection of science and exploration, training the next generation of lunar scientists, and community development. As part of the SSERVI mission, we act as a hub for opportunities that engage the larger scientific and exploration communities in order to form new interdisciplinary, research-focused collaborations. This talk will describe the international partner re-search efforts and how we are engaging the international science and exploration communities through workshops, conferences, online seminars and classes, student exchange programs and internships.

Virtual Institute↗
NASA NTRS2018

NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute: Building Collaboration Through International Partnerships

The NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) is a virtual institute focused on research at the intersection of science and exploration, training the next generation of lunar scientists, and community development. As part of the SSERVI mission, we act as a hub for opportunities that engage the larger scientific and exploration communities in order to form new interdisciplinary, research-focused collaborations. This talk will describe the international partnership program, research efforts and how we are engaging the international science and exploration communities through workshops, conferences, online seminars and classes, student exchange programs and internships.

SSERVI International Partnerships↗
DOE OSTI2025

Demonstration of a Novel Technology to Manage Electricity Demand in Grid-Independent Military Microgrids

This research was conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in collaboration with the S&C Electric Inc. through funding provided by the ESTCP. The project demonstrates use of cybersecure Automated Demand Response (ADR) technology to effectively manage microgrid loads during grid-independent, also known as "islanded," operation. When military microgrids become isolated from the main electrical grid, they are required to balance electricity supply and demand locally. Given that local generation may be constrained, the prevailing strategy involves shedding all but the most critical loads by tripping smart circuit breakers, which then necessitate manual resetting. This approach is generally implemented at the building level, which means that the buildings with mission-critical activities are exempt from load management and remain fully powered, whereas those deemed non-critical can experience a complete loss of service. In this research we developed a method that allows building automation systems to selectively control their assets in response to load shedding request from a microgrid controller, avoiding total loss of service in contrast to the conventional control approach. A commercial OpenADR client server by GridFabric is used for communication between the microgrid controller and the building management system (BMS). The microgrid controller monitors both generation capacity and various assets within the microgrid and issues a demand reduction request when necessary. This request is communicated to the OpenADR server via Modbus. Upon receiving the request, the OpenADR server forwards it to the BMS utilizing the OpenADR protocol. The BMS is pre-configured with various levels of load reduction strategies based on the controllable assets available, allowing for a nuanced approach to demand reduction. Both lab and field tests were performed that considered load shedding needed to achieve closed transition into island mode and to accommodate changing loads and power source availability while islanded. A commercial microgrid controller was used for these tests with normal programming within the expected constraints of the system capabilities. That is, the solution did not require any specialized modification to the code base of the controller. Given the latency of the round-trip communication path between the microgrid controller and the various devices involved with the load shed processes, there are certain scenarios for which the demonstrated solution are appropriate and some which are not. The methods described in this report can be used for load shedding/restoration during transitions between islanded and grid-tied modes of operation, as well as accommodating normal variations in load and the need to remove a power source from operation for maintenance. These methods should not be used for scenarios that require load shedding within a second or two such as sudden and unanticipated significant load increases or loss of power sources through equipment faults.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2012

Steam System Balancing and Tuning for Multifamily Residential Buildings in Chicagoland

Older heating systems often suffer from mis-investment--multiple contractors upgrading parts of systems in inadequate or inappropriate ways that reduce system functionality and efficiency--or from a lack of proper maintenance. This technical report addresses these barriers to information, contractor resources, and cost-savings. Building off of previous research, CNT Energy conducted a study to identify best practices for the methodology, typical costs, and energy savings associated with steam system balancing.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Synthesis of Year Two Outcomes in the Smart Energy Analytics Campaign

Buildings are full of hidden energy savings potential that can be uncovered with the right analysis. With sophisticated software to inform and assist in building operations, building owners now are reducing energy and improving operations using building data analytics. The cornerstone of successful building data analytics is the ability to extract accurate and actionable insights from large amounts of data. Modern building automation systems (BAS) monitor hundreds of points per building, and an owner may have a portfolio generating many thousands of data points. The BAS can provide alarms for points out of range, but the analytical capabilities fall well short of helping achieve an optimized system. Further, common analysis tools for energy meter data tend to manage the monthly bills but do not support hourly interval data. Energy management and information systems (EMIS) are software that provide the needed analytical horsepower to building owners as they work to find meaning from data. This section highlights the benefits and challenges in using EMIS for continuous energy management.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Data-Driven Modeling and Optimization of Building Energy Consumption: a Case Study

Installing sensors and Building Automation Systems (BAS) allows controlling the facility operations while generating data that can be analyzed for model development. This work focuses on data-driven modeling of the building to optimize energy consumption. The City of Orlando aims to reduce its energy consumption so, they provided us access to their BAS for data and studying the operation of its facilities. We selected a mid-size pilot building to conduct data analysis and modeling. We develop an Application Programming Interface (API) to login to the servers and scrape data. The scraped data contains features ranging from environmental conditions to equipment activity. This dataset is a time series so, it's handled in accordance and analyzed to investigate patterns and relations between data points that help choose parameters for predictive models for building and equipment. Finally, the models are optimized to reduce the energy consumption of the facility.

Grover, Divas↗
DOE OSTI2016

Simulation-based coefficients for adjusting climate impact on energy consumption of commercial buildings

This paper presents a new technique for and the results of normalizing building energy consumption to enable a fair comparison among various types of buildings located near different weather stations across the U.S. The method was developed for the U.S. Building Energy Asset Score, a whole-building energy efficiency rating system focusing on building envelope, mechanical systems, and lighting systems. The Asset Score is calculated based on simulated energy use under standard operating conditions. Existing weather normalization methods such as those based on heating and cooling degrees days are not robust enough to adjust all climatic factors such as humidity and solar radiation. In this work, over 1000 sets of climate coefficients were developed to separately adjust building heating, cooling, and fan energy use at each weather station in the United States. This paper also presents a robust, standardized weather station mapping based on climate similarity rather than choosing the closest weather station. This proposed simulated-based climate adjustment was validated through testing on several hundreds of thousands of modeled buildings. Results indicated the developed climate coefficients can isolate and adjust for the impacts of local climate for asset rating.

Asset Rating↗
DOE OSTI2023

Development, Monitoring, and Control of Fracture Thermal Energy Storage in Crystalline Rock Formations (DEMO-FTES) [Abstract]

Approximately half of global energy consumption is used for heating and cooling. Because fossil fuels are used to meet most of this demand, heating and cooling of buildings produces a large portion of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The proposed project seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of a seasonal thermal energy storage concept called fracture thermal energy storage (FTES), which has the potential to dramatically lower energy requirements for heating and cooling and improve the resilience of building energy systems. FTES is a technique for building a highly efficient heat exchanger by creating a carefully designed set of fractures in the ground below a building. This heat exchanger allows thermal energy to be stored over seasonal timeframes—for example, hot thermal energy that is easily captured in the summer or energy from waste heat sources—to meet heating needs during colder months. FTES offers a solution with a relatively small footprint and lower cost compared to currently operating aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) systems and could be used in the many areas without aquifers suitable for ATES. If commercialized, FTES systems could exceed the 2.5 TWh of energy storage per year from the more than 2,800 ATES systems in operation worldwide, which range from 0.1 MW to 30 MW. The savings in CO2 emissions per year are also expected to match or exceed individual ATES projects, with the largest, a 30 MW system used to provide heating and cooling to the University of Technology in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, estimated to save 13,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year. FTES utilizes mature drilling and fracturing technology and therefore has the potential to be rapidly commercialized once demonstrated. The ability to construct and establish flow through an FTES heat exchanger has been demonstrated by a previous project and the potential for efficient, large-capacity energy storage has been shown using numerical models. However, no experimental validation of these numerical estimates of thermal energy storage has been made. The first crucial need to advance FTES technology is to identify the sensitivity of key metrics such as thermal energy storage and production rates, capacities, and efficiencies to design parameters such as the number of fractures, depth/temperature of fractures, size of fractures, and circulation rates. The second crucial need is experimental testing of achievable thermal performance with optimized system design parameters. The proposed scope of work seeks to systematically address these two critical needs through a highly complementary international collaboration spanning theory, laboratory, and mesoscale field evaluation. The proposed work plan calls for using dimensional analysis and existing state-of-the-art numerical simulators to design carefully scaled laboratory and 10-meter-scale field tests of the thermal efficiency of FTES. The existing advanced laboratory and intermediate-scale field testbeds that will be used for this project will allow for detailed monitoring of the system performance during the test and of how the performance changes across time and length scales. These results will determine the feasibility of full- scale FTES systems. If the thermal performance is consistent with model predictions, the results will provide a strong economic justification for rapid commercialization of FTES technology in a wide range of geographical areas.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Spatially Adaptive Tunable Lighting Control System with Expanded Wellness and Energy Saving Benefits

Lighting design is becoming increasingly complex, including active dimming for energy savings and spectral tuning for human wellbeing. Modern commercial lighting control systems are already difficult to use, and maintain, and even with so-called Smart Lighting, optimizing light settings is rapidly exceeding the capabilities of direct human control, limiting the adoption of lighting control systems. The growing importance of Occupancy Centric Controls (OCC) for advanced building management systems can be applied to the development of autonomous lighting system controls needed to drive the adoption of advanced lighting controls for improved adaptive “sculpted illumination” for both greater energy savings and broader human wellbeing perspectives. This project, led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, entitled “Spatially adaptive tunable lighting control system with expanded wellness and energy saving benefits” will develop and test an entirely new platform for automated optimized lighting design and control that requires little or no human engagement, yet contours lighting profiles automatically to minimize lighting energy use. We call this approach to lighting control “dynamic light sculpting” since the right amount of illumination is automatically delivered to occupants in real time. Since the system uses new, privacy-preserving occupant position and pose detection technologies developed by Rensselaer for broad OCC building applications, the control system will analyze how to deliver the right amount of the right type of illumination only where and when it is needed based these OCC platforms. To create these powerful autonomous lighting control platforms, the project will integrate evolving augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) tools with sophisticated lighting and interior design toolkits to create interactive lighting design and control simulators. Using the quickly growing paradigm of digital twins, these tools will integrate light fixture properties, occupancy sensor data, interior design data, and lighting specifications to accurately visualize how various design concepts interact with simulated yet realistic human activities that occur in commercial office buildings of various types. These advanced digital twin design and simulation tools will be combined with a new class of digitally-programmable LED lighting fixtures that can dynamically change the spectral content and direction of light emission. When fully integrated, the new autonomous lighting control system will take all of the guesswork out of optimizing light quality while minimizing energy consumption. Digital twin tools will simplify the design, installation, commissioning, operation, and maintenance of future energy-efficient lighting systems. It should be possible to reduce lighting energy costs from 40% to 70% with OCC based dynamic light sculpting systems. The work will be led by the Center for Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications (LESA) and the Center for Architectural Science and Ecology (CASE), both at Renssealer Polytechnic Institute; Lumileds, a global leader in the development of advanced LED systems; and HKS, a leading global architecture design firm. This interdisciplinary project team’s experience includes all of the design simulation tools, VR/AR digital twin visualization technology, advanced occupancy sensing technology, and complex control system design capabilities that will revolutionize lighting design and control technology to autonomously deliver high-quality lighting that improves human health and wellbeing while simultaneously maximizing lighting energy savings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2018

PA51C-0786 Informing NASA's Indigenous Peoples Capacity Building Pilot Project Through Collaborative Storytelling and Systems Mapping

NASA's Capacity Building Program (CBP) aims to empower communities to use NASA Earth Observations for environmental decision-making. A new project, the Indigenous Peoples Pilot Project, focuses on building relationships across NASA and indigenous communities through remote sensing training, community engagement, and research opportunities. A recent workshop, held on the lands of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Wisconsin, focused on understanding indigenous knowledge systems and comparisons with western science, and more specifically, NASA Earth Science. In order to meet the workshop goals, North American tribal members and NASA managers participated in storytelling and systems mapping. The storytelling portion focused on personal narratives to understand the barriers, challenges, and pathways to incite change in the context of western scientists working with tribal nations. This was based on the traditional model of oral history and allowed participants to share their unique experiences of failures and successes. The systems mapping portion of the workshop focused on finding leverage points within the "NASA Ecosystem" for creating sustained instrumental change. This included (1) dedicating time and resources to explore how to recognize western science and indigenous knowledge as equal, (2) supporting innovation in communication and knowledge system frameworks, and (3) identifying new partners, allies, and champions for the western science/indigenous relationship. These leverage points were then used to generate recommendations for NASA which included (1) an awareness phase (for NASA and for indigenous communities) for NASA/Indigenous work, (2) creating a cultural immersion for NASA managers, (3) developing a protocol for working with indigenous groups, (4) creating a NASA tribal liaison office, (5) acknowledging and accepting indigenous knowledge systems in funding solicitations and proposals, and (6) incorporation of indigenous knowledge into capacity building activities.

Mccullum, Amber Jean Kuss↗
DOE OSTI2021

Hoobas: A highly object-oriented builder for molecular dynamics

Polydispersity and random sequences are ubiquitous features of polymers, and molecular dynamics simulations can help elucidate the impact of disorder in polymer systems. However, currently available packages for building polymer topologies do not enable the user to include randomness in a straightforward fashion. Here, we introduce Hoobas, a molecular builder package that easily handles polydispersity using a prototype-builder design pattern. This enables fast and easy building of systems comprised of thousands of distinct objects. It is written in the Python programming language, which ensures compatibility with a wide range of molecular dynamics packages and tools, as well as easy integration into most workflows.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Building Energy Management Open Source Software

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy in November 2013, a Building Energy Management Open Source Software (BEMOSS) platform was engineered to improve sensing and control of equipment in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), small- (5,000 square feet or smaller) and medium-sized (between 5,001 to 50,000 square feet) commercial buildings constitute about 95% of all commercial buildings in the U.S. These buildings typically do not have Building Automation Systems (BAS) to monitor and control building operation. While commercial BAS solutions exist, including those from Siemens, Honeywell, Johnsons Controls and many more, they are not cost effective in the context of small- and medium-sized commercial buildings, and typically work with specific controller products from the same company. BEMOSS targets small and medium-sized commercial buildings to address this gap.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

Building Monitoring and Energy Efficiency Training for Small and Mid-Sized Commercial Buildings in Non-Urbanized Areas of Alaska

The goal of this project was to create an effective training that increases understanding, competency and capacity in monitoring critical building data. Mentorship, verification and follow-up ensured participants now have necessary skills to install and maintain building monitoring systems. This training sought to empower building managers and maintenance staff to properly and efficiently operate their buildings for energy savings and increased lifespan of equipment. Through the project, participants’ knowledge of the building was increased through hands-on training using a familiar building environment and eliminating common barriers to effective training through peer-to peer delivery. In successful cases the host organization will save money and resources due to more efficient operation of building equipment already in place.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS1993

The Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) yo-yo despin and solar array deployment mechanism

The SAMPEX spacecraft, successfully launched in July 1992, carried a yo-yo despin system and deployable solar arrays. The despin and solar array mechanisms formed an integral system as the yo-yo cables held the solar array release mechanism in place. The SAMPEX design philosophy was to minimize size and weight through the use of a predominantly single string system. The design challenge was to build a system in a limited space, which was reliable with minimal redundancy. This paper covers the design and development of the SAMPEX yo-yo despin and solar array deployment mechanisms. The problems encountered during development and testing will also be discussed.

Kellogg, James W.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Building energy analysis tool

A building energy analysis system includes a building component library configured to store a plurality of building components, a modeling tool configured to access the building component library and create a building model of a building under analysis using building spatial data and using selected building components of the plurality of building components stored in the building component library, a building analysis engine configured to operate the building model and generate a baseline energy model of the building under analysis and further configured to apply one or more energy conservation measures to the baseline energy model in order to generate one or more corresponding optimized energy models, and a recommendation tool configured to assess the one or more optimized energy models against the baseline energy model and generate recommendations for substitute building components or modifications.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Connecting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure to Commercial Buildings

This factsheet from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory aims to describe how EV chargers can be connected to commercial buildings, including considerations for facility managers, and the effects that charging will have on the buildings electrical distribution system.

Better Buildings, electric vehicle charging, comme↗