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At least 793 records · Page 44

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2012

An Integrated RFID and Barcode Tagged Item Inventory System for Deployment at New Brunswick Laboratory

New Brunswick Laboratory (NBL) has a numerous inventory containing thousands of plutonium and uranium certified reference materials. The current manual inventory process is well established but is a lengthy process which requires significant oversight and double checking to ensure correctness. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has worked with NBL to develop and deploy a new inventory system which utilizes handheld computers with barcode scanners and radio frequency identification (RFID) readers termed the Tagged Item Inventory System (TIIS). Certified reference materials are identified by labels which incorporate RFID tags and barcodes. The label printing process and RFID tag association process are integrated into the main desktop software application. Software on the handheld computers syncs with software on designated desktop machines and the NBL inventory database to provide a seamless inventory process. This process includes: 1) identifying items to be inventoried, 2) downloading the current inventory information to the handheld computer, 3) using the handheld to read item and location labels, and 4) syncing the handheld computer with a designated desktop machine to analyze the results, print reports, etc. The security of this inventory software has been a major concern. Designated roles linked to authenticated logins are used to control access to the desktop software while password protection and badge verification are used to control access to the handheld computers. The overall system design and deployment at NBL will be presented. The performance of the system will also be discussed with respect to a small piece of the overall inventory. Future work includes performing a full inventory at NBL with the Tagged Item Inventory System and comparing performance, cost, and radiation exposures to the current manual inventory process.

barcode↗

DOE OSTI2022

Considerations for Developing a Regulatory Roadmap for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Integration in Colombia

The USAID-NREL Partnership in Colombia, in conjunction with SURE and USEA, selected four action plan teams from the Young Professionals Leadership Program to receive tailored NREL technical assistance to support action plan implementation. The four plans selected represent various aspects associated with planning for the efficient integration of DERs, including electric mobility, residential and commercial energy applications, distributed generation modeling, and regulatory considerations. In response to national grid modernization, decentralization, digitalization, and electrification trends, CREG is looking to update Colombia's electric distribution code, with an emphasis on the integration of electric vehicles and charging stations, but also energy storage systems, non-conventional sources of renewable energy, and other distributed energy resources (DERs). CREG aims to establish the general steps that must be carried out to update the distribution code for the integration of DERs, with a view to the design and development of new markets. The objective of the TA provided to CREG was to support them in identifying and outlining the general processes and approaches to consider when updating Colombia's distribution code for the integration of electric vehicles, distributed renewable energy systems, and energy storage systems, with a view to the design and development of new markets.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2024

Fiber Sorbents – A Versatile Platform for Sorption-Based Gas Separations

Increasing demand for high-purity fine chemicals and a drive for process intensification of large-scale separations have driven significant work on the development of highly engineered porous materials with promise for sorption-based separations. While sorptive separations in porous materials offer energy-efficient alternatives to longstanding thermal-based methods, the particulate nature of many of these sorbents has sometimes limited their large-scale deployment in high-throughput applications such as gas separations, for which the necessary high feed flow rates and gas velocities accrue prohibitive operational costs. These processability limitations have been historically addressed through powder shaping methods aimed at the fabrication of structured sorbent contactors based on pellets, beads or monoliths, commonly obtained as extrudates. These structures overcome limitations such as elevated pressure drops commonly recorded across powder adsorption beds but often accrue thermal limitations arising from elevated particle density and aggregation, which ultimately cap their maximum separation performance. Furthermore, the harsh mechanical strain to which powder particles are subjected during contactor fabrication, in the form of extrusion/compression forces, can result in partial pore occlusion and framework degradation, further limiting their performance. Here, we present the development of porous fiber sorbents as an alternative sorbent contactor design capable of addressing sorbent processability limitations while enabling an array of performance-maximizing heat integration capabilities. This new sorbent form factor leverages pre-existing know-how from hollow fiber spinning to produce fiber-shaped sorbent contactors through the phase inversion of known polymers in a process known as dry-jet/wet quenching. The process of phase inversion allows microporous sorbent particles to be latched onto a macroporous polymer matrix under mild processing conditions, thus making it compatible with soft porous materials prone to amorphization under traditional pelletization conditions. Sorbent fibers can be created with different geometries through control of the spinning apparatus and process, offering the possibility to produce monolithic and hollow fibers alike, the latter of which can be integrated with thermalization fluid flows. In this Account, we summarize our progress in the field of fiber sorbents from both design and application standpoints. We further guide the reader through the evolution of this field from the early inceptive work on zeolite hollow fibers to recent developments on MOF fibers. We highlight the versatile nature of fiber sorbents, both from the composition, fabrication and structure points of view, and further demonstrate how fiber sorbents offer alternative paths in tackling new and challenging chemical separation challenges like direct air capture (DAC), with a final perspective on the future of the field.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA NTRS1991

Next generation functional components for space telemetry data processing

The use of new design methodologies to continue the evolution of telemetry data systems to higher levels of integration is discussed. In particular, hardware description languages and automated logic synthesis tools are used to create very dense Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) that generically implement telemetry processing functions. The use of the ASICs will make it possible to develop a new generation of functional components, each of the components integrating several telemetry processing subsystems into a single card.

Bennett, Toby↗

DOE OSTI2014

Large-Format, Fully-Depleted, Back-Illuminated CMOS Imaging Technology

A Voxtel-led team has developed a new class of large-area, high-performance, backside-illuminated CMOS imaging sensor for low-light-level surveillance applications, specifically designed for both low-noise and high near-infrared (NIR) response. The imager integrates two technologies: 1) large-area backside-illuminated (BSI) imaging; and 2) high-density 3D via-less electrical interconnection and wafer bonding. In this program, Voxtel, in collaboration with Jazz Semiconductor, Sharp Labs and Ziptronix Inc., developed and fabricated a wafer-scale imaging platform. We integrated the design rules necessary for large-area photocomposition using a sub-field stitched reticle at Jazz, and wafer-scale 3D stacked electrical connect using the Ziptronix process. The Jazz CA25QFES process was shown to be ideal for use in the Ziptronix process because of its compatibility with the last via back end of line (BEOL) process used to create tungsten vias up to the wafer surface. To accomplish program goals, Voxtel integrated and fabricated a stitched CMOS ROIC design, and bonded the ROIC to an array of thick, high-resistivity, fully depleted pinned silicon photodiodes, fabricated in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. By fabricating the detector and ROIC separately, the silicon used to fabricate the circuits from the ROIC and the fully depleted, high-resistivity silicon detector array are optimized for their respective tasks, improving their performance, increasing yield, and reducing cost.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Having a Come-Apart: Lessons Learned from Additively Manufactured Hardware Failures

NASA has been engaged with additively manufactured (AM) process and component development since the 2000’s. AM offers various technical advantages, such as enhanced hardware design complexity, part consolidation, and processing of novel alloys in addition to programmatic advantages for reduction in processing time and cost. The focus of much of the AM development at NASA has been to mature the various processes, characterize material properties, develop standards, produce demonstrator parts, and integrate AM hardware in liquid rocket engines. These aspects have been demonstrated through process and design iterations using a methodical characterization, test-fail-fix cycles, as well as application and dissemination of lessons learned. In addition to these fundamental demonstrations of the AM process and hardware development, alloys that provide performance advantages in the high temperature and high-pressure environments have been matured for use in rocket engines. These environments are challenging for any alloy and any design, and the AM process is required to fully meet the intended design requirements. The importance of proper AM process was made evident in the failure of a Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) copper-alloy combustion chamber during a hot-fire test due to a degraded material quality resulted from an AM process issue. The hot-fire test aimed to demonstrate high duty cycle under a risk-tolerant development project, where consequences of component failure would be minimal. However, the unintentional component failure emphasized the necessity of robust material characterization and rigorous process control procedures for the safe use of AM components in critical applications. In part, such concerns motivate the AM certification approach that NASA has recently adopted in NASA-STD-6030 “Additive Manufacturing Requirements for Spaceflight Systems”. This presentation provides an overview of the previously mentioned failure, a discussion on the evaluation of the failed chamber and supplemental chambers produced at the same time, a representative material samples that included intentional build witness lines, and a summary of the key results and recommendations from the evaluations. NASA continues to approach AM processes and designs with a level of risk and acceptance of failures that is appropriate for the project objectives, with the overall goal of safe implementation of AM technology and transferring AM technology into commercial space applications. The objective of this presentation is to provide awareness to the community working critical and non-critical AM components and the lessons learned on proper implementation of AM.

Additive Manufacturing↗

DOE OSTI2022

Array of Graphene Variable Capacitors on 100 mm Silicon Wafers for Vibration-Based Applications

Highly flexible, electrically conductive freestanding graphene membranes hold great promise for vibration-based applications. This study focuses on their integration into mainstream semiconductor manufacturing methods. We designed a two-mask lithography process that creates an array of freestanding graphene-based variable capacitors on 100 mm silicon wafers. The first mask forms long trenches terminated by square wells featuring cone-shaped tips at their centers. The second mask fabricates metal traces from each tip to its contact pad along the trench and a second contact pad opposite the square well. A graphene membrane is then suspended over the square well to form a variable capacitor. The same capacitor structures were also built on 5 mm by 5 mm bare dies containing an integrated circuit underneath. We used atomic force microscopy, optical microscopy, and capacitance measurements in time to characterize the samples.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA NTRS2018

Orion Optical Navigation Progress Toward Exploration: Mission 1

Optical navigation of human spacecraft was proposed on Gemini and implemented successfully on Apollo as a means of autonomously operating the vehicle in the event of lost communication with controllers on Earth. It shares a history with the "method of lunar distances" that was used in the 18th century and gained some notoriety after its use by Captain James Cook during his 1768 Pacific voyage of the HMS Endeavor. The Orion emergency return system utilizing optical navigation has matured in design over the last several years, and is currently undergoing the final implementation and test phase in preparation for Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) in 2019. The software development is being worked as a Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) project delivered as an application within the Core Flight Software of the Orion camera controller module. The mathematical formulation behind the initial ellipse fit in the image processing is detailed in Christian. The non-linear least squares refinement then follows the technique of Mortari as an estimation process of the planetary limb using the sigmoid function. The Orion optical navigation system uses a body fixed camera, a decision that was driven by mass and mechanism constraints. The general concept of operations involves a 2-hour pass once every 24 hours, with passes specifically placed before all maneuvers to supply accurate navigation information to guidance and targeting. The pass lengths are limited by thermal constraints on the vehicle since the OpNav attitude generally deviates from the thermally stable tail-to-sun attitude maintained during the rest of the orbit coast phase. Calibration is scheduled prior to every pass due to the unknown nature of thermal effects on the lens distortion and the mounting platform deformations between the camera and star trackers. The calibration technique is described in detail by Christian, et al. and simultaneously estimates the Brown-Conrady coefficients and the Star Tracker/Camera interlock angles. Accurate attitude information is provided by the star trackers during each pass. Figure 1 shows the various phases of lunar return navigation when the vehicle is in autonomous operation with lost ground communication. The midcourse maneuvers are placed to control the entry interface conditions to the desired corridor for safe landing. The general form of optical navigation on Orion is where still images of the Moon or Earth are processed to find the apparent angular diameter and centroid in the camera focal plane. This raw data is transformed into range and bearing angle measurements using planetary data and precise star tracker inertial attitude. The measurements are then sent to the main flight computer's Kalman filter to update the onboard state vector. The images are, of course, collected over an arc to converge the state and estimate velocity. The same basic technique was used by Apollo to satisfy loss-of-comm, but Apollo used manual crew sightings with a vehicle-integral sextant instead of autonomously processing optical imagery. The software development is past its Critical Design Review, and is progressing through test and certification for human rating. In support of this, a hardware-in-the-loop test rig was developed in the Johnson Space Center Electro-Optics Lab to exercise the OpNav system prior to integrated testing on the Orion vehicle. Figure 2 shows the rig, which the test team has dubbed OCILOT (Orion Camera In the Loop Optical Testbed). Analysis performed to date shows a delivery that satisfies an allowable entry corridor as shown in Figure 3.

Holt, Greg N.↗

DOE OSTI2019

Geothermal-Enabled Zero Energy Electric Community: An Integrated System Design Study

In northern climates, developing a zero-energy community is increasingly costly. Building loads are higher, thanks to the colder weather, and solar PV is both less effective, due to lower solar incidence, and misalignment with the buildings' energy needs (summer production, winter demands). We present a novel application for geothermal energy production in support of a zero-energy community, combining appropriate energy efficiency (demand design), geothermal production (supply design), and asset dispatch as an integrated technoeconomic package. This poster presents the process used to explore this system integration challenge, initial results, and discusses some of the technical opportunities for increasing the community-scale adoption of geothermal as an electric and thermal resource. Results indicate that under certain conditions, community-scale geothermal resources are quite competitive with today's grid tariffs and with PV, showing an LCOE within $0.01/kWh before consideration of important grid modernization factors such as resiliency and reliability.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2014

Micro-scale heat-exchangers for Joule-Thomson cooling.

This project focused on developing a micro-scale counter flow heat exchangers for Joule-Thomson cooling with the potential for both chip and wafer scale integration. This project is differentiated from previous work by focusing on planar, thin film micromachining instead of bulk materials. A process will be developed for fabricating all the devices mentioned above, allowing for highly integrated micro heat exchangers. The use of thin film dielectrics provides thermal isolation, increasing efficiency of the coolers compared to designs based on bulk materials, and it will allow for wafer-scale fabrication and integration. The process is intended to implement a CFHX as part of a Joule-Thomson cooling system for applications with heat loads less than 1mW. This report presents simulation results and investigation of a fabrication process for such devices.

Gross, Andrew John↗

NASA NTRS1985

Ergonomic problems regarding the interactive touch input via screens in onboard and ground-based flight control

A significant problem concerning the integration of display and switching functions is related to the fact that numerous informative data which have to be processed by man must be read from only a few display devices. A satisfactory ergonomic design of integrated display devices and keyboards is in many cases difficult, because not all functions which can be displayed and selected are simultaneously available. A technical solution which provides an integration of display and functional elements on the basis of the highest flexibility is obtained by using a cathode ray tube with a touch-sensitive screen. The employment of an integrated data input/output system is demonstrated for the cases of onboard and ground-based flight control. Ergonomic studies conducted to investigate the suitability of an employment of touch-sensitive screens are also discussed.

Holzhausen, K. P.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Plant growth chamber M design

Crop production is just one of the many processes involved in establishing long term survival of man in space. The benefits of integrating higher plants into the overall plan was recognized early by NASA through the Closed Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) program. The first step is to design, construct, and operate a sealed (gas, liquid, and solid) plant growth chamber. A 3.6 m diameter by 6.7 m high closed cylinder (previously used as a hypobaric vessel during the Mercury program) is being modified for this purpose. The chamber is mounted on legs with the central axis vertical. Entrance to the chamber is through an airlock. This chamber will be devoted entirely to higher plant experimentation. Any waste treatment, food processing or product storage studies will be carried on outside of this chamber. Its primary purpose is to provide input and output data on solids, liquids, and gases for single crop species and multiple species production using different nutrient delivery systems.

Prince, R. P.↗

NASA NTRS2020

PCB Quality Metrics that Drive Reliability (PD 18)

Risk based technology infusion is a deliberate and systematic process which defines the analysis and communication methodology by which new technology is applied and integrated into existing and new designs, identifies technology development needs based on trends analysis and facilitates the identification of shortfalls against performance objectives. This presentation at IPC Works Asia Aerospace 2019 Events provides the audience a snapshot of quality variations in printed wiring board quality, as assessed, using experiences in processing and risk analysis of PWB structural integrity coupons. The presentation will focus on printed wiring board quality metrics used, the relative type and number of non-conformances observed and trend analysis using statistical methods. Trend analysis shows the top five non-conformances observed across PWB suppliers, the root cause(s) behind these non-conformance and suggestions of mitigation plans. The trends will then be matched with the current state of the PWB supplier base and its challenges and opportunities. The presentation further discusses the risk based SMA approaches and methods being applied at GSFC for evaluating candidate printed wiring board technologies which promote the adoption of higher throughput and faster processing technology for GSFC missions.

Sood, Bhanu↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Physics of Failure Approach to Evaluate Printed Circuit Board Reliability

Printed Circuit Boards↗

NASA NTRS1994

A Software Architecture for Automating Operations Processes

The Operations Engineering Lab (OEL) at JPL has developed a software architecture based on an integrated toolkit approach for simplifying and automating mission operations tasks. The toolkit approach is based on building adaptable, reusable graphical tools that are integrated through a combination of libraries, scripts, and system-level user interface shells. The graphical interface shells are designed to integrate and visually guide a user through the complex steps in an operations process. They provide a user with an integrated system-level picture of an overall process, defining the required inputs and possible outputs through interactive on-screen graphics.

mission↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

PCB Quality Metrics that Drive Reliability

Risk-based technology infusion is a deliberate and systematic process that defines the analysis and communication methodology by which new technology is applied and integrated into existing and new designs, identifies technology development needs based on trends analysis and facilitates the identification of shortfalls against performance objectives. This presentation at IPC Works Asia Aerospace 2021 Events provides the audience a snapshot of quality variations in printed-wiring-board quality, as assessed, using experiences in processing and risk analysis of PWB structural integrity coupons. The presentation will focus on printed-wiring-board quality metrics used, the relative type and number of non-conformances observed and trend analysis using statistical methods. Trend analysis shows the top five non-conformances observed across PWB suppliers, the root cause(s) behind these non-conformance and suggestions of mitigation plans. The trends are then matched with the current state of the PWB supplier base and its challenges and opportunities. The presentation further discusses the risk-based SMA approaches and methods being applied at GSFC for evaluating candidate printed wiring board technologies that promote the adoption of higher throughput and faster processing technology for GSFC missions.

Printed circuit boards↗

NASA NTRS1997

Novel Highly Parallel and Systolic Architectures Using Quantum Dot-Based Hardware

VLSI technology has made possible the integration of massive number of components (processors, memory, etc.) into a single chip. In VLSI design, memory and processing power are relatively cheap and the main emphasis of the design is on reducing the overall interconnection complexity since data routing costs dominate the power, time, and area required to implement a computation. Communication is costly because wires occupy the most space on a circuit and it can also degrade clock time. In fact, much of the complexity (and hence the cost) of VLSI design results from minimization of data routing. The main difficulty in VLSI routing is due to the fact that crossing of the lines carrying data, instruction, control, etc. is not possible in a plane. Thus, in order to meet this constraint, the VLSI design aims at keeping the architecture highly regular with local and short interconnection. As a result, while the high level of integration has opened the way for massively parallel computation, practical and full exploitation of such a capability in many applications of interest has been hindered by the constraints on interconnection pattern. More precisely. the use of only localized communication significantly simplifies the design of interconnection architecture but at the expense of somewhat restricted class of applications. For example, there are currently commercially available products integrating; hundreds of simple processor elements within a single chip. However, the lack of adequate interconnection pattern among these processing elements make them inefficient for exploiting a large degree of parallelism in many applications.

Fijany, Amir↗

DOE OSTI2024

Scale-bridging Optimization Framework for Desalination Integrated Produced Water Networks

Produced water (PW) management poses a major challenge to U.S. oil and gas development. Due to freshwater scarcity and PW injection curtailments, desalination may become a necessity in some parts of the country. Integrating rigorous desalination process models within a produced water network for co-optimization of desalination design and network operation can be challenging to scale-up due to computational complexity. In this work we use the trust region filter framework to decompose the integrated optimization problem into an optimization master problem consisting of the network model and simplified surrogates for the desalination units and an optimization sub problem for the rigorous desalination unit model. The approach is demonstrated on a multiperiod produced water network from the PARETO library with thermal desalination units.

Naik, Sakshi↗