Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “INDUSTRIAL SAFETY”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2002

Designing Crane Controls with Applied Mechanical and Electrical Safety Features

The use of overhead traveling bridge cranes in many varied applications is common practice. In particular, the use of cranes in the nuclear, military, commercial, aerospace, and other industries can involve safety critical situations. Considerations for Human Injury or Casualty, Loss of Assets, Endangering the Environment, or Economic Reduction must be addressed. Traditionally, in order to achieve additional safety in these applications, mechanical systems have been augmented with a variety of devices. These devices assure that a mechanical component failure shall reduce the risk of a catastrophic loss of the correct and/or safe load carrying capability. ASME NOG-1-1998, (Rules for Construction of Overhead and Gantry Cranes, Top Running Bridge, and Multiple Girder), provides design standards for cranes in safety critical areas. Over and above the minimum safety requirements of todays design standards, users struggle with obtaining a higher degree of reliability through more precise functional specifications while attempting to provide "smart" safety systems. Electrical control systems also may be equipped with protective devices similar to the mechanical design features. Demands for improvement of the cranes "control system" is often recognized, but difficult to quantify for this traditionally "mechanically" oriented market. Finite details for each operation must be examined and understood. As an example, load drift (or small motions) at close tolerances can be unacceptable (and considered critical). To meet these high functional demands encoders and other devices are independently added to control systems to provide motion and velocity feedback to the control drive. This paper will examine the implementation of Programmable Electronic Systems (PES). PES is a term this paper will use to describe any control system utilizing any programmable electronic device such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), or an Adjustable Frequency Drive (AID) 'smart' programmable motion controller. Therefore the use of the term Programmable Electronic Systems (PES) is an encompassing description for a large spectrum of programmable electronic control devices.

Lytle, Bradford P.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Advanced Software V&V for Civil Aviation and Autonomy

With the advances in high-computing platform (e.g., advanced graphical processing units or multi-core processors), computationally-intensive software techniques such as the ones used in artificial intelligence or formal methods have provided us with an opportunity to further increase safety in the aviation industry. Some of these techniques have facilitated building safety at design time, like in aircraft engines or software verification and validation, and others can introduce safety benefits during operations as long as we adapt our processes. In this talk, I will present how NASA is taking advantage of these new software techniques to build in safety at design time through advanced software verification and validation, which can be applied earlier and earlier in the design life cycle and thus help also reduce the cost of aviation assurance. I will then show how run-time techniques (such as runtime assurance or data analytics) offer us a chance to catch even more complex problems, even in the face of changing and unpredictable environments. These new techniques will be extremely useful as our aviation systems become more complex and more autonomous.

software assurance↗
NASA NTRS2000

FY 2001 and Beyond Program Plan

The scope of the project summarized in this viewgraph presentation is to develop and demonstrate third generation airframe technologies that provide significant reductions in cost of space transportation systems while dramatically improving the safety and higher operability of those systems. The Earth-to-orbit goal is to conduct research and technology development and demonstrations which will enable US industry to increase safety by four orders of magnitude (loss of vehicle/crew probability less than 1 in 1,000,000 missions) and reduce costs by two orders of magnitude within 25 years.

Bowles, Dave↗
DOE OSTI2025

Architecture of the personnel protection systems for Spallation Neutron Source Second Target Station

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is implementing a major upgrade to the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) facility, encompassing the addition of the Second Target Station (STS). Preliminary design reviews have been conducted on several STS Personnel Protection Systems (PPS). The reviews focused primarily on the integration with the existing SNS PPS, the new proton transport tunnel, and the target areas. Development of the PPS is ongoing, to ensure a coherent safety system with the mission of protecting users and workers from prompt radiation hazards while providing high beam availability to operations. The STS PPS element in the Integrated Control System (ICS) is a facility-wide system composed of multiple safety subsystems, including the Ring to Second Target (RTST) beam transport tunnel, Target, Bunker and Instruments. Personnel working in all these geographic areas are protected by modular reliable PPS solutions. The safety system enforces access controls, radiation monitoring, beam destination control, and application of critical device inhibit upon detection of abnormal condition. It uses well-documented processes, Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) safety, pulsed test, and redundancy to achieve the desired Safety Integrity Level (SIL). This paper gives an architectural overview of the STS PPS and a detailed safety plan for the SNS facility, addressing safety solutions and human factors.

Michaelides, Tommy [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000190499869)↗
NASA NTRS1994

Environmental, Safety, and Health Considerations: Composite Materials in the Aerospace Industry

The Aerospace Industries Association, Suppliers of Advanced Composite Materials Association, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration co-sponsored a conference on 'Environmental, Safety, and Health Considerations--Composite Materials in the Aerospace Industry.' The conference was held in Mesa, Arizona, on October 20-21, 1994. Seventeen papers were presented in four sessions including general information, safety, waste, and emissions from composites. Topics range from product stewardship, best work practice, biotransformation of uncured composite materials, to hazardous waste determination and offgassing of composite materials.

Chu, Huai-Pu↗
DOE OSTI2024

Scoping Studies on the Impacts of Increased Enrichment on Nuclear Criticality Safety

Fuel vendors and industry are increasingly interested in new fuel designs with increased enrichment. These fuel types are categorized as high-assay low-enriched uranium: their fuel enrichment is low in the regulatory sense, but it is much higher than industry’s typical operating enrichment bounds. It should be demonstrated that the appropriate mechanisms have been established to control this increased reactivity, and the conditions that arise from common operational occurrences must be considered. This report presents case studies that were conducted to determine whether increased burnable absorber loading can be used to offset increased enrichment. Increases in integral fuel burnable absorber and gadolinium bearing rods in pressurized water reactor (PWR) and boiling water reactor (BWR) assemblies must be examined. Increases in reactivity were shown to be feasibly controlled by increased burnable absorber loading, even when operational specificities were considered, as in BWR partial length rods and PWR annular fuel blankets.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS2021

NASA Engineering and Safety Center Technical Bulletin No. 21-05: Industry Recommendations from Arecibo Observatory Zinc Spelter Socket Joint Failure Analysis

A structural analysis and forensic investigation concluded that the Arecibo Observatory M4N socket joint failure in August 2020 was primarily due to cumulative damage caused by initially low structural design margins and a high percentage of sustained load, resulting in zinc creep deformation, progressive internal socket wire damage, and eventual loss of joint capacity. Open spelter sockets of this type are used throughout industry in stay cables. Recommendations are proposed to prevent failures of similar socket joints, including verification of positive stress margins in socket joint wires for all failure modes, periodic visual inspections with pass/fail criteria for zinc extrusion that are tied to structural qualification, and revisiting codes/ industry standards to capture lessons learned.

Arecibo Observatory↗
NASA NTRS2003

Certification Processes for Safety-Critical and Mission-Critical Aerospace Software

This document is a quick reference guide with an overview of the processes required to certify safety-critical and mission-critical flight software at selected NASA centers and the FAA. Researchers and software developers can use this guide to jumpstart their understanding of how to get new or enhanced software onboard an aircraft or spacecraft. The introduction contains aerospace industry definitions of safety and safety-critical software, as well as, the current rationale for certification of safety-critical software. The Standards for Safety-Critical Aerospace Software section lists and describes current standards including NASA standards and RTCA DO-178B. The Mission-Critical versus Safety-Critical software section explains the difference between two important classes of software: safety-critical software involving the potential for loss of life due to software failure and mission-critical software involving the potential for aborting a mission due to software failure. The DO-178B Safety-critical Certification Requirements section describes special processes and methods required to obtain a safety-critical certification for aerospace software flying on vehicles under auspices of the FAA. The final two sections give an overview of the certification process used at Dryden Flight Research Center and the approval process at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).

Nelson, Stacy↗
NASA NTRS2003

Certification Processes for Safety-Critical and Mission-Critical Aerospace Software

This document is a quick reference guide with an overview of the processes required to certify safety-critical and mission-critical flight software at selected NASA centers and the FAA. Researchers and software developers can use this guide to jumpstart their understanding of how to get new or enhanced software onboard an aircraft or spacecraft. The introduction contains aerospace industry definitions of safety and safety-critical software, as well as, the current rationale for certification of safety-critical software. The Standards for Safety-Critical Aerospace Software section lists and describes current standards including NASA standards and RTCA DO-178B. The Mission-Critical versus Safety-Critical software section explains the difference between two important classes of software: safety-critical software involving the potential for loss of life due to software failure and mission-critical software involving the potential for aborting a mission due to software failure. The DO-178B Safety-critical Certification Requirements section describes special processes and methods required to obtain a safety-critical certification for aerospace software flying on vehicles under auspices of the FAA. The final two sections give an overview of the certification process used at Dryden Flight Research Center and the approval process at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL).

Nelson, Stacy↗
NASA NTRS1990

Critical safety assurance factors for manned spacecraft - A fire safety perspective

Safety assurance factors for manned spacecraft are discussed with a focus on the Space Station Freedom. A hazard scenario is provided to demonstrate a process commonly used by safety engineers and other analysts to identify onboard safety risks. Fire strategies are described, including a review of fire extinguishing agents being considered for the Space Station. Lessons learned about fire safety technology in other areas are also noted. NASA and industry research on fire safety applications is discussed. NASA's approach to ensuring safety for manned spacecraft is addressed in the context of its multidiscipline program.

Rodney, George A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Authoring, Analyzing, and Monitoring Requirements for a Lift-Plus-Cruise Aircraft

Requirements specification and analysis is widely applied to ensure the correctness of industrial systems in safety critical domains. Requirements are often initially written in natural language, which is highly ambiguous, and as a second step transformed into a language with rigorous semantics for formal analysis. In this paper, we report on our experience in requirements creation and analysis, as well as run-time monitor generation using the Formal Requirement Elicitation Tool (FRET), on an industrial case study for a Lift-Plus-Cruise concept aircraft. We study the creation of requirements directly in the structured language of FRET without a prior definition of the same requirements in natural language. We focus on requirements describing state machines and discuss the challenges that we faced, in terms of creating requirements and generating monitors. We demonstrate how realizability, i.e., checking whether a requirements specification can be implemented, is crucial for understanding temporal interdependencies among requirements. Our study is the first complete attempt at using FRET to create industrial, realizable requirements and generate run-time monitors. Insight from lessons learned was materialized into new features in the FRET and JKind analysis frameworks.

Requirements engineering↗
DOE OSTI2025

Safety Assurance Framework for Nuclear Digital Instrumentation and Control Software

Software in digital instrumentation and control (D&C) systems poses unique challenges for the safety assurance of nuclear power plants. Through a literature survey of 21 sources, we analyzed various claims, arguments, and evidence used in safety assurance cases across industries. These were organized into a Goal Structuring Notation (GSN) safety assurance case framework to organize and visualize the various arguments for DI&C safety. We developed a classification for the levels of the framework, which can be used in other safety assurance cases to improve clarity.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Authoring, Analyzing, and Monitoring Requirements for a Lift-Plus-Cruise Aircraft

Requirements specification and analysis is widely applied to ensure the correctness of industrial systems in safety critical domains. Requirements are often initially written in natural language, which is highly ambiguous, and as a second step transformed into a language with rigorous semantics for formal analysis. [Question/problem] In this paper, we report on our experience in requirements creation and analysis, as well as run-time monitor generation using the Formal Requirement Elicitation Tool (FRET), on an industrial case study for a Lift-Plus-Cruise concept aircraft. [Principal ideas/results] We study the creation of requirements directly in the structured language of FRET without a prior definition of the same requirements in natural language. We focus on requirements describing state machines and discuss the challenges that we faced, in terms of creating requirements and generating monitors. We demonstrate how realizability, i.e., checking whether a requirements specification can be implemented, is crucial for understanding temporal interdependencies among requirements. [Contribution] Our study is the first complete attempt at using FRET to create industrial, realizable requirements and generate run-time monitors. Insight from lessons learned was materialized into new features in the FRET and JKind analysis frameworks.

Requirements engineering↗
NASA NTRS2001

Resources Available for Hazards Analysis of Aerospace Fluids

In recent years, the legislative and executive branches of the federal government have pushed to make government more efficient and responsive to the needs of the marketplace. One of these initiatives, Public Law 104-113, also known as the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (NTTAA), is designed to accelerate technology transfer to industry and promote government-industry partnership. Summarized, NTTAA states that '... all Federal agencies and departments shall use technical standards that are developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies, using such technical standards as a means to carry out policy objectives or activities determined by the agencies and departments. Government agencies must now determine if their in-house requirement-setting activities are sufficiently unique that no public interest is served by having them adopted by a voluntary consensus organization (VCO), or if not, to use or develop voluntary consensus standards. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is chartered by the law to monitor federal agency progress and report the results to Congress. In response to NTTAA, agency-wide oxygen and hydrogen safety standards sponsored by the NASA Headquarters (HQ) Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) were obvious choices for early adoption by VCOs. In 1996, HQ sought assistance from the Johnson Space Center (JSC) White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), the technical lead for development of these safety standards, to evaluate their adoption by VCOs. At that time, WSTF-developed propellant hazards manuals were likewise identified for possible VCO adoption. Subsequently, WSTF was asked to represent NASA for development of an international ISO safety standard for hydrogen use. Concurrent with these WSTF standards activities are related efforts to develop and publish propellant hazards analysis protocols and safety courses for the industrial, propellant use of oxygen, hydrogen, and hypergols. This paper reports on these efforts and describes WSTF's overall voluntary consensus standards program to coordinate the interchange of NASA's propellant hazards and safety information with industry.

Woods, S. S.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Advanced manufacturing and digital twin technology for nuclear energy*

Advanced manufacturing techniques and digital twin technology are rapidly transforming the nuclear industry, offering the potential to enhance productivity, safety, and cost-effectiveness. Customized parts are being produced using additive manufacturing, automation, and robotics, while digital twin technology enables the virtual modeling and optimization of complex systems. These advanced technologies can significantly improve operational efficiency, predict system behavior, and optimize maintenance schedules in the nuclear energy sector, leading to heightened safety and reduced downtime. However, the nuclear industry demands the highest levels of safety and security, as well as intricate manufacturing processes and operations. Thus, challenges such as data management and cybersecurity must be addressed to fully realize the potential of advanced manufacturing techniques and digital twin technology in the nuclear industry. This comprehensive review highlights the critical role of digital twin technology with advanced manufacturing toward nuclear energy to improve performance, minimize downtime, and heighten safety, ultimately contributing to the global energy mix by providing dependable and low-carbon electricity.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Engineering an aldoxime dehydratase with high activity and isomer tolerance for biosynthesis of an O -protected primary cyanohydrin

O-protected primary cyanohydrins (glycolonitriles) are important building blocks for many difunctionalized compounds and precursors to known bioactive molecules. Their synthesis, however, utilizes toxic cyanide, which raises significant safety concerns for industrial synthesis. Here, in this study, we present a cyanide-free enzymatic synthesis of an o-benzyl protected primary cyanohydrin from an (E)- or (Z)-α-oxygen protected aldoxime using an engineered aldoxime dehydratase enzyme from Bacillus sp. OxB-1 (OxdB). In contrast to many evolved enzymes that tend to “specialize” as their activity increases, we used directed evolution to engineer OxdB for efficient dehydration of both isomers in a mixture of (E)- or (Z)-α-oxygen aldoximes with high activity and substrate loading to achieve near quantitative yield. Using this enzyme, we further demonstrate a cyanide-free chemoenzymatic pathway to an o-protected primary cyanohydrin starting from a readily available aldehyde, where the aldehyde is first condensed with hydroxylamine, followed by dehydration using our evolved enzyme. This pathway was readily scaled up to 1 g scale with high substrate loading, demonstrating its utility in industrial synthesis of these important building block functional groups.

Aldoxime dehydratase↗
DOE OSTI2023

Impurity gas monitoring using ultrasonic sensing and neural networks: forward and inverse problems

Ultrasonic sensing is a non-invasive technique for monitoring impurity gas composition in various industrial applications where safety and regulatory compliance are crucial. In this study, ultrasonic sensing and neural networks were used to analyze impurity gases (i.e., air and argon) in helium. An experimental platform was established to acquire ultrasonic data. In the forward problem, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was used to forecast the response and time-of-flight (TOF) based on the excitation, and argon and air concentrations. The inverse problem was solved using a convolutional neural network (CNN) to predict the argon and air concentrations given the ultrasonic response and excitation. The results showed that the ANN accurately predicted the ultrasonic response and the change in TOF with concentration. As the air concentration was increased from 0 to 9.8%, the TOF sensitivity to detect argon decreased by 39.8% and 16.1% from ANN and sound speed theory, respectively. The CNN demonstrated high accuracy in predicting concentrations for inputs in the testing dataset. The application of the trained CNN indicated that it over-predicts air concentration while under-predicting the argon concentration. To improve accuracy, the predicted air and argon concentrations should be corrected by -0.992% and 1.027% bias, respectively.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗