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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2018

Modeling Key Predictors of Airport Runway Configurations Using Learning Algorithms

Advanced traffic flow management automation will need accurate predictions of airport runway configurations. Terminal area weather and traffic demand are generally considered to be the most significant factors in predicting runway configuration. Weather information is forecasted across multiple features, including wind direction, wind speed, gusts, cloud ceilings, visibility, temperature, and precipitation, among many others. We use machine learning techniques on historical weather and runway data to determine weather features that correlate well with runway configurations. We analyze the predictive capability of weather features using different learning models trained on data from four major U.S. airports: Atlanta (ATL), Washington – Dulles (IAD), New York – Kennedy (JFK), and San Francisco (SFO). Wind direction alone is strongly correlated with runway configurations above all other examined factors, as expected. This correlation is the most significant component of the ~80% prediction accuracy in selecting between the two most frequently used runway configurations. However, individual airports show variations on how well the runway configuration decisions correlate with wind direction. While wind direction was identified as the most significant indicator of configuration decisions in ATL, IAD, and JFK, it did not emerge as such at SFO. Traffic demand was not found to be a strong factor in predicting runway configurations at any of the airports analyzed. In rare instances, when high demand cannot be accommodated within the current configuration, temporary changes are likely to be attributable to demand. However, these occurrences are so limited in number that their overall effect is not sufficient to consider traffic demand as a major indicator of runway configuration at the airports analyzed.

Bilimoria, Karl D.↗
NASA NTRS1978

The 1990 direct support infrastructure

The airport and cargo terminal were individually analyzed in depth as the principal direct infrastructure components having cross impacts with aircraft carrying cargo. Containerization was also addressed in depth as an infrastructure component since it categorically is linked with and cross impacted by the aircraft, the cargo terminal, the surface transport system, the shipper and consignee, and the actual cargo being moved.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1980

Cargo Logistics Airlift Systems Study (CLASS). Volume 5: Summary

Findings and conclusions derived during the study of freighter aircraft requirements to the year 2008 are summarized. These results represent the stepping off point for the much needed coordinated planning efforts by government agencies, the airlines, the users, and the aircraft manufacturers. The methodology utilized in the investigations is shown. The analysis of the current system encompassed evaluations of the past and current cargo markets and on sight surveys of airport and cargo terminals. The findings that resulted provided the basis for formulating the case study procedures, developing the future scenario, and developing the future cargo market demand.

Burby, R. J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Evaluation of Initial and Mid-Term Air Traffic Procedures for Urban Air Mobility Operations

Urban air mobility (UAM) operations are expected to expand in scale over the next several years as novel aircraft types, including electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, are certified and begin operations. These new aircraft may increase safety, decrease noise, and lower operating costs compared with helicopters, allowing them to operate in ways existing aircraft do not. It is vital that these expanded operations are compatible with and do not disrupt existing operations or the air traffic management system. To study the ways in which scaled UAM operations can best integrate in the national airspace system, NASA and Joby Aviation partnered to conduct a high-fidelity air traffic controller-in-the-loop study. Building on air traffic procedures used to manage high tempo operations in other parts of the airspace, new procedures, routes, and communications protocols were developed and tested by retired controllers in NASA’s Future Flight Central tower simulation facility. In addition, new cooperative airspace constructs in the form of corridors were developed to understand their potential contributions to even greater scales of operation. The controllers managed traffic scenarios in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field airports consisting of fleets of up to 100 UAM aircraft operating alongside traditional traffic . Metrics for air traffic controller workload, duration of communications, departure delays, and other measures of allowable aircraft throughput were collected. The analysis indicates that using today’s procedures for initial UAM operations under nominal conditions could enable up to 40 operations per hour to an airport’s central terminal area if that involved crossing a runway and up to 55operations per hour if reaching the central terminal did not involve crossing a runway. Operations at these tempos did not delay or otherwise interfere with simulated runway traffic and were rated acceptable by the air traffic controllers. The new corridor constructs dramatically lowered controller workload in certain circumstances, suggesting they may be effective in further increasing the allowable scale of operations.

Urban Air Mobility↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Evaluation of Initial and Mid-Term Air Traffic Procedures for Urban Air Mobility

Urban air mobility (UAM) operations are expected to expand in scale over the next several years as novel aircraft types, including electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, are certified and begin operations. These new aircraft may increase safety, decrease noise, and lower operating costs compared with helicopters, allowing them to operate in ways existing aircraft do not. It is vital that these expanded operations are compatible with and do not disrupt existing operations or the air traffic management system. To study the ways in which scaled UAM operations can best integrate in the national airspace system, NASA and Joby Aviation partnered to conduct a high-fidelity air traffic controller-in-the-loop study. Building on air traffic procedures used to manage high tempo operations in other parts of the airspace, new procedures, routes, and communications protocols were developed and tested by retired controllers in NASA’s Future Flight Central tower simulation facility. In addition, new cooperative airspace constructs in the form of corridors were developed to understand their potential contributions to even greater scales of operation. The controllers managed traffic scenarios in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field airports consisting of fleets of up to 100 UAM aircraft operating alongside traditional traffic. Metrics for air traffic controller workload, duration of communications, departure delays, and other measures of allowable aircraft throughput were collected. The analysis indicates that using today’s procedures for initial UAM operations under nominal conditions could enable up to 40 operations per hour to an airport’s central terminal area if that involved crossing a runway and up to 55 operations per hour if reaching the central terminal did not involve crossing a runway. Operations at these tempos did not delay or otherwise interfere with simulated runway traffic and were rated acceptable by the air traffic controllers. The new corridor constructs dramatically lowered controller workload in certain circumstances, suggesting they may be effective in further increasing the allowable scale of operations.

Advanced Air Mobility↗
NASA NTRS2003

IFR Operations at Non-Towered, Non-Radar Airports: Can we do Better Than One-at-a-Time?

This paper describes a new concept for operations in non-radar terminal airspace around small, nontowered airports. Currently, air traffic operations in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) at airfields without control towers and radar service are severely constrained by what is known as the one-in/one-out paradigm. Under these conditions only one operation (either arrival or departure) is allowed to occur at a time. Since these operations can take over 15 minutes to complete, capacity at these airports is severely restricted in IMC. The proposed concept is an attempt to break this current paradigm by applying emerging airborne and ground-based technologies to enable simultaneous operations by multiple aircraft in nonradar terminal airspace around small non-towered airports in IMC. The general philosophy underlying this concept of operations is the establishment of a newly defined area surrounding these airports called a Self-Controlled Area (SCA). Aircraft operating within the SCA are required to have a specified minimum level of equipage. Within the SCA, pilots are responsible for separating themselves from other similarly equipped aircraft through the use of new onboard systems and procedures. This concept also takes advantage of newly developed automation at the airport, which provides appropriate sequencing information to the pilots for safe and improved operations. Such operations would enhance the opportunity for point-to-point air taxi or charter operations into smaller airfields that are closer to a traveler s origin and destination. A description of this concept of operations and a simulation environment used for evaluation is provided in this paper.

Jones, K.↗
NASA NTRS2006

The Airspace Concepts Evaluation System Architecture and System Plant

The Airspace Concepts Evaluation System is a simulation of the National Airspace System. It includes models of flights, airports, airspaces, air traffic controls, traffic flow managements, and airline operation centers operating throughout the United States. It is used to predict system delays in response to future capacity and demand scenarios and perform benefits assessments of current and future airspace technologies and operational concepts. Facilitation of these studies requires that the simulation architecture supports plug and play of different air traffic control, traffic flow management, and airline operation center models and multi-fidelity modeling of flights, airports, and airspaces. The simulation is divided into two parts that are named, borrowing from classical control theory terminology, control and plant. The control consists of air traffic control, traffic flow management, and airline operation center models, and the plant consists of flight, airport, and airspace models. The plant can run open loop, in the absence of the control. However, undesired affects, such as conflicts and over congestions in the airspaces and airports, can occur. Different controls are applied, "plug and played", to the plant. A particular control is evaluated by analyzing how well it managed conflicts and congestions. Furthermore, the terminal area plants consist of models of airports and terminal airspaces. Each model consists of a set of nodes and links which are connected by the user to form a network. Nodes model runways, fixes, taxi intersections, gates, and/or other points of interest, and links model taxiways, departure paths, and arrival paths. Metering, flow distribution, and sequencing functions can be applied at nodes. Different fidelity model of how a flight transits are can be used by links. The fidelity of the model can be adjusted by the user by either changing the complexity of the node/link network-or the way that the link models how the flights transit from one node to the other.

Windhorst, Robert↗
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluation of Performance Variables to Accelerate the Deployment of Sustainable Aviation Fuels at a Regional Scale

An increase in jet fuel consumption and its associated emissions across the world have led to the need for alternative technologies to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). One option to produce SAFs is to utilize waste or biomass-based feedstocks that has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% or more compared to conventional jet fuel. However, there is a lack of understanding of how the synergistic effects of key performance variables could hinder or help the deployment of aviation fuels on a regional scale. Here, we assess the implications of key variables-including type and quantity of waste/biomass feedstock availability near the airport, cost of SAF production, life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, policies, and fuel/infrastructure logistics-on the deployment of SAF at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. We consider three ASTM International-approved SAF technologies (Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids, Fischer-Tropsch, and Alcohol to Jet) that can be blended up to 50% with petroleum-based jet fuel. Results from our analysis show that woody biomass-based Fischer-Tropsch technology has the lowest fuel production costs ($2.31-$2.81/gallon gasoline equivalent) of all pathways, and it reduces life cycle GHG emissions by 86% compared to conventional jet fuel despite the higher availability of crop residues compared to either woody biomass or fats, oils, and greases. Also, infrastructure is available at O'Hare International Airport to blend SAF with Jet A fuel through three terminals directly connected to the airport via pipelines. Our sensitivity analysis shows renewable fuel incentives and feedstock price to be key performance variables affecting the production cost and deployment of SAF.

alcohol-to-jet↗
NASA NTRS1979

Flight performance of the TCV B-737 airplane at Kennedy Airport using TRSB/MLS guidance

The terminal configured vehicle (TCV) B 737 was flown in demonstration of the time reference scanning beam/microwave landing system (TRSB/MLS). The flight performance of the TCV airplane during the demonstration automatic approaches and landings while utilizing TRSB/MLS guidance is reported. The TRSB/MLS is shown to provide the terminal area guidance necessary for flying curved automatic approaches with short finals.

White, W. F.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The ASLOTS concept: An interactive, adaptive decision support concept for Final Approach Spacing of Aircraft (FASA). FAA-NASA Joint University Program

This presentation outlines a concept for an adaptive, interactive decision support system to assist controllers at a busy airport in achieving efficient use of multiple runways. The concept is being implemented as a computer code called FASA (Final Approach Spacing for Aircraft), and will be tested and demonstrated in ATCSIM, a high fidelity simulation of terminal area airspace and airport surface operations. Objectives are: (1) to provide automated cues to assist controllers in the sequencing and spacing of landing and takeoff aircraft; (2) to provide the controller with a limited ability to modify the sequence and spacings between aircraft, and to insert takeoffs and missed approach aircraft in the landing flows; (3) to increase spacing accuracy using more complex and precise separation criteria while reducing controller workload; and (4) achieve higher operational takeoff and landing rates on multiple runways in poor visibility.

Simpson, Robert W.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Performance of an Automated System for Control of Traffic in Terminal Airspace

This paper examines the performance of a system that performs automated conflict resolution and arrival scheduling for aircraft in the terminal airspace around major airports. Such a system has the potential to perform separation assurance and arrival sequencing tasks that are currently handled manually by human controllers. The performance of the system is tested against several simulated traffic scenarios that are characterized by the rate at which air traffic is metered into the terminal airspace. For each traffic scenario, the levels of performance that are examined include: number of conflicts predicted to occur, types of resolution maneuver used to resolve predicted conflicts, and the amount of delay for all flights. The simulation results indicate that the percentage of arrivals that required a maneuver that changes the flight's horizontal route ranged between 11% and 15% in all traffic scenarios. That finding has certain implications if this automated system were to be implemented simply as a decision support tool. It is also found that arrival delay due to purely wake vortex separation requirements on final approach constituted only between 29% and 35% of total arrival delay, while the remaining major portion of it is mainly due to delay back propagation effects.

air traffic control↗
NASA NTRS2011

System Oriented Runway Management: A Research Update

The runway configuration used by an airport has significant implications with respect to its capacity and ability to effectively manage surface and airborne traffic. Aircraft operators rely on runway configuration information because it can significantly affect an airline's operations and planning of their resources. Current practices in runway management are limited by a relatively short time horizon for reliable weather information and little assistance from automation. Wind velocity is the primary consideration when selecting a runway configuration; however when winds are below a defined threshold, discretion may be used to determine the configuration. Other considerations relevant to runway configuration selection include airport operator constraints, weather conditions (other than winds) traffic demand, user preferences, surface congestion, and navigational system outages. The future offers an increasingly complex landscape for the runway management process. Concepts and technologies that hold the potential for capacity and efficiency increases for both operations on the airport surface and in terminal and enroute airspace are currently under investigation. Complementary advances in runway management are required if capacity and efficiency increases in those areas are to be realized. The System Oriented Runway Management (SORM) concept has been developed to address this critical part of the traffic flow process. The SORM concept was developed to address all aspects of runway management for airports of varying sizes and to accommodate a myriad of traffic mixes. SORM, to date, addresses the single airport environment; however, the longer term vision is to incorporate capabilities for multiple airport (Metroplex) operations as well as to accommodate advances in capabilities resulting from ongoing research. This paper provides an update of research supporting the SORM concept including the following: a concept of overview, results of a TRCM simulation, single airport and Metroplex modeling effort and a benefits assessment.

Lohr, Gary W.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Autonomous Coordinated Airspace Services for Terminal and Enroute Operations with Wind Errors

As novel uses of the airspace continue to multiply, there is increasing demand for access to high-density terminal areas around major airports. Since the predicted demand for urban-air-mobility and urban-package-delivery is very high, and the interactions between these different types of aircraft and missions will be extremely complex, increasingly autonomous systems will be required to manage safety and efficiency. This paper presents the current status of an autonomous safety system designed to ensure safe and efficient trajectories for aircraft in terminal airspace, the Terminal Advanced Airspace Concept. Previous papers have demonstrated the efficacy of this algorithm for handling commercial arrivals into a complex metroplex when there is no uncertainty present. This study extends that work to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm under high levels of uncertainty.

terminal operations↗
NASA NTRS2018

Autonomous Coordinated Airspace Services for Terminal and Enroute Operations with Wind Errors

As novel uses of the airspace continue to multiply, there is increasing demand for access to high-density terminal areas around major airports. Since the predicted demand for urban-air-mobility and urban-package-delivery is very high, and the interactions between these different types of aircraft and missions will be extremely complex, increasingly autonomous systems will be required to manage safety and efficiency. This paper presents the current status of an autonomous safety system designed to ensure safe and efficient trajectories for aircraft in terminal airspace, the Terminal Advanced Airspace Concept. Previous papers have demonstrated the efficacy of this algorithm for handling commercial arrivals into a complex metroplex when there is no uncertainty present. This study extends that work to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm under high levels of uncertainty.

terminal operations↗
NASA NTRS1981

Charged particle concepts for fog dispersion

Charged particle techniques hold promise for dispersing warm fog in the terminal area of commercial airports. This report focuses on features of the charged particle technique which require further study. The basic physical principles of the technique and the major verification experiments carried out in the past are described. The fundamentals of the nozzle operation are given. The nozzle characteristics and the theory of particle charging in the nozzle are discussed, including information from extensive literature on electrostatic precipitation relative to environmental pollution control and a description of some preliminary reported analyses on the jet characteristics and interaction with neighboring jets. The equation governing the transfer of water substances and of electrical charge is given together with a brief description of several semi-empirical, mathematical expressions necessary for the governing equations. The necessary ingredients of a field experiment to verify the system once a prototype is built are described.

Frost, W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Three-dimensional numerical simulation of the 20 June 1991, Orlando microburst

On 20 June 1991, NASA's Boeing 737, equipped with in-situ and look-ahead wind-shear detection systems, made direct low-level penetrations (300-350 m AGL) through a microburst during several stages of its evolution. This microburst was located roughly 20 km northeast of Orlando International Airport and was monitored by a Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) located about 10 km south of the airport. The first NASA encounter with this microburst (Event 142), at approximately 2041 UTC, was during its intensification phase. At flight level, in-situ measurements indicated a peak 1-km (averaged) F-factor of approximately 0.1. The second NASA encounter (Event 143) occurred at approximately 2046 UTC, about the time of microburst peak intensity. It was during this penetration that a peak 1-km F-factor of approximately 17 was encountered, which was the largest in-situ measurement of the 1991 summer deployment. By the third encounter (Event 144), at approximately 2051 UTC, the microburst had expanded into a macroburst. During this phase of evolution, an in-situ 1-km F-factor of 0.08 was measured. The focus of this paper is to examine this microburst via numerical simulation from an unsteady, three-dimensional meteorological cloud model. The simulated high-resolution data fields of wind, temperature, radar reflectivity factor, and precipitation are closely examined so as to derive information not readily available from 'observations' and to enhance our understanding of the actual event. Characteristics of the simulated microburst evolution are compared with TDWR and in-situ measurements.

Proctor, Fred H.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Characterizing the wake vortex signature for an active line of sight remote sensor

A recurring phenomenon, described as a wake vortex, develops as an aircraft approaches the runway to land. As the aircraft moves along the runway, each of the wing tips generates a spiraling and expanding cone of air. During the lifetime of this turbulent event, conditions exist over the runway which can be hazardous to following aircraft, particularly when a small aircraft is following a large aircraft. Left to themselves, these twin vortex patterns will converge toward each other near the center of the runway, harmlessly dissipating through interaction with each other or by contact with the ground. Unfortunately, the time necessary to disperse the vortex is often not predictable, and at busy airports can severely impact terminal area productivity. Rudimentary methods of avoidance are in place. Generally, time delays between landing aircraft are based on what is required to protect a small aircraft. Existing ambient wind conditions can complicate the situation. Reliable detection and tracking of a wake vortex hazard is a major technical problem which can significantly impact runway productivity. Landing minimums could be determined on the basis of the actual hazard rather than imposed on the basis of a worst case scenario. This work focuses on using a windfield description of a wake vortex to generate line-of-sight Doppler velocity truth data appropriate to an arbitrarily located active sensor such as a high resolution radar or lidar. The goal is to isolate a range Doppler signature of the vortex phenomenon that can be used to improve detection. Results are presented based on use of a simplified model of a wake vortex pattern. However, it is important to note that the method of analysis can easily be applied to any vortex model used to generate a windfield snapshot. Results involving several scan strategies are shown for a point sensor with a range resolution of 1 to 4 meters. Vortex signatures presented appear to offer potential for detection and tracking.

Heil, Robert Milton↗