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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 991 records · Page 55
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NASA NTRS1996

Establishment of a Beta Test Center for the NPARC Code at Central State University

Central State University has received a supplementary award to purchase computer workstations for the NPARC (National Propulsion Ames Research Center) computational fluid dynamics code BETA Test Center. The computational code has also been acquired for installation on the workstations. The acquisition of this code is an initial step for CSU in joining an alliance composed of NASA, AEDC, The Aerospace Industry, and academia. A post-Doctoral research Fellow from a neighboring university will assist the PI in preparing a template for Tutorial documents for the BETA test center. The major objective of the alliance is to establish a national applications-oriented CFD capability, centered on the NPARC code. By joining the alliance, the BETA test center at CSU will allow the PI, as well as undergraduate and post-graduate students to test the capability of the NPARC code in predicting the physics of aerodynamic/geometric configurations that are of interest to the alliance. Currently, CSU is developing a once a year, hands-on conference/workshop based upon the experience acquired from running other codes similar to the NPARC code in the first year of this grant.

Okhio, Cyril B.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Compilation of Abstracts for SC12 Conference Proceedings

1 A Breakthrough in Rotorcraft Prediction Accuracy Using Detached Eddy Simulation; 2 Adjoint-Based Design for Complex Aerospace Configurations; 3 Simulating Hypersonic Turbulent Combustion for Future Aircraft; 4 From a Roar to a Whisper: Making Modern Aircraft Quieter; 5 Modeling of Extended Formation Flight on High-Performance Computers; 6 Supersonic Retropropulsion for Mars Entry; 7 Validating Water Spray Simulation Models for the SLS Launch Environment; 8 Simulating Moving Valves for Space Launch System Liquid Engines; 9 Innovative Simulations for Modeling the SLS Solid Rocket Booster Ignition; 10 Solid Rocket Booster Ignition Overpressure Simulations for the Space Launch System; 11 CFD Simulations to Support the Next Generation of Launch Pads; 12 Modeling and Simulation Support for NASA's Next-Generation Space Launch System; 13 Simulating Planetary Entry Environments for Space Exploration Vehicles; 14 NASA Center for Climate Simulation Highlights; 15 Ultrascale Climate Data Visualization and Analysis; 16 NASA Climate Simulations and Observations for the IPCC and Beyond; 17 Next-Generation Climate Data Services: MERRA Analytics; 18 Recent Advances in High-Resolution Global Atmospheric Modeling; 19 Causes and Consequences of Turbulence in the Earths Protective Shield; 20 NASA Earth Exchange (NEX): A Collaborative Supercomputing Platform; 21 Powering Deep Space Missions: Thermoelectric Properties of Complex Materials; 22 Meeting NASA's High-End Computing Goals Through Innovation; 23 Continuous Enhancements to the Pleiades Supercomputer for Maximum Uptime; 24 Live Demonstrations of 100-Gbps File Transfers Across LANs and WANs; 25 Untangling the Computing Landscape for Climate Simulations; 26 Simulating Galaxies and the Universe; 27 The Mysterious Origin of Stellar Masses; 28 Hot-Plasma Geysers on the Sun; 29 Turbulent Life of Kepler Stars; 30 Modeling Weather on the Sun; 31 Weather on Mars: The Meteorology of Gale Crater; 32 Enhancing Performance of NASAs High-End Computing Applications; 33 Designing Curiosity's Perfect Landing on Mars; 34 The Search Continues: Kepler's Quest for Habitable Earth-Sized Planets.

HPC↗
NASA NTRS2017

Assessment of Intralaminar Progressive Damage and Failure Analysis Using an Efficient Evaluation Framework

Reducing the timeline for development and certification for composite structures has been a long standing objective of the aerospace industry. This timeline can be further exacerbated when attempting to integrate new fiber-reinforced composite materials due to the large number of testing required at every level of design. computational progressive damage and failure analysis (PDFA) attempts to mitigate this effect; however, new PDFA methods have been slow to be adopted in industry since material model evaluation techniques have not been fully defined. This study presents an efficient evaluation framework which uses a piecewise verification and validation (V&V) approach for PDFA methods. Specifically, the framework is applied to evaluate PDFA research codes within the context of intralaminar damage. Methods are incrementally taken through various V&V exercises specifically tailored to study PDFA intralaminar damage modeling capability. Finally, methods are evaluated against a defined set of success criteria to highlight successes and limitations.

Hyder, Imran↗
NASA NTRS2020

Flutter Analysis with Stabilized Finite Elements Based on the Linearized Frequency-Domain Approach

When designing and certifying aircraft, engineers must take into consideration aeroelastic effects such as flutter. Design and certification of a vehicle may require analysis of thousands of aeroelastic responses. Standard tools in the aerospace industry are based on linear aerodynamic models such as the doublet-lattice method, but these methods can be nonconservative in certain situations such as in the transonic regime. While computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a higher fidelity alternative, the time-marching approach has a drastically increased computational cost compared to the linear aerodynamic methods. By taking advantage of the periodic nature of flutter, frequency-domain methods offer a more efficient alternative to time-marching CFD. In this work, a linearized frequency-domain method is implemented and verified in the stabilized finite-element solver in FUN3D. The linearized frequency-domain method is demonstrated and compared to other methods for traditional benchmark cases for computational aeroelasticity: the AGARD 445.6 wing, the Benchmark Supercritical Wing, and the Benchmark NACA 0012Wing.

Kevin E Jacobson↗
NASA NTRS2022

Building and Breaking Carbon Composites with REACTER

Carbon-based composites have become indispensable materials in aerospace and other high-performance applications, yet obtaining a detailed, nanoscale understanding of their morphology and failure mechanisms using only experimental methods remains a difficult challenge. REACTER is a versatile computational modeling tool for atomistic molecular dynamics simulations designed to model chemical reactions at the speed and length scales of classical force fields. In this work, several recent features of REACTER were applied to the creation and subsequent mechanical testing of two classes of carbon composites: carbon nanotube (CNT) composites and carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP). A network of CNTs was grown dynamically using the new ‘create atoms’ feature of REACTER. The CNT filler was embedded into a polyarylacetylene (PAA) matrix by simulated in situ polymerization to obtain the final composite model. To generate the second class of carbon composite, fully carbonized (graphitic) carbon fiber morphologies were created by the method of Desai et al. [1], but using the advanced reaction constraints framework of REACTER. Two fiber models were created, representing a circular carbon fiber core and a flat surface, and similarly infiltrated with resin to obtain the final CFRP structure. Failure mechanisms were elucidated by simulating mechanically induced bond breaking, as characterized by third order DFT-based tight-binding simulations, via a reaction constraint on the total potential energy of the involved atoms.

Polymer↗
NASA NTRS2003

Monte Carlo Methodology Serves Up a Software Success

Widely used for the modeling of gas flows through the computation of the motion and collisions of representative molecules, the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method has become the gold standard for producing research and engineering predictions in the field of rarefied gas dynamics. Direct Simulation Monte Carlo was first introduced in the early 1960s by Dr. Graeme Bird, a professor at the University of Sydney, Australia. It has since proved to be a valuable tool to the aerospace and defense industries in providing design and operational support data, as well as flight data analysis. In 2002, NASA brought to the forefront a software product that maintains the same basic physics formulation of Dr. Bird's method, but provides effective modeling of complex, three-dimensional, real vehicle simulations and parallel processing capabilities to handle additional computational requirements, especially in areas where computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is not applicable. NASA's Direct Simulation Monte Carlo Analysis Code (DAC) software package is now considered the Agency s premier high-fidelity simulation tool for predicting vehicle aerodynamics and aerothermodynamic environments in rarified, or low-density, gas flows.

Source record↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Solid-state Architecture Batteries for Enhanced Rechargeability and Safety for Electric Aircraft

All electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOL) for urban air mobility (UAM) concepts face numerous challenging technical barriers before their introduction into the consumer marketplace. The most challenging of these technical barriers to overcome is developing an energy storage system capable of meeting the rigorous aerospace safety and performance criteria. The performance metrics for eVTOL craft are at least 2 times greater than those of electric automobiles. Furthermore, safety is essential for operation of commercial electric aerovehicles. Preliminary systems level analysis has indicated that there are five key properties which must be optimized for successful implementation of battery systems. Those five key criteria are: safety, energy density, power, packaging design and scalability. Current state-of-the-art (SOA) lithium-ion batteries meet or exceed the requirements for electric aviation in the areas of power and scalability, yet are insufficient in the key performance criteria of energy, safety and packaging design. The SABERS concept proposes a battery that meets all five key performance criteria through development of a solid-state architecture battery utilizing high energy density and power density sulfur-selenium cathode with a lithium metal anode. The combination of sulfur and selenium offers a balanced energy-to-power density ratio, which can be tailored to the specific application by altering the stoichiometric ratios of sulfur to selenium. This cathode will be developed by implementing NASA patented holey graphene technology as a highly conductive, ultra-lightweight electrode scaffold. A solid-state electrolyte will be used as a safe, non-flammable replacement to the highly flammable liquid organic electrolytes currently used in SOA lithium-ion batteries. This solid-state lithium-sulfur-selenium cell will be designed into a serial stacking configuration to enable dense packaging of the battery cells. The serial stacking configuration is termed a bipolar stack, which has the advantages of reducing overall cell weight, reducing the amount of interfaced connections for the cell, and minimizing the cooling requirements for the cell. Lastly, optimization of battery components will occur through a robust and rigorous combination of various computational modeling techniques covering multiple length scales. The expected result will be a fully solid-state battery with operational temperatures from 0 °C to 150 °C which provides the required energy density, discharge rates, and inherent safety to meet the strict aerospace performance criteria. This presentation will show initial results that demonstrate the SABERS Team has developed a composite carbon-sulfur cathode which exceeds 1100 Wh/kg at a discharge rate of 0.4C, and 804 Wh/kg at a discharge rate of 1C. Additionally, this presentation will show the SABERS Team multiscale computational modeling approach and has produced a novel particle dynamics method called Solid Electrolyte Sphere Approximation Model (SESAM). SESAM is on the 1-10 µm scale and provides electromechanical and grain interactions for predictive design guidelines for the experimental team to follow.

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Vehicles↗
NASA NTRS2014

Space Shuttle and Hypersonic Entry

Fifty years of human spaceflight have been characterized by the aerospace operations of the Soyuz, of the Space Shuttle and, more recently, of the Shenzhou. The lessons learned of this past half decade are important and very significant. Particularly interesting is the scenario that is downstream from the retiring of the Space Shuttle. A number of initiatives are, in fact, emerging from in the aftermath of the decision to terminate the Shuttle program. What is more and more evident is that a new era is approaching: the era of the commercial usage and of the commercial exploitation of space. It is probably fair to say, that this is the likely one of the new frontiers of expansion of the world economy. To make a comparison, in the last 30 years our economies have been characterized by the digital technologies, with examples ranging from computers, to cellular phones, to the satellites themselves. Similarly, the next 30 years are likely to be characterized by an exponential increase of usage of extra atmospheric resources, as a result of more economic and efficient way to access space, with aerospace transportation becoming accessible to commercial investments. We are witnessing the first steps of the transportation of future generation that will drastically decrease travel time on our Planet, and significantly enlarge travel envelope including at least the low Earth orbits. The Steve Jobs or the Bill Gates of the past few decades are being replaced by the aggressive and enthusiastic energy of new entrepreneurs. It is also interesting to note that we are now focusing on the aerospace band, that lies on top of the aeronautical shell, and below the low Earth orbits. It would be a mistake to consider this as a known envelope based on the evidences of the flights of Soyuz, Shuttle and Shenzhou. Actually, our comprehension of the possible hypersonic flight regimes is bounded within really limited envelopes. The achievement of a full understanding of the hypersonic flight regimes will be a key enabler to facilitate the consolidation of the new emerging scenarios. The objective of this symposium is therefore to focus on lesson learned, to then analyze the main elements of those new scenarios, both from Institutional and Private sectors; and finally provide the leads for future collaboration opportunities between Italy, the United States and international partners, so to join profitably the opportunities offered by this new era of the aerospace technologies.

Campbell, Charles H.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Bringing Back the Social Affordances of the Paper Memo to Aerospace Systems Engineering Work

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is a relatively new field that brings together the interdisciplinary study of technological components of a project (systems engineering) with a model-based ontology to express the hierarchical and behavioral relationships between the components (computational modeling). Despite the compelling promises of the benefits of MBSE, such as improved communication and productivity due to an underlying language and data model, we observed hesitation to its adoption at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. To investigate, we conducted a six-month ethnographic field investigation and needs validation with 19 systems engineers. This paper contributes our observations of a generational shift in one of JPL's core technologies. We report on a cultural misunderstanding between communities of practice that bolsters the existing technology drag. Given the high cost of failure, we springboard our observations into a design hypothesis - an intervention that blends the social affordances of the narrative-based work flow with the rich technological advantages of explicit data references and relationships of the model-based approach. We provide a design rationale, and the results of our evaluation.

design↗
NASA NTRS1975

Interactive computer aided technology, evolution in the design/manufacturing process

A powerful computer-operated three dimensional graphic system and associated auxiliary computer equipment used in advanced design, production design, and manufacturing was described. This system has made these activities more productive than when using older and more conventional methods to design and build aerospace vehicles. With the use of this graphic system, designers are now able to define parts using a wide variety of geometric entities, define parts as fully surface 3-dimensional models as well as "wire-frame" models. Once geometrically defined, the designer is able to take section cuts of the surfaced model and automatically determine all of the section properties of the planar cut, lightpen detect all of the surface patches and automatically determine the volume and weight of the part. Further, his designs are defined mathematically at a degree of accuracy never before achievable.

English, C. H.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Feasibility study of an Integrated Program for Aerospace vehicle Design (IPAD). Volume 6: IPAD system development and operation

The strategy of the IPAD implementation plan presented, proposes a three phase development of the IPAD system and technical modules, and the transfer of this capability from the development environment to the aerospace vehicle design environment. The system and technical module capabilities for each phase of development are described. The system and technical module programming languages are recommended as well as the initial host computer system hardware and operating system. The cost of developing the IPAD technology is estimated. A schedule displaying the flowtime required for each development task is given. A PERT chart gives the developmental relationships of each of the tasks and an estimate of the operational cost of the IPAD system is offered.

Redhed, D. D.↗
NASA NTRS1987

NASCRAC - A computer code for fracture mechanics analysis of crack growth

NASCRAC - a computer code for fracture mechanics analysis of crack growth - is described in this paper. The need for such a code is increasing as requirements grow for high reliability and low weight in aerospace components. The code is comprehensive and versatile, as well as user friendly. The major purpose of the code is calculation of fatigue, corrosion fatigue, or stress corrosion crack growth, and a variety of crack growth relations can be selected by the user. Additionally, crack retardation models are included. A very wide variety of stress intensity factor solutions are contained in the code, and extensive use is made of influence functions. This allows complex stress gradients in three-dimensional crack problems to be treated easily and economically. In cases where previous stress intensity factor solutions are not adequate, new influence functions can be calculated by the code. Additional features include incorporation of J-integral solutions from the literature and a capability for estimating elastic-plastic stress redistribution from the results of a corresponding elastic analysis. An example problem is presented which shows typical outputs from the code.

Harris, D. O.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Object oriented studies into artificial space debris

A prototype simulation is being developed under contract to the Royal Aerospace Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, England, to assist in the discrimination of artificial space objects/debris. The methodology undertaken has been to link Object Oriented programming, intelligent knowledge based system (IKBS) techniques and advanced computer technology with numeric analysis to provide a graphical, symbolic simulation. The objective is to provide an additional layer of understanding on top of conventional classification methods. Use is being made of object and rule based knowledge representation, multiple reasoning, truth maintenance and uncertainty. Software tools being used include Knowledge Engineering Environment (KEE) and SymTactics for knowledge representation. Hooks are being developed within the SymTactics framework to incorporate mathematical models describing orbital motion and fragmentation. Penetration and structural analysis can also be incorporated. SymTactics is an Object Oriented discrete event simulation tool built as a domain specific extension to the KEE environment. The tool provides facilities for building, debugging and monitoring dynamic (military) simulations.

Adamson, J. M.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Materials Genome Initiative Element

NASA is committed to developing new materials and manufacturing methods that can enable new missions with ever increasing mission demands. Typically, the development and certification of new materials and manufacturing methods in the aerospace industry has required more than 20 years of development time with a costly testing and certification program. To reduce the cost and time to mature these emerging technologies, NASA is developing computational materials tools to improve understanding of the material and guide the certification process.

Vickers, John↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Analysis of Spacecraft Materials Discrimination Using Color Indices for Remote Sensing for Space Situational Awareness

The increasing number of space missions have resulted in an augmented density of artificial objects positioned in orbital domains near Earth. Knowing the material composition of the resident space object can be of value in object identification and risk assessment using remote sensing techniques. To perform this task, it is increasingly imperative to optically characterize spacecraft materials to identify unique material-specific spectroscopic markers. In this work, a variety of materials frequently utilized by the aerospace industry in spacecraft design and construction were analyzed using reflectance spectroscopy. The collected data provide a spectral characterization baseline for modern-day and historical spacecraft materials. The color index was computed for standard astronomical and suggested theoretical filter passbands and compared to each other in their capability to discriminate materials belonging to different classes. The color index was calculated from reflectance spectra of common spacecraft materials in their pristine, as-received conditions that fell under different family groupings. Different color-index combinations were studied using color-color diagrams. Visual and quantitative analysis of the color-color diagrams were used to evaluate the possibility of discriminating materials from one another by means of optical measurements. Results of the analysis show that polyimide and photovoltaic materials are most easy to discriminate from all other materials via color indices using different filter passbands evaluated in this study.

spectral reflectance↗
NASA NTRS1993

Proteus two-dimensional Navier-Stokes computer code, version 2.0. Volume 2: User's guide

A computer code called Proteus 2D was developed to solve the two-dimensional planar or axisymmetric, Reynolds-averaged, unsteady compressible Navier-Stokes equations in strong conservation law form. The objective in this effort was to develop a code for aerospace propulsion applications that is easy to use and easy to modify. Code readability, modularity, and documentation were emphasized. The governing equations are solved in generalized nonorthogonal body-fitted coordinates, by marching in time using a fully-coupled ADI solution procedure. The boundary conditions are treated implicitly. All terms, including the diffusion terms, are linearized using second-order Taylor series expansions. Turbulence is modeled using either an algebraic or two-equation eddy viscosity model. The thin-layer or Euler equations may also be solved. The energy equation may be eliminated by the assumption of constant total enthalpy. Explicit and implicit artificial viscosity may be used. Several time step options are available for convergence acceleration. The documentation is divided into three volumes. This is the User's Guide, and describes the program's features, the input and output, the procedure for setting up initial conditions, the computer resource requirements, the diagnostic messages that may be generated, the job control language used to run the program, and several test cases.

Towne, Charles E.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Computational Investigation of Supersonic Boundary Layer Transition Over Canonical Fuselage Nose Configurations

Boundary layer transition over axisymmetric bodies at non-zero angle of attack in supersonic flow is numerically investigated as part of joint research between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Transition over four axisymmetric bodies (namely, Sears-Haack body, semi-Sears-Haack body, 5-degree straight cone and flared cone) with different axial pressure gradients has been studied at Mach 2 in order to understand the effect of axial pressure gradient on instability amplification along the leeward symmetry plane and in the region of nonzero crossflow away from it. Comparisons are made with measured transition data in Mach 2 facilities as well as with predicted and measured transition characteristics for a 5-degree straight cone in a Mach 3.5 low disturbance tunnel. Limitations of using linear stability correlations for predicting transition over axisymmetric bodies at angle of attack are pointed out.

Choudhari, Meelan M.↗
NASA NTRS2004

LSPRAY-II: A Lagrangian Spray Module

LSPRAY-II is a Lagrangian spray solver developed for application with parallel computing and unstructured grids. It is designed to be massively parallel and could easily be coupled with any existing gas-phase flow and/or Monte Carlo Probability Density Function (PDF) solvers. The solver accommodates the use of an unstructured mesh with mixed elements of either triangular, quadrilateral, and/or tetrahedral type for the gas flow grid representation. It is mainly designed to predict the flow, thermal and transport properties of a rapidly vaporizing spray because of its importance in aerospace application. The manual provides the user with an understanding of various models involved in the spray formulation, its code structure and solution algorithm, and various other issues related to parallelization and its coupling with other solvers. With the development of LSPRAY-II, we have advanced the state-of-the-art in spray computations in several important ways.

Raju, M. S.↗