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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 1,045 records · Page 58
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Carbon Dioxide Flux Measurement System (CO2FLX) Instrument Handbook

The Southern Great Plains (SGP) carbon dioxide flux (CO2 flux) measurement systems provide half-hour average fluxes of CO2, H2O (latent heat), and sensible heat. The fluxes are obtained by the eddy covariance technique, which computes the flux as the mean product of the vertical wind component with CO2 and H2O densities, or estimated virtual temperature. A three-dimensional sonic anemometer is used to obtain the orthogonal wind components and the virtual (sonic) temperature. An infrared gas analyzer is used to obtain the CO2 and H2O densities. A separate sub-system also collects half-hour average measures of meteorological and soil variables from separate 4-m towers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Performance Refactoring of Instrumentation, Measurement, and Analysis Technologies for Petascale Computing: the PRIMA Project

The growing number of cores provided by today’s high-end computing systems present substantial challenges to application developers in their pursuit of parallel efficiency. To find the most effective optimization strategy, application developers need insight into the runtime behavior of their code. The University of Oregon (UO) and the Julich Supercomputing Centre of Forschungszentrum Julich (FZJ) developed the performance analysis tools TAU and Scalasca, respectively, which allow high-performance computing (HPC) users to collect and analyze relevant performance data – even at very large scales. TAU and Scalasca are considered among the most advanced parallel performance systems available, and are used extensively across HPC centers in the U.S., Germany, and around the world.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Small-Scale Experiments-Sandia Instrumented Thermal Ignition (SITI) testing summary

A number of cook-off experiments were performed to provide understanding of potential thermal ignition of drum 68660 in the February 14, 2014 radiation release at WIPP. Testing was begun according to the plan provided in Appendix B, and deviated significantly based on initial findings and other information developed during the testing. Two general types of experiments were performed: ones with nitric acid neutralized to varying degrees with Kolorsafe neutralizer, and ones with no added free liquid. Results indicate that reactivity is greater in the dry mixture, and that Fe nitrate and Ca nitrate play significant roles in ignition behavior whereas Pb nitrate, Cr nitrate, and oxalic acid do not. Within mixtures with liquid, very little exothermic behavior is observed with Swheat and water, but adding neutralized acid and nitrate salts results in significant reactivity and ignition. This behavior is suppressed by liquid water, and ignition occurs after the water has fully vaporized, although it is not clear if ignition occurs quickly because of the relatively high wall temperature at the end of the vaporization process.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2015

Laboratory Evaluation of Air Flow Measurement Methods for Residential HVAC Returns for New Instrument Standards

This project improved the accuracy of air flow measurements used in commissioning California heating and air conditioning systems in Title 24 (Building and Appliance Efficiency Standards), thereby improving system performance and efficiency of California residences. The research team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addressed the issue that typical tools used by contractors in the field to test air flows may not be accurate enough to measure return flows used in Title 24 applications. The team developed guidance on performance of current diagnostics as well as a draft test method for use in future evaluations. The study team prepared a draft test method through ASTM International to determine the uncertainty of air flow measurements at residential heating ventilation and air conditioning returns and other terminals. This test method, when finalized, can be used by the Energy Commission and other entities to specify required accuracy of measurement devices used to show compliance with standards.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

UV-Vis Spectroscopy as a Tool for Safeguards; Instrumentation installation and fundamental data collection

Two spectrophotometric process monitors, one optimized for high concentration (approximately 10 g/L) and one for trace levels (approximately 10 ppm),were developed at Argonne and installed at the SRS H-Canyon facility for field testing. These systems were built of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf components utilizing a custom, facility-specific hardware interface. The systems directly provide a qualitative measurement of process chemistry (i.e. valence state). With appropriate calibrations the systems could provide quantitative data. Laboratory tests were performed to determine the spectrophotometric molar absorptivity coefficients for relevant actinide and transition metals of interest.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Soil Water and Temperature System (SWATS) Instrument Handbook

The soil water and temperature system (SWATS) provides vertical profiles of soil temperature, soil-water potential, and soil moisture as a function of depth below the ground surface at hourly intervals. The temperature profiles are measured directly by in situ sensors at the Central Facility and many of the extended facilities of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. The soil-water potential and soil moisture profiles are derived from measurements of soil temperature rise in response to small inputs of heat. Atmospheric scientists use the data in climate models to determine boundary conditions and to estimate the surface energy flux. The data are also useful to hydrologists, soil scientists, and agricultural scientists for determining the state of the soil.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

AmeriFlux Measurement Component (AMC) Instrument Handbook

An AMC system was installed at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility North Slope of Alaska (NSA) Barrow site, also known as NSA C1 at the ARM Data Archive, in August 2012. A second AMC system was installed at the third ARM Mobile Facility deployment at Oliktok Point, also known as NSA M1. This in situ system consists of 12 combination soil temperature and volumetric water content (VWC) reflectometers and one set of upwelling and downwelling photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) sensors, all deployed within the fetch of the Eddy Correlation Flux Measurement System. Soil temperature and VWC sensors placed at two depths (10 and 30 cm below the vegetation layer) at six locations (or microsites) allow soil property inhomogeneity to be monitored across a landscape.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Optical Rain Gauge Instrument Handbook

To improve the quantitative description of precipitation processes in climate models, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility deploys several types of rain gauges (MET, RAIN, and optical rain gauge [ORG] datastreams) as well as disdrometers (DISD and VDIS datastreams) at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Site. This handbook deals specifically with the independent analog ORG (i.e., the ORG datastream).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Sonic Detection and Ranging (SODAR) Wind Profiler Instrument Handbook

The SODAR (Sonic Detection and Ranging) wind profiler measures wind profiles and backscattered signal strength between (nominally) 15 meters (m) and 500 m. It operates by transmitting acoustic energy into the atmosphere and measuring the strength and frequency of backscattered energy. The strength of the backscattered signal is determined by the strength of temperature inhomogeneities with size on the order of 10 centimeters (cm). Assuming the scattering elements in the atmosphere are moving with the mean wind, the horizontal wind field can be derived. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility Mobile Facility (AMF) has a system developed by Scintec, Inc. that transmits a sequence of frequencies to enhance signal determination.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

High-Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) Instrument Handbook

High-spectral-resolution lidar (HSRL) systems provide vertical profiles of optical depth, backscatter cross-section, depolarization, and backscatter phase function. All HSRL measurements are calibrated by reference to molecular scattering, which is measured at each point in the lidar profile. Like the Raman lidar (RL), but unlike simple backscatter lidars such as the micropulse lidar (MPL), this enables the HSRL to measure backscatter cross-sections and optical depths without prior assumptions about the scattering properties of the atmosphere. The depolarization observations allow robust discrimination between ice and water clouds. Rigorous error estimates can be computed for all measurements. A very narrow angular field of view reduces multiple scattering contributions. The small field of view, coupled with a narrow optical bandwidth, nearly eliminates noise due to scattered sunlight. The laser transmitter is a diode-pumped, frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser. Narrow-band, single-frequency operation is provided by injection seeding with a single-frequency, cw-diode-pumped diode laser. The main laser cavity is maintained in resonance with the seed laser by adjusting the cavity length to minimize the time between the Q-switch trigger and the emission of the laser pulse. The emission wavelength is tuned via temperature control of the seed laser crystal and is locked to line #1109 of the iodine absorption spectra. Locking is accomplished by minimizing the transmission through a 2-cm-long iodine absorption cell. Use of a high-repetition-rate laser and expansion of the transmitted beam through a 400-mm telescope reduces the transmitted energy density to eye-safe levels. It is possible to look directly into the output beam without hazard. The receiver and transmitter use the same afocal telescope, simplifying the maintenance of stable alignment of the transmitter and receiver although the angular FOV is only 100 μrad. The small FOV and the 4-kHz repetition rate also limit the near-field signal strength, making it possible to record continuous profiles that start at an altitude of ~100 m and extend to 30 km using photon counting detectors. The small FOV also suppresses multiple scattering contributions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

3002 Humidified Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer (HTDMA) Instrument Handbook

The Brechtel Manufacturing Inc. (BMI) Humidified Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer (HT-DMA Model 3002) (Brechtel and Kreidenweis 2000a,b, Henning et al. 2005, Xerxes et al. 2014) measures how aerosol particles of different initial dry sizes grow or shrink when exposed to changing relative humidity (RH) conditions. It uses two different mobility analyzers (DMA) and a humidification system to make the measurements. One DMA selects a narrow size range of dry aerosol particles, which are exposed to varying RH conditions in the humidification system. The second (humidified) DMA scans the particle size distribution output from the humidification system. Scanning a wide range of particle sizes enables the second DMA to measure changes in size or growth factor (growth factor = humidified size/dry size), due to water uptake by the particles. A Condensation Particle Counter (CPC) downstream of the second DMA counts particles as a function of selected size in order to obtain the number size distribution of particles exposed to different RH conditions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer–Hemispheric (SASHe) Instrument Handbook

The Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer–Hemispheric (SASHe) provides measurements of direct solar, hemispheric diffuse, and total hemispheric shortwave irradiance over a continuous spectral range from approximately 300 nm to 1700 nm at a rate of about 30 seconds. The SASHe design connects an optical collector located outdoors to a pair of spectrometers and data collections systems located indoors within a climate-controlled building via an umbilical cable of fiber optic and electrical cables. The light collector uses a small Spectralon button as a hemispheric diffuser with a shadowband to distinguish signal from diffuse sky and direct sun.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer–Zenith (SASZe) Instrument Handbook

The Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer – Zenith (SASZe) provides measurements of zenith spectral shortwave radiance at 1Hz over a continuous spectral range from approximately 300 nm to 1700 nm. The SASZe design connects an optical collector located outdoors to a pair of spectrometers and data collections system located indoors within a climate-controlled building via an umbilical cable of fiber optic and electrical cables. The light collector incorporates a collimator yielding a 1-degree Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) field of view. The data-acquisition electronics and spectrometers include an in-line fiber optic shutter and two Avantes fiber-coupled grating spectroradiometers within a temperature-controlled container. The Avantes Avaspec ULS 2048 charge-coupled device (CCD) spectrometer covers the wavelength range from about 300-1100 nm with a pixel spacing of less than 0.6 nm and a spectral resolution of about 2.4 nm FWHM. The Avantes Avaspec NIR256-1.7 spectrometer covers the wavelength range from about 950 nm to 1700 nm with a pixel spacing of less than 4 nm and a spectral resolution of about 6 nm FWHM.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

Meteorological Automatic Weather Station (MAWS) Instrument Handbook

The Meteorological Automatic Weather Station (MAWS) is a surface meteorological station, manufactured by Vaisala, Inc., dedicated to the balloon-borne sounding system (BBSS), providing surface measurements of the thermodynamic state of the atmosphere and the wind speed and direction for each radiosonde profile. These data are automatically provided to the BBSS during the launch procedure and included in the radiosonde profile as the surface measurements of record for the sounding. The MAWS core set of measurements is: Barometric Pressure (hPa), Temperature (°C), Relative Humidity (%), Arithmetic-Averaged Wind Speed (m/s), and Vector-Averaged Wind Direction (deg). The sensors that collect the core variables are mounted at the standard heights defined for each variable.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) Instrument Handbook

The Aerodyne Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) measures particle mass loading and chemical composition in real time for non-refractory sub-micron aerosol particles. The ACSM is designed for long-term unattended deployment and routine monitoring applications.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗