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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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

Interaction of minor ions with fast and slow shocks

The coronal slow shock was predicted to exist embedded in large coronal holes at 4 to 10 solar radii. A three-fluid model was used to study the jumps in minor ions propertes across the coronal slow shock. The jump conditions were formulated in the de Hoffmann-Teller frame of reference. The Rankine-Hugoniot solution determines the MHD flow and the magnetic field across the shocks. For each minor ion species, the fluid equations for the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy can be solved to determine the velocity and the temperature of the ions across the shock. A simularity solution was also obtained for heavy ions. The results show that on the downstream side of the coronal slow shock the ion temperatures are nearly proportional to the ion masses for He, O, Si, and Fe in agreement with observed ion temperatures in the inner solar wind. This indicates that the possibly existing coronal slow shock can be responsible for the observed heating of minor ions in the solar wind.

Whang, Y. C.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Estimation of minority carrier diffusion lengths in InP/GaAs solar cells

Minority carrier diffusion length is one of the most important parameters affecting the solar cell performance. An attempt is made to estimate the minority carrier diffusion lengths is the emitter and base of InP/GaAs heteroepitaxial solar cells. The PC-1D computer model was used to simulate the experimental cell results measured at NASA Lewis under AMO (air mass zero) spectrum at 25 C. A 16 nm hole diffusion length in the emitter and a 0.42 micron electron diffusion length in the base gave very good agreement with the I-V curve. The effect of varying minority carrier diffusion lengths on cell short current, open circuit voltage, and efficiency was studied. It is also observed that the front surface recombination velocity has very little influence on the cell performance. The poor output of heteroepitaxial cells is caused primarily by the large number of dislocations generated at the interfaces that propagate through the bulk indium phosphide layers. Cell efficiency as a function of dislocation density was calculated and the effect of improved emitter bulk properties on cell efficiency is presented. It is found that cells with over 16 percent efficiencies should be possible, provided the dislocation density is below 10(exp 6)/sq cm.

Jain, R. K.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Heating of minor ions by the coronal slow shock

The coronal slow shock has been predicted to exist embedded in large coronal holes at 4-10 solar radii. In this paper, a three-fluid model is used to study the jumps in minor ion properties across a slow shock such as the coronal slow shock. The jump conditions are formulated in the de Hoffmann-Teller frame of reference. The Rankine-Hugoniot solution determines the MHD flow and the magnetic field across the shocks. For each minor ion species, the fluid equations for the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy can be solved to determine the velocity and the temperature of the ions across the shock. Also obtained is a similarity solution for heavy ions. The results show that, on the downstream side of the slow shock, the ion temperatures are nearly proportional to the ion masses for He, O, Si, and Fe, in agreement with observed ion temperatures in the inner solar wind. This indicates that the possibly existing coronal slow shock can be responsible for the observed heating of minor ions in the solar wind.

Whang, Y. C.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Initial refinement of minor planet orbits for pointing and observation with the Hubble Space Telescope

Refinements of the orbital elements for 24 minor planets that will be observed with the Fine Guidance Sensors (FGSs) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are presented. The accuracy of these orbits is discussed in the context of the ephemeris requirements for target acquisition with the FGSs. Comparisons with standard catalog orbits are made to evaluate the suitability of the use of the catalog orbits for HST pointing. It is found that the orbits published in the most recent Minor Planet Circulars are capable of positional predictions that are accurate at the 1-arcsec level. However, there are still many orbits that have not been revised in the last 10 yr and these should not be used for critical pointing ephemerides. In many cases, the orbital elements will have to be refined using recent ground-based observations before a minor planet can be reliably observed by HST.

Whipple, Arthur L.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Integrated software package STAMP for minor planets

The integrated software package STAMP allowed for rapid and exact reproduction of the tables of the year-book 'Ephemerides of Minor Planets.' Additionally, STAMP solved the typical problems connected with the use of the year-book. STAMP is described. The year-book 'Ephemerides of Minor Planets' (EMP) is a publication used in many astronomical institutions around the world. It contains all the necessary information on the orbits of the numbered minor planets. Also, the astronomical coordinates are provided for each planet during its suitable observation period.

Kochetova, O. M.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Minority-carrier lifetime in InP as a function of light bias

Minority-carrier lifetime in InP is studied as a function of doping level and laser intensity using time-resolved photoluminescence. A continuous wave diode laser illuminates bulk InP and acts as a light bias, injecting a steady-state concentration of carriers. A 200 ps laser pulse produces a small transient signal on top of the steady-state luminescence, allowing lifetime to be measured directly as a function of incident intensity. For p-InP, lifetime increases with light bias up to a maximum value. Bulk recombination centers are presumably filled to saturation, allowing minority carriers to live longer. The saturation bias scales with dopant concentration for a particular dopant species. As light bias is increased for n-InP, minority-carrier lifetime increases slightly but then decreases, suggesting radiative recombination as a dominant decay mechanism.

Yater, Jane A.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Rovibrational intensities of the minor isotopes of the CO X (sup 1)Sigma (sup +) state for v less than or equal to 20 and J less than or equal to 150

Electric dipole transition matrix elements for rovibrational transitions in the X (sup 1)Sigma(sup +) state of the CO minor isotopes (14)C(16)O and (13)C(17)O are calculated for the first time for all the delta v = +1, +2, and +3 transitions for which v less than or equal to 20 and J less than or equal to 150. Improved electric dipole transition matrix elements are also calculated for the minor isotopes (12)C(17)O, (12)C(18)O, (13)C(18)O. We have fitted polynomials to these matrix elements as a function of the parameter m which is defined in terms of the lower state angular momentum quantum number J; the convenient to use polynomial representations are given in tabular form. These results for the minor species of CO complement those previously reported by us for (12)C(16)O and (13)C(16)O.

Goorvitch, D.↗
NASA NTRS1998

An Integrated Approach to Engineering Education in a Minority Community

Northeastern New Mexico epitomizes regions which are economically depressed, rural, and predominantly Hispanic. New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), with a small student population of approximately 2800, offers a familiar environment attracting students who might otherwise not attend college. An outreach computer network of minority schools was created in northeastern New Mexico with NASA funding. Rural and urban minority schools gained electronic access to each other, to computer resources, to technical help at New Mexico Highlands University and gained access to the world via the Internet. This outreach program was initiated in the fall of 1992 in an effort to attract and to involve minority students in Engineering and the Mathematical Sciences. We installed 56 Kbs Internet connections to eight elementary schools, two middle schools, two high schools, a public library (servicing the home schooling community) and an International Baccalaureate school. For another fourteen rural schools, we provided computers and free dial-up service to servers on the New Mexico Highlands University campus.

Taylor, Bill↗
NASA NTRS1999

Minor Planet Center

This paper reports on the activities of the Minor Planet Center for the year of 1998. The main product of this center is the Minor Planet Circulars, augmented by the Minor Planet Circulars Supplement which is a new series introduced in 1997 to include the actual observations, which are now only summarized MPC. The introduction of the Daily Orbit Update (DOU) lists all the orbits computed and identification found since the previous issue. There has been a fivefold increase in the reported Near Earth Objects, which includes the addition of 55 potentially hazardous asteroids.

Marsden, Brian G.↗
NASA NTRS1997

The HSCaRS Summer Enrichment Program; Research Opportunities for Minority and Women Undergraduates in Global Change Science

The primary objective of the HSCaRS Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) is to make significant contributions to the NASA Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) and the Alabama A&M University (AAMU) Center for Hydrology, Soil Climatology and Remote Sensing (HSCaRS) research missions by providing undergraduate student research internships with an emphasis on minority and women students. Additional objectives are to encourage more minority and women students to pursue advanced degrees in Earth system and global change science and to increase the participation of minority institutions in the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Also, the SEP strives to make students in the traditional science disciplines more aware of the opportunities in Earth System Science. In designing the SEP, it was acknowledged that HSCaRS was a new research effort and Center. Consequently, students were not expected to immediately recognize the Center as one would older, more established research laboratories with national reputations, such as Los Alamos, Battelle, National Consortium for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), etc. Yet we still wanted to compete nationally for the best students. Therefore, we designed the program with a competitive financial package that includes a stipend of $400 per week, round-trip transportation from home to the summer research site, and free campus housing and meal plans provided by Alabama A&M University. Students also received a modest living allowance of approximately $25 per week. The internship program was 10 weeks in residence at Alabama A&M University or IGCRE, and gave students the opportunity to select from six general research areas: micro-meteorology, soil data analysis, soil moisture modeling, instrumentation, geographic information systems, and computer science. Student participants also enrolled in an introductory global change science course as part of the summer program (a copy of the course outline is in the appendix). The program included participation in a field program for approximately two weeks. All students were required to participate in the field program as a learning experience, regardless of the relationship of the field program to their majors or particular research project.

Estes, Jr., Maurice G.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Minor Elements in Nakhlite Pyroxenes: Cr in MIL00346

Nakhlites are olivine-bearing clinopyroxene cumulates. Based on petrographic characteristics, they may be divided into groups that cooled at different rates and may have been formed at different depths in a single flow. The order of cooling rate from slowest to fastest is NWA998<Lafayette < Governador Valadares ~ Nakhla < Yamato000593 < NWA817 ~ MIL03346. Nakhlite cumulus pyroxene grains consist of large cores that are nearly homogeneous in major element composition surrounded by thin rims that are zoned to Fe-rich compositions. Detailed study of these pyroxenes is important because they retain a record of the crystallization history of the nakhlite magma. Moreover, because the composition of the nakhlite parent melt cannot be directly determined, inversion of the major and minor element composition of the cumulate pyroxene cores can be used to estimate the composition of that melt. Thus it is important to understand the major and minor element zoning in the cumulus pyroxenes. While major elements are nearly homogeneous, minor elements exhibit distinctive zoning patterns that vary from one nakhlite to another. This paper reports unusual Cr zoning patterns in pyroxenes from MIL03346 (MIL) and contrast these with pyroxenes from Y593.

McKay, G. A.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Characterization and Computational Modeling of Minor Phases in Alloy LSHR

The minor phases of powder metallurgy disk superalloy LSHR were studied. Samples were consistently heat treated at three different temperatures for long times to approach equilibrium. Additional heat treatments were also performed for shorter times, to assess minor phase kinetics in non-equilibrium conditions. Minor phases including MC carbides, M23C6 carbides, M3B2 borides, and sigma were identified. Their average sizes and total area fractions were determined. CALPHAD thermodynamics databases and PrecipiCalc(TradeMark), a computational precipitation modeling tool, were employed with Ni-base thermodynamics and diffusion databases to model and simulate the phase microstructural evolution observed in the experiments with an objective to identify the model limitations and the directions of model enhancement.

Jou, Herng-Jeng↗
DOE OSTI2012

Generalized Modeling of Enrichment Cascades That Include Minor Isotopes

The monitoring of enrichment operations may require innovative analysis to allow for imperfect or missing data. The presence of minor isotopes may help or hurt - they can complicate a calculation or provide additional data to corroborate a calculation. However, they must be considered in a rigorous analysis, especially in cases involving reuse. This study considers matched-abundanceratio cascades that involve at least three isotopes and allows generalized input that does not require all feed assays or the enrichment factor to be specified. Calculations are based on the equations developed for the MSTAR code but are generalized to allow input of various combinations of assays, flows, and other cascade properties. Traditional cascade models have required specification of the enrichment factor, all feed assays, and the product and waste assays of the primary enriched component. The calculation would then produce the numbers of stages in the enriching and stripping sections and the remaining assays in waste and product streams. In cases where the enrichment factor or feed assays were not known, analysis was difficult or impossible. However, if other quantities are known (e.g., additional assays in waste or product streams), a reliable calculation is still possible with the new code, but such nonstandard input may introduce additional numerical difficulties into the calculation. Thus, the minimum input requirements for a stable solution are discussed, and a sample problem with a non-unique solution is described. Both heuristic and mathematically required guidelines are given to assist the application of cascade modeling to situations involving such non-standard input. As a result, this work provides both a calculational tool and specific guidance for evaluation of enrichment cascades in which traditional input data are either flawed or unknown. It is useful for cases involving minor isotopes, especially if the minor isotope assays are desired (or required) to be important contributors to the overall analysis.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Plutonium and minor actinide utilisation in a pebble-bed high temperature reactor

This paper contains results of the analysis of the pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled PUMA reactor loaded with plutonium and minor actinide (Pu/MA) fuel. Starting from knowledge and experience gained in the Euratom FP5 projects HTR-N and HTR-N1, this study aims at demonstrating the potential of high temperature reactors to utilize or transmute Pu/MA fuel. The work has been performed within the Euratom FP6 project PUMA. A number of different fuel types and fuel configurations have been analyzed and compared with respect to incineration performance and safety-related reactor parameters. The results show the excellent plutonium and minor actinide burning capabilities of the high temperature reactor. The largest degree of incineration is attained in the case of an HTR fuelled by pure plutonium fuel as it remains critical at very deep burnup of the discharged pebbles. Addition of minor actinides to the fuel leads to decrease of the achievable discharge burnup and therefore smaller fraction of actinides incinerated during reactor operation. The inert-matrix fuel design improves the transmutation performance of the reactor, while the 'wallpaper' fuel does not have advantage over the standard fuel design in this respect. After 100 years of decay following the fuel discharge, the total amount of actinides remains almost unchanged for all of the fuel types considered. Among the plutonium isotopes, only the amount of Pu-241 is reduced significantly due to its relatively short half-life. (authors)

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Assessment of SFR fuel pin performance codes under advanced fuel for minor actinide transmutation

Americium is a strong contributor to the long term radiotoxicity of high activity nuclear waste. Transmutation by irradiation in nuclear reactors of long-lived nuclides like {sup 241}Am is, therefore, an option for the reduction of radiotoxicity and residual power packages as well as the repository area. In the SUPERFACT Experiment four different oxide fuels containing high and low concentrations of {sup 237}Np and {sup 241}Am, representing the homogeneous and heterogeneous in-pile recycling concepts, were irradiated in the PHENIX reactor. The behavior of advanced fuel materials with minor actinide needs to be fully characterized, understood and modeled in order to optimize the design of this kind of fuel elements and to evaluate its performances. This paper assesses the current predictability of fuel performance codes TRANSURANUS and GERMINAL V2 on the basis of post irradiation examinations of the SUPERFACT experiment for pins with low minor actinide content. Their predictions have been compared to measured data in terms of geometrical changes of fuel and cladding, fission gases behavior and actinide and fission product distributions. The results are in good agreement with the experimental results, although improvements are also pointed out for further studies, especially if larger content of minor actinide will be taken into account in the codes. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The Nuclear Weapons and Strategy Minor at the United States Air Force Academy

The Nuclear Weapons and Strategy minor was established in 2015 at the United States Air Force Academy with the goal of producing a cadre of officers with the foundation to make effective decisions within the Air Force Nuclear Enterprise and lead the United States Air Force into the second nuclear age. Available to cadets of all majors, the minor builds cadets' technical and strategic understanding of the nuclear dimension of warfare. This summary will discuss the reason for the addition of the minor as well as the specifics of the educational track.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2025

Effects of Minor Alloying Elements and Impurities on Long-Range Ordering in Ni-Cr-Based Alloys

There is growing concern about long-range ordered Ni2Cr phase forming during thermal aging of Ni-Cr-based alloys (e.g., 690, 625), which leads to lattice contraction, hardening, and embrittlement, possibly limiting the service life of light water reactor components. The timespan when this phase transformation occurs can vary in orders of magnitude between model and commercial alloys and is likely related to the presence of major (e.g., Fe, Mo) and minor alloying elements (e.g., Ti, Si, Nb). These minor alloying elements have been hypothesized to bind with vacancies and therefore limit diffusion. Contrarily, impurities (e.g., P, S) are believed to enhance vacancy diffusion and accelerate the Ni2Cr phase transformation because of a vacancy drag mechanism. This study implements experimental isothermal aging of model Ni-Cr binary and Ni-Cr-X ternary alloys, where X is Ti, Si, Nb, and P to help understand how each minor alloying element affects the Ni2Cr phase transformation timeline. Synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction and hardness measurements are used to quantify the evolution of the Ni2Cr phase transformation through a variety of short aging times to identify the onset of long-range order. These experimental results are compared to first principles simulations from literature to understand the mechanism by which each element impacts vacancy diffusion and the formation of the long-range ordered phase, Ni2Cr.

36 - MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Production of deuterated biomass by cultivation of Lemna minor (duckweed) in D 2 O

The small aquatic plant duckweed, particularly the genus Lemna , widely used for toxicity testing, has been proposed as a potential source of biomass for conversion into biofuels as well as a platform for production of pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals. Ability to produce deuterium-substituted duckweed can potentially extend the range of useful products as well as assist process improvement. Cultivation of these plants under deuterating conditions was previously been reported to require addition of kinetin to induce growth and was hampered by anomalies in cellular morphology and protein metabolism. Here, we report the production of biomass with 50–60% deuterium incorporation by long-term photoheterotrophic growth of common duckweed Lemna minor in 50% D 2 O with 0.5% glucose. L. minor grown in 50% D 2 O without addition of kinetin exhibited a lag phase twice that of H 2 O-grown controls, before start of log phase growth at 40% of control rates. Compared to continuous white fluorescent light, growth rates increased fivefold for H 2 O and twofold for 50% D 2 O when plants were illuminated at higher intensity with a metal halide lamp and a diurnal cycle of 12-h light/12-h dark. Deuterium incorporation was determined by a combination of 1 H and 2 H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to be 40–60%. The cellulose from the deuterated plants had an average-number degree of polymerization (DP n ) and polydispersity index (PDI) close to that of H 2 O-grown controls, while Klason lignin content was reduced. Furthermore, the only major gross morphological change noted was root inhibition.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗