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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 NTRS1995

(abstract) Vibration Damping of the Cassini Spacecraft Structure

Cassini will be protected during launch ascent through the atmosphere by a lightweight aluminum payload fairing (PLF). As a result of the extreme noise levels generated by the powerful Titan IV at liftoff, and the acoustic transparency of the PLF, Cassini is predicted to experience severe acoustic levels. Furthermore, the high acoustic levels, coupled with the size and configuration of the spacecraft, will induce intense random vibration on the structure and critical spacecraft components. Efforts to mitigate the vibroacoustic environment by modifying the spacecraft structure were pursued. Preliminary studies indicated that a structural damping treatment using viscoelastic materials (VEMs) represented a viable technique of reducing vibration with minimum impact on weight, cost, and redesign. Tuned Vibration Absorbers (TVAs) - compact, single degree-of-freedom mechanical oscillators in which a VEM serves as the spring and damping element - will be used also. The operating principles, design, and installation of the TVAs are described, the test program is outlined, and test results are presented which show that significant vibration attenuation was achieved.

vibroacoustic environment↗
NASA NTRS1991

A description of the correlated k distributed method for modeling nongray gaseous absorption, thermal emission, and multiple scattering in vertically inhomogeneous atmospheres

A radiative transfer method for treating nongray gaseous absorption and thermal emission in vertically inhomogeneous multiple scattering atmospheres is described. Probability density distributions of absorption coefficient strength are derived from line-by-line calculations to construct line-by-line and band model based k distributions. The monotonic ordering of absorption coefficient strengths in these k distributions implicitly preserves the monochromatic structure of the atmosphere at different pressure levels, thus simulating monochromatic spectral integration at a fraction of the line-by-line computing cost. The k distribution approach also permits accurate modeling of overlapping absorption by different atmospheric gases and accurate treatment of nongray absorption in multiple scattering media. It is shown that the correlated k distribution method is capable of achieving numerical accuracy to within 1 percent of cooling rates obtained with line-by-line calculations throughout the troposphere and most of the stratosphere.

Lacis, Andrew A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Improved measurement of thermal effects on microstructure

The objectives were to introduce a simple methodology which could be used to replace the time-consuming and expensive conventional methods of metallographic and quantitative analysis of thermal treatment effect on microstructure. Metallurgical analysis continually calls for the evaluation of thermal treatment effects on microstructure. This commonly demands metallographic sample preparation and microscopic examination, which are time absorbing and costly. These drawbacks are burdensome when large numbers of samples must be levied fast. Mechanical testing can sometimes be substituted, but sample size and shape frequently make these methods impractical. The experiment described here is ideal for the microstructural evaluation of lamp filaments and other wire samples such as copper wire which can be conveniently coiled.

Rastani, Mansur↗
NASA NTRS2015

NASA-427: A New Aluminum Alloy

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center researchers have developed a new, stronger aluminum alloy, ideal for cast aluminum products that have powder or paint-baked thermal coatings. With advanced mechanical properties, the NASA-427 alloy shows greater tensile strength and increased ductility, providing substantial improvement in impact toughness. In addition, this alloy improves the thermal coating process by decreasing the time required for heat treatment. With improvements in both strength and processing time, use of the alloy provides reduced materials and production costs, lower product weight, and better product performance. The superior properties of NASA-427 can benefit many industries, including automotive, where it is particularly well-suited for use in aluminum wheels.

Nabors, Sammy A.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Assessing Cyanobacterial Frequency and Abundance at Surface Waters Near Drinking Water Intakes Across the United States

This study presents the first large-scale assessment of cyanobacterial frequency and abundance of surface water near drinking water intakes across the United States. Public water systems serve drinking water to nearly 90% of the United States population. Cyanobacteria and their toxins may degrade the quality of finished drinking water and can lead to negative health consequences. Satellite imagery can serve as a cost-effective and consistent monitoring technique for surface cyanobacterial blooms in source waters and can provide drinking water treatment operators information for managing their systems. This study uses satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) spanning June 2016 through April 2020. At 300-m spatial resolution, OLCI imagery can be used to monitor cyanobacteria in 685 drinking water sources across 285 lakes in 44 states, referred to here as resolvable drinking water sources. First, a subset of satellite data was compared to a subset of responses (n = 84) submitted as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s fourth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 4). These UCMR 4 qualitative responses included visual observations of algal bloom presence and absence near drinking water intakes from March 2018 through November 2019. Overall agreement between satellite imagery and UCMR 4 qualitative responses was 94% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.70. Next, temporal frequency of cyanobacterial blooms at all resolvable drinking water sources was assessed. In 2019, bloom frequency averaged 2% and peaked at 100%, where 100% indicated a bloom was always present at the source waters when satellite imagery was available. Monthly cyanobacterial abundances were used to assess short-term trends across all resolvable drinking water sources and effect size was computed to provide insight on the number of years of data that must be obtained to increase confidence in an observed change. Generally, 2016-2020 was an insufficient time period for confidently observing changes at these source waters; on average, a decade of satellite imagery would be required for observed environmental trends to outweigh variability in the data. However, five source waters did demonstrate a sustained short-term trend, with one increasing in cyanobacterial abundance from June 2016 to April 2020 and four decreasing.

remote sensing↗
NASA NTRS1977

Low-cost solar-cell fabrication

Processing steps are reduced by using technique of electroless plating. Metalization and one doping steps are combined, and only one heat treatment is required. Concept is modification to method of fabricating solar cells by diffusing different dopants into opposite sides of a silicon wafer.

Amick, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1976

MIUS wastewater technology evaluation

A modular integrated utility system wastewater-treatment process is described. Research in the field of wastewater treatment is reviewed, treatment processes are specified and evaluated, and recommendations for system use are made. The treatment processes evaluated are in the broad categories of preparatory, primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment, physical-chemical processing, dissolved-solids removal, disinfection, sludge processing, and separate systems. Capital, operating, and maintenance costs are estimated, and extensive references are given.

Poradek, J. C.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Investigation of test methods, material properties, and processes for solar cell encapsulants

Encapsulant materials and processes for the production of cost-effective, long-life solar cell modules were investigated. The following areas were explored: (1) soil resistant surface treatment; (2) corrosion protecting coatings from mild steel substrates; (3) primers for bonding module interfaces; and (4) RS/4 accelerated aging of candidate encapsulation compounds

Willis, P. B.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Gila Water Resources III - Modeling the Impacts of Post-fire Restoration Methods on Vegetation Recovery in the Gila National Forest

In recent years, wildfires in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest have become increasingly common and more severe. Wildfires can have powerful impacts on hydrology and soil stability, including erosion, flooding, and debris-flows that threaten lives and infrastructure downstream. Vegetation restoration treatments like seeding and mulching can mitigate these effects and facilitate ecosystem recovery. Understanding the effectiveness of various restoration methods is vital to planning a cost-effective and successful post-fire recovery strategy. The immediate response to a fire on US Forest Service land is coordinated by a Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team, a group responsible for mitigating immediate post-fire risks to human life, property, and critical natural and cultural resources. This study created a proof-of-concept methodology for a decision-support tool designed to help BAER teams identify the restoration treatments most likely to succeed in a given burned area. Leveraging random forest regression, Google Earth Engine, and Landsat 7 and 8 Earth observations, this study modeled vegetation recovery after the 2013 Silver Fire for seeded areas, seeded/mulched areas, and untreated areas. Treatment type and initial burn severity were the largest drivers of vegetation recovery across the landscape. Seeded/mulched areas showed higher recovery levels than untreated areas three months post-fire, but by four years post-fire, treated and untreated areas displayed similar recovery levels. To produce a robust predictive tool for the Gila National Forest, the model should be trained on many more fires and incorporate post-fire weather conditions into the process. Such a model will help partners ensure efficient resource use and plan effective post-fire restoration strategies.

DEVELOP Project Summary↗
NASA NTRS2014

NASA Tech Briefs, June 2014

Topics include: Real-Time Minimization of Tracking Error for Aircraft Systems; Detecting an Extreme Minority Class in Hyperspectral Data Using Machine Learning; KSC Spaceport Weather Data Archive; Visualizing Acquisition, Processing, and Network Statistics Through Database Queries; Simulating Data Flow via Multiple Secure Connections; Systems and Services for Near-Real-Time Web Access to NPP Data; CCSDS Telemetry Decoder VHDL Core; Thermal Response of a High-Power Switch to Short Pulses; Solar Panel and System Design to Reduce Heating and Optimize Corridors for Lower-Risk Planetary Aerobraking; Low-Cost, Very Large Diamond-Turned Metal Mirror; Very-High-Load-Capacity Air Bearing Spindle for Large Diamond Turning Machines; Elevated-Temperature, Highly Emissive Coating for Energy Dissipation of Large Surfaces; Catalyst for Treatment and Control of Post-Combustion Emissions; Thermally Activated Crack Healing Mechanism for Metallic Materials; Subsurface Imaging of Nanocomposites; Self-Healing Glass Sealants for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Electrolyzer Cells; Micromachined Thermopile Arrays with Novel Thermo - electric Materials; Low-Cost, High-Performance MMOD Shielding; Head-Mounted Display Latency Measurement Rig; Workspace-Safe Operation of a Force- or Impedance-Controlled Robot; Cryogenic Mixing Pump with No Moving Parts; Seal Design Feature for Redundancy Verification; Dexterous Humanoid Robot; Tethered Vehicle Control and Tracking System; Lunar Organic Waste Reformer; Digital Laser Frequency Stabilization via Cavity Locking Employing Low-Frequency Direct Modulation; Deep UV Discharge Lamps in Capillary Quartz Tubes with Light Output Coupled to an Optical Fiber; Speech Acquisition and Automatic Speech Recognition for Integrated Spacesuit Audio Systems, Version II; Advanced Sensor Technology for Algal Biotechnology; High-Speed Spectral Mapper; "Ascent - Commemorating Shuttle" - A NASA Film and Multimedia Project DVD; High-Pressure, Reduced-Kinetics Mechanism for N-Hexadecane Oxidation; Method of Error Floor Mitigation in Low-Density Parity-Check Codes; X-Ray Flaw Size Parameter for POD Studies; Large Eddy Simulation Composition Equations for Two-Phase Fully Multicomponent Turbulent Flows; Scheduling Targeted and Mapping Observations with State, Resource, and Timing Constraints;

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1974

A method for determining optimum phasing of a multiphase propulsion system for a single-stage vehicle with linearized inert weight

A general analytical treatment is presented of a single-stage vehicle with multiple propulsion phases. A closed-form solution for the cost and for the performance and a derivation of the optimal phasing of the propulsion are included. Linearized variations in the inert weight elements are included, and the function to be minimized can be selected. The derivation of optimal phasing results in a set of nonlinear algebraic equations for optimal fuel volumes, for which a solution method is outlined. Three specific example cases are analyzed: minimum gross lift-off weight, minimum inert weight, and a minimized general function for a two-phase vehicle. The results for the two-phase vehicle are applied to the dual-fuel rocket. Comparisons with single-fuel vehicles indicate that dual-fuel vehicles can have lower inert weight either by development of a dual-fuel engine or by parallel burning of separate engines from lift-off.

Martin, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Ultimate disposal of scrubber wastes

Part of the initial concern with using the wet scrubbers on the hypergolic propellants was the subsequential disposal of the liquid wastes. To do this, consideration was given to all possible methods to reduce the volume of the wastes and stay within the guidelines established by the state and federal environmental protection agencies. One method that was proposed was the use of water hyacinths in disposal ponds to reduce the waste concentration in the effluent to less than EPA tolerable levels. This method was under consideration and even in use by private industry, municipal governments, and NASA for upgrading existing wastewater treatment facilities to a tertiary system. The use of water hyacinths in disposal ponds appears to be a very cost-effective method for reduction and disposal of hypergolic propellants.

Cohenour, B. C.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Precipitating Chromium Impurities in Silicon Wafers

Two new treatments for silicon wafers improve solar-cell conversion efficiency by precipitating electrically-active chromium impurities. One method is simple heat treatment. Other involves laser-induced damage followed by similar heat treatment. Chromium is one impurity of concern in metallurgical-grade silicon for solar cells. In new treatment, chromium active centers are made electrically inactive by precipitating chromium from solid solution, enabling use of lower grade, lower cost silicon in cell manufacture.

Salama, A. M.↗
NASA NTRS1982

The metallurgical structure and mechanical properties at low temperature of Nitronic 40 with particular reference to its use in the construction of models for cryogenic wind tunnels

Nitronic 40 was chosen for the construction of Pathfinder I, an R & D model for use in the National Transonic Facility, because of its good mechanical properties at cryogenic temperatures. Nitronic 40 contains delta ferrite and is in a sensitized condition. Heat treatments carried out to remove residual stresses also caused further sensitization. Experiments showed that heat treatment followed by cryoquenching removed the sensitization without creating residual stresses. Heat treatment at temperatures of 2200 F was used to remove the delta ferrite but with little success and at the cost of massive grain growth. The implications of using degraded Nitronic 40 for cryogenic wind tunnel models are discussed, together with possible acceptance criteria.

Wigley, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Acoustic treatment of the NASA Langley 4- by 7-meter tunnel: A feasibility study

A feasibility study for upgrading the NASA Langley 4- by 7-Meter Tunnel so that it may be used for aeroacoustic research related to helicopters is described. The requirements for noise research leading to the design of the next generation of helicopters impose a set of acoustic test criteria that no existing wind tunnel in the United States can presently meet. Included in this feasibility study are the following considerations: (1) an evaluation of general wind-tunnel requirements and desired tunnel background noise levels for helicopter aeroacoustic research; (2) an assessment of the present acoustic environment for testing model rotors; (3) a diagnostic investigation of tunnel background noise sources and paths; (4) acoustic treatment options for tunnel background noise reduction and a trade-off study between these options; (5) an engineering feasibility assessment of the selected option; and (6) an integrated analysis of study components and recommendations of treatment for an approach to meet the tunnel background noise reduction goal. It is concluded that the Langley 4- by 7-Meter Tunnel is a fundamentally suitable facility for helicopter aeroacoustic research. It is also concluded that acoustic treatment of this facility for meeting the required tunnel background noise goal can be accomplished technically at reasonable risk and cost.

Yu, J. C.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Very high-vacuum heat treatment facility

A vacuum heat treatment facility, with hot zone dimensions of 12 x 19 x 19 cm, has been designed and constructed at a cost substantially below that of a commercial unit. The design incorporates efficient water cooling and a resistive heating element. A vacuum pressure of 1.5 x 10 to the -8th torr at room temperature has been obtained after baking. The temperature limit is approximately 1900 C. This limit results from the choice of niobium as the hot zone material.

Folkner, W. M.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Multimode-Optical-Fiber Imaging Probe

Currently, endoscopic surgery uses single-mode fiber-bundles to obtain in vivo image information inside orifices of the body. This limits their use to the larger natural bodily orifices and to surgical procedures where there is plenty of room for manipulation. The knee joint, for example can be easily viewed with a fiber optic viewer, but joints in the finger cannot. However, there are a host of smaller orifices where fiber endoscopy would play an important role if a cost effective fiber probe were developed with small enough dimensions (< 250 microns). Examples of beneficiaries of micro-endoscopes are the treatment of the Eustatian tube of the middle ear, the breast ducts, tear ducts, coronary arteries, fallopian tubes, as well as the treatment of salivary duct parotid disease, and the neuro endoscopy of the ventricles and spinal canal. To solve this problem, this work describes an approach for recovering images from. tightly confined spaces using multimode fibers and analytically demonstrates that the concept is sound. The proof of concept draws upon earlier works that concentrated on image recovery after two-way transmission through a multimode fiber as well as work that demonstrated the recovery of images after one-way transmission through a multimode fiber. Both relied on generating a phase conjugated wavefront which was predistorted with the characteristics of the fiber. The described approach also relies on generating a phase conjugated wavefront, but utilizes two fibers to capture the image at some intermediate point (accessible by the fibers, but which is otherwise visually unaccessible).

Jackson, Deborah↗
NASA NTRS2004

A Revised Approach to the ULDB Design

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Balloon Program has experienced problems in the scaling up of the proposed Ultra Long Duration Balloon. Full deployment of the balloon envelope has been the issue for the larger balloons. There are a number of factors that contribute to this phenomenon. Analytical treatments of the deployment issue are currently underway. It has also been acknowledged that the current fabrication approach using foreshortening is costly, labor intensive, and requires significant handling during production thereby increasing the chances of inducing damage to the envelope. Raven Industries has proposed a new design and fabrication approach that should increase the probability of balloon deployment, does not require foreshortening, will reduce the handling, production labor, and reduce the final balloon cost. This paper will present a description of the logic and approach used to develop this innovation. This development consists of a serial set of steps with decision points that build upon the results of the previous steps. The first steps include limited material development and testing. This will be followed by load testing of bi-axial reinforced cylinders to determine the effect of eliminating the foreshortening. This series of tests have the goal of measuring the strain in the material as it is bi-axially loaded in a condition that closely replicated the application in the full-scale balloon. Constant lobe radius pumpkin shaped test structures will be designed and analyzed. This matrix of model tests, in conjunction with the deployment analyses, will help develop a curve that should clearly present the deployment relationship for this kind of design. This will allow the "design space" for this type of balloon to be initially determined. The materials used, analyses, and ground testing results of both cylinders and small pumpkin structures will be presented. Following ground testing, a series of test flights, staged in increments of increasing suspended load and balloon volume, will be conducted. The first small scale test flight has been proposed for early Spring 2004. Results of this test flight of this new design and approach will presented. Two additional domestic test flights from Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, and Palestine, Texas, and one circumglobal test flight from Australia are planned as part of this development. Future plans for both ground testing and test flights will also be presented.

Smith, Michael↗