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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 1,099 records · Page 61
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

ISIS and META projects

ISIS and META are two distributed systems projects at Cornell University. The ISIS project, has developed a new methodology, virtual synchrony, for writing robust distributed software. This approach is directly supported by the ISIS Toolkit, a programming system that is distributed to over 300 academic and industrial sites. Several interesting applications that exploit the strengths of ISIS, including an NFS-compatible replicated file system, are being developed. The META project, is about distributed control in a soft real time environment incorporating feedback. This domain encompasses examples as diverse as monitoring inventory and consumption on a factory floor and performing load-balancing on a distributed computing system. One of the first uses of META is for distributed application management: the tasks of configuring a distributed program, dynamically adapting to failures, and monitoring its performance. Recent progress and current plans are presented. This approach to distributed computing, a philosophy that is believed to significantly distinguish the work from that of others in the field, is explained.

Birman, Kenneth↗
NASA NTRS1990

ISIS and META projects

The ISIS project has developed a new methodology, virtual synchony, for writing robust distributed software. High performance multicast, large scale applications, and wide area networks are the focus of interest. Several interesting applications that exploit the strengths of ISIS, including an NFS-compatible replicated file system, are being developed. The META project is distributed control in a soft real-time environment incorporating feedback. This domain encompasses examples as diverse as monitoring inventory and consumption on a factory floor, and performing load-balancing on a distributed computing system. One of the first uses of META is for distributed application management: the tasks of configuring a distributed program, dynamically adapting to failures, and monitoring its performance. Recent progress and current plans are reported.

Birman, Kenneth↗
NASA NTRS2004

An Agent-Based Interface to Terrestrial Ecological Forecasting

This paper describes a flexible agent-based ecological forecasting system that combines multiple distributed data sources and models to provide near-real-time answers to questions about the state of the Earth system We build on novel techniques in automated constraint-based planning and natural language interfaces to automatically generate data products based on descriptions of the desired data products.

Golden, Keith↗
NASA NTRS2017

Collaborative, Rapid Mapping of Water Extents During Hurricane Harvey Using Optical and Radar Satellite Sensors

On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor, Texas, bringing with it unprecedented amounts of rainfall and record flooding. In times of natural disasters of this nature, emergency responders require timely and accurate information about the hazard in order to assess and plan for disaster response. Due to the extreme flooding impacts associated with Hurricane Harvey, delineations of water extent were crucial to inform resource deployment. Through the USGS's Hazards Data Distribution System, government and commercial vendors were able to acquire and distribute various satellite imagery to analysts to create value-added products that can be used by these emergency responders. Rapid-response water extent maps were created through a collaborative multi-organization and multi-sensor approach. One team of researchers created Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) water extent maps using modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA. This group used backscatter images, pre-processed by the Alaska Satellite Facility's Hybrid Pluggable Processing Pipeline (HyP3), to identify and apply a threshold to identify water in the image. Quality control was conducted by manually examining the image and correcting for potential errors. Another group of researchers and graduate student volunteers derived water masks from high resolution DigitalGlobe and SPOT images. Through a system of standardized image processing, quality control measures, and communication channels the team provided timely and fairly accurate water extent maps to support a larger NASA Disasters Program response. The optical imagery was processed through a combination of various band thresholds and by using Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Modified Normalized Water Index (MNDWI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and cloud masking. Several aspects of the pre-processing and image access were run on internal servers to expedite the provision of images to analysts who could focus on manipulating thresholds and quality control checks for maximum accuracy within the time constraints. The combined results of the radar- and optical-derived value-added products through the coordination of multiple organizations provided timely information for emergency response and recovery efforts.

SERVIR↗
DOE OSTI2016

The Impact of Microgrids on Transmission Network Congestion Management

This work presents a preliminary analysis considering impact of a grid-connected microgrid on network transmission of the power system. The locational marginal prices of the power system are used to strategically place the microgrid to avoid congestion problems. In addition, a Monte Carlo simulation approach is implemented to confirm that network congestion can be attenuated if appropriate price-based signals are set to define the import and export dynamic between the two systems.

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DOE OSTI2018

REopt Lite Web Tool Evaluates Photovoltaics and Battery Storage

Building on the success of the REopt renewable energy integration and optimization platform, NREL has developed a free, publicly available web version of REopt called REopt Lite. REopt Lite evaluates the economics of grid-connected photovoltaics (PV) and battery storage at a site. It allows building owners to identify the system sizes and battery dispatch strategy that minimize their life cycle cost of energy. This web tool also estimates the amount of time a PV and storage system can sustain the site's critical load during a grid outage.

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DOE OSTI2019

Multi-modular power plant with off-grid power source

A multi-modular power plant may include a plurality of on-site nuclear power modules configured to generate a power plant output, wherein one or more of the nuclear power modules may be designated as service module units which are configured to generate a first portion of the power plant output. A remainder of the nuclear power modules may be configured to generate a second portion of the power plant output. A number of power plant systems may be configured to operate using electricity associated with a house load of the power plant, wherein the first portion of the power plant output is equal to or greater than the house load. Additionally, a switchyard may be configured to electrically connect the power plant to a distributed electrical grid. The distributed electrical grid may be configured to service a plurality of geographically distributed consumers, and the switchyard may be configured to apply the second portion of the power plant output to the distributed electrical grid. The switchyard may further be configured to apply at least part of the first portion of the power plant output to the power plant systems during a loss of power from the distributed electrical grid.

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DOE OSTI2015

SU-E-T-319: Dosimetric Evaluation of IMRT with Mix-Energy Beam for Deep Seated Targets

Purpose: IMRT is preferred in the range of 6–10MV X-rays. Partially adding high energy (>10MV) treatment fields, may provide advantage of both higher and lower energies. To study IMRT dose distribution obtained from treatment plans with single (6MV) and mixed-energy (6MV and 15MV) for deep seated targets (separation more than 30cm). Methods: Five patients of carcinoma of cervix were studied using eclipse planning system. Two different dynamic IMRT plans were generated for Varian CL2300C/D linear accelerator; one is by using 6MV X-ray with seven equally spaced coplanar beams. In second plan, 2 lateral oblique fields (gantry angle 102°, 255°) beam energy was modified to 15MV by keeping all other parameters and dose volume constraints constant. Dose prescription for the planning target volume (PTV) was (5040cGy/28f). For plan comparison, dose volume histogram (DVH) was used and PTV coverage index (CI=Target volume covered by prescription dose/Target volume), heterogeneity index (D5/D95), mean dose to organ at risk (OAR) and normal tissue integral dose (NTID, liter-Gray) was also noted. Total monitor unit (MU) required to deliver a plan was also noted. Results: Mixed-energy plan showed a better conformity and CI values were 0.942±0.032 and 0.960±0.040 for single-energy and mixed-energy plan, respectively. In addition, HI value of mixed energy beam is comparable to that of single energy and the values were within 1.084±0.034 and 1.082±0.032 for single energy and mixed-energy plan, respectively. Variation in mean dose to bladder, rectum and bowel were within 1.05%, 0.87% and 0.90%. NTID was lesser for mixed-energy beam due to use of two high-energy fields. NTID were 1573.40±214.60 and 1510.20±249.80 litre-Gray for single energy and mixed-energy plan. MU needed to deliver a plan was similar in both plans and MUs were 238±45 and 237±47. Conclusion: Partial use of 15MV treatment fields in IMRT plan for deep seated targets showed dosimetric advantage over 6MV plan.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Evaluating the Role of Pre-Application Reports in Improving Distributed Generation Interconnection Processes

Several tools have emerged in recent years to increase data exchange and transparency in the distributed generation interconnection process with the goal of reducing interconnection costs. One example is pre-application reports. These reports are generated by a utility at the request of prospective interconnection applicants to provide technical information about a specific point of interconnection. Formal pre-application report processes have been established in 12 states at the distribution system level as well as at the transmission level by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These reports are a relatively low-cost method of informing applicants of grid conditions and potential interconnection limitations early in the interconnection process. Thus, this information may encourage interconnection in locations with little to no detrimental impact to the grid and low interconnection costs. Increasing transparency of these grid conditions may also enable applicants to better plan for interconnection costs and requirements, such as system modifications and complex engineering studies. By providing these benefits, pre-application reports are expected to reduce the number of canceled interconnection applications. This report evaluates this hypothesis by quantifying the impact pre-application report processes have on application approval rate. To evaluate this hypothesis this analysis uses utility-reported distributed generation interconnection data from four utilities in Massachusetts. The analysis considers a four-year time period before and a five-year period after pre-application report process were implemented. The results indicate that once pre-application reports were required for projects 500 kilowatts and larger the approval rate of applications increased by 24%. This suggests that pre-application reports may decrease the percentage of canceled projects. However, due to data and other limitations, these results do not necessarily connote causation. This analysis is an important first step and a prerequisite for future analyses regarding the impact of pre-application reports. Other potential impacts also recognized during this analysis included reducing sunk costs and reducing the number of projects requiring a complex review. Collection of additional data would allow for forming more robust conclusions about these impacts in the future. Such data include circuit-level data, interconnection cost data, policy and regulatory background, national-level data, and utility and developer attributes. These data provide necessary context to account for interrelated factors while evaluating pre-application reports. Filling such knowledge gaps ultimately aids regulators in applying best practices within the industry. As more and more distributed energy resources are interconnected, these best practices will become an integral aspect of efficiently transitioning to an electric grid capable of meeting the needs of the 21st century.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Data-Driven Stochastic Transmission Expansion Planning

Due to the significant improvements of power generation technologies and the trend of replacing traditional power plants with renewable generation resources, the generation portfolio will experience dramatic changes in the near future. The uncertainty and variability of renewable energy and their sitting call for strategic and economic plans for expanding the transmission capacities. In this study, we develop a data-driven two-stage stochastic transmission expansion planning with uncertainties. In the proposed approach, purely by learning from the historical data, we first construct a confidence set for the unknown distribution of the uncertain parameters. Then, we develop a two-stage data-driven transmission expansion framework, by considering the worst-case distribution within the constructed confidence set, so as to provide a reliable while economic transmission planning decision. Furthermore, to tackle the model complexity, we propose a decomposition framework embedded with Benders' and Column-and-Constraint generation methods. We implement our approach on 6-bus and 118-bus systems to test its effectiveness. Finally, we show as the amount of historical data grows, the conservativeness of the model decreases.

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NASA NTRS2011

An Integrated Hydrological and Water Management Study of the Entire Nile River System - Lake Victoria to Nile Delta

The Nile basin River system spans 3 million km(exp 2) distributed over ten nations. The eight upstream riparian nations, Ethiopia, Eretria, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Tanzania and Kenya are the source of approximately 86% of the water inputs to the Nile, while the two downstream riparian countries Sudan and Egypt, presently rely on the river's flow for most of the their needs. Both climate and agriculture contribute to the complicated nature of Nile River management: precipitation in the headwaters regions of Ethiopia and Lake Victoria is variable on a seasonal and inter-annual basis, while demand for irrigation water in the arid downstream region is consistently high. The Nile is, perhaps, one of the most difficult trans-boundary water issue in the world, and this study would be the first initiative to combine NASA satellite observations with the hydrologic models study the overall water balance in a to comprehensive manner. The cornerstone application of NASA's Earth Science Research Results under this project are the NASA Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) and the USDA Atmosphere-land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) model. These two complementary research results are methodologically independent methods for using NASA observations to support water resource analysis in data poor regions. Where an LDAS uses multiple sources of satellite data to inform prognostic simulations of hydrological process, ALEXI diagnoses evapotranspiration and water stress on the basis of thermal infrared satellite imagery. Specifically, this work integrates NASA Land Data Assimilation systems into the water management decision support systems that member countries of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD, located in Nairobi, Kenya) use in water resource analysis, agricultural planning, and acute drought response to support sustainable development of Nile Basin water resources. The project is motivated by the recognition that accurate, frequent, and spatially distributed estimates of the water balance are necessary for effective water management. This creates a challenge for watersheds that are large, include data poor regions, and/or span multiple nations. All of these descriptors apply to the Nile River basin, yet successful management of the Nile is critical for development and political stability in the region. For this reason, improved hydrological data to support cooperative water management in the Nile basin is a priority for USAID, the US State Department, the World Bank and other international organizations. In this project, the U.S. based research team is working with partners at RCMRD, Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), and their member national-level agencies to develop satellite-based land cover maps, satellite-derived evapotranspiration estimates (using the ALEXI algorithm), and NASA's Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) customized to match identified information needs. The cornerstone applied sciences product of the project is the development of a customized "Nile LDAS" that will produce optimal estimates of hydrological states and fluxes, as vetted against the in situ observations of NBI and RCMRD member organizations and independent satellite-derived hydrological estimates. Nile LDAS will be applied to improve the reliability of emerging Decision Support Systems in applications that include drought monitoring, reservoir management, and irrigation planning. The end-users such as RCMRD, NBI, Ethiopian and Kenya Meteorological and Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNet) will be the eventual benefactors of this work. There will be a capacity building process involving the above end-user organizations and transfer the models and the results for these organizations to execute for future use. The team has already initiated this study and the early results of first years' work are shown. The plan is to complete this work by late 2013.

Habib, Shahid↗
DOE OSTI2015

SU-C-BRB-05: Investigation of Conformal Arc Therapy Utilizing Newly Designed Cobalt 60 Machine

Purpose: A new modernized design for cobalt 60 (Co-60) machines is being developed with a ring type gantry. In this study we investigate the beneficial outcome of the new design for conformal arc therapy for various clinical sites. The new modality was evaluated based on isodose distributions and dose volume histograms as compared to 6MV photon beams from conventional linear accelerators. Methods: Computed tomographic images of seven different SBRT patients were selected from our patient database. All of these cases were previously planned on the Eclipse treatment planning system. New plans for these patients were generated with a modified conformal arc technique using both 6MV and Co-60 beams. The conformal arc was created by the delivery of treatment fields conformal to the target cross-section at every 5 or 10 degrees. The field shape was modified or turned off when it initially passed through a critical structure. Monte Carlo codes, MCBEAM and MCPLAN, were used for the machine head simulation and phantom/patient dose calculation, respectively. In the new Co-60 machine design, the source-to-isocenter distance was 60cm and the treatment head included the Co-60 source, primary collimator, jaws and MLC. Results: For all cases investigated, conformal arc plans utilizing Co-60 beams achieved similar conformity (mean conformity index=1.19) comparing to 6MV photon beams. Isodose distributions were tailored similarly around the PTV; both Co-60 and 6MV plans met our clinical acceptance criteria for the target coverage, and the maximum and minimum target doses. The DVH for the Co-60 plans showed slightly lower doses to the critical structures although the differences were small in most cases. Conclusion: There were no significant dosimetric differences between 6MV and Co-60 plans. Our results confirmed that this new Co-60 design could be a cost-effective machine for advanced radiotherapy due to its low cost, low maintenance and high up time.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Grid Integration Studies: Data Requirements, Greening the Grid

A grid integration study is an analytical framework used to evaluate a power system with high penetration levels of variable renewable energy (VRE). A grid integration study simulates the operation of the power system under different VRE scenarios, identifying reliability constraints and evaluating the cost of actions to alleviate those constraints. These VRE scenarios establish where, how much, and over what timeframe to build generation and transmission capacity, ideally capturing the spatial diversity benefits of wind and solar resources. The results help build confidence among policymakers, system operators, and investors to move forward with plans to increase the amount of VRE on the grid.

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DOE OSTI2017

High-Penetration Photovoltaic Planning Methodologies

The main objective of this report is to provide an overview of select U.S. utility methodologies for performing high-penetration photovoltaic (HPPV) system planning and impact studies. This report covers the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's orders related to photovoltaic (PV) power system interconnection, particularly the interconnection processes for the Large Generation Interconnection Procedures and Small Generation Interconnection Procedures. In addition, it includes U.S. state interconnection standards and procedures. The procedures used by these regulatory bodies consider the impacts of HPPV power plants on the networks. Technical interconnection requirements for HPPV voltage regulation include aspects of power monitoring, grounding, synchronization, connection to the overall distribution system, back-feeds, disconnecting means, abnormal operating conditions, and power quality. This report provides a summary of mitigation strategies to minimize the impact of HPPV. Recommendations and revisions to the standards may take place as the penetration level of renewables on the grid increases and new technologies develop in future years.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2020

Integrated Demand Management: Concepts and Procedures

This report provides a comprehensive description of the Integrated Demand Management concept. Motivation: NASA’s Integrated Demand Management (IDM) research explores the idea that, under certain conditions, time-based flow management (TBFM) arrival operations can benefit from the coordinated use of a strategic traffic management initiative (TMI) to “precondition” the inbound demand. The research was motivated by the observation that TBFM was usually turned off during convective weather, even in facilities where it was routinely used. Our hypothesis was that strategic adjustments to the inbound traffic so that it provided a better match to the off-nominal changes in capacity observed during these conditions could enable TBFM scheduling to continue to provide effective support for arrival traffic management. Concept: IDM proposes that a TMI (e.g., a Collaborative Trajectory Options Program, or CTOP) be used to adjust the rate and/or geographic distribution across flows of the traffic inbound to a high-demand, TBFM-managed airport before that traffic reaches the TBFM planning horizon. After this strategic preconditioning, TBFM can then tactically fine-tune the demand to deliver a well-managed, orderly feed to the destination airport. Coordinated use of these two flow management capabilities is intended to improve system performance in terms of: • Equity of ground delay assignment, avoiding excessive ground delay for TBFM-scheduled departures, without penalizing longer flights; • Throughput, by distributing traffic to maximize use of available capacity; • Predictability for operators, providing advance notice about the impact on individual flights; • Increased flexibility, supporting operator mitigation strategies such as slot swapping or trajectory options; • Efficiency of flight operations, using ground delay more effectively and reducing airborne delay. The operational description in this document highlights how the IDM concept builds upon already existing tools and procedures, and also indicates where tool enhancements could facilitate conduct of IDM operations. However, enhanced tools are not a requirement for concept introduction. In fact, initial deployment that focused on training procedures and rationale for coordinated use of TFMS and TBFM, without changes to existing tools, might be a simpler way to introduce and to familiarize traffic managers with the idea of preconditioning. The concept and procedures described in this document can hopefully provide useful guidance for introduction of IDM into field operations..

IDM↗
DOE OSTI2023

Overview of Potential Hazards in Electric Aircraft Charging Infrastructure

With increasing efforts in electrification of Advanced Air Mobility and electric aircraft, there is a growing need to install new infrastructure to support them. This report highlights potential hazards (non exhaustive) that the installation must be aware of and be prepared to mitigate with increased electrical equipment on site. The hazards can be due to natural causes as well as non natural causes. The report aims to provide starting guidelines for awareness of these hazards and to help plan for mitigation of the same.

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