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In January 2000, the STEP for Aerospace Workshop at JPL brought together representatives from the standards developer, tool vendors and user community. It served as the catalyst for further STEP implementation activities in NASA. The most mature of these activities is the US STEP-TAS pilot. The current status of this pilot and future plans are reported in this paper.
In the six months after the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in Japan, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) took several actions to review the safety of its nuclear facilities and identify situations where near-term improvements could be made. These actions and recommendations were addressed in an August 2011 report to the Secretary of Energy, Review of Requirements and Capabilities for Analyzing and Responding to Beyond Design Basis Events. Based on recommendations in the August 2011 report, DOE embarked on a project to develop and refine guidance that supports improvements in DOE’s processes for analyzing and mitigating beyond design basis events (BDBEs), i.e., events such as earthquakes that are more severe than the events that formed the basis of the design for DOE’s nuclear facilities. The results of this BDBE project and recommendations for further DOE actions are provided in this follow-on report. The main activity of the BDBE project was the pilot application of guidance for evaluation of BDBE analysis and mitigation features at four DOE nuclear facilities representing a range of DOE sites, nuclear facility types/activities, and responsible program offices. The pilot evaluations focused on: (1) BDBE evaluations as documented in the facility Documented Safety Analysis (DSA); (2) potential BDBE vulnerabilities and margins to failure for facility safety features as obtained from general area and specific system walkdowns and design document reviews; and, (3) preparations made in facility and site emergency management programs to respond to severe accidents. The BDBE project also evaluated whether draft BDBE guidance on safety analysis and emergency management could be used to improve the analysis of, and preparations for, mitigating severe accidents and BDBEs. The pilot evaluation team paid close attention to related actions being pursued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. commercial nuclear industry, and the international nuclear safety community to help refine the guidance developed for the pilot evaluations.
DOE DE-FE0001888 Award, Phase 2, funded research, development, and deployment (RD&D) of Phycal’s pilot-scale, algae to biofuels, bioproducts, and processing facility in Hawai’i. Phycal’s algal-biofuel and bioproducts production system integrates several novel and mature technologies into a system that captures and reuses industrially produced carbon dioxide emissions, which would otherwise go directly to the atmosphere, for the manufacture of renewable energy products and bioproducts from algae (note that these algae are not genetically engineered). At the end of Phase 2, the project as proposed was to encompass 34 acres in Central Oahu and provide large open ponds for algal mass culturing, heterotrophic reactors for the Heteroboost™ process, processing facilities, water recycling facilities, anaerobic digestion facilities, and other integrated processes. The Phase 2 award was divided into two modules, Modules 1 & 2, where the Module 1 effort addressed critical scaling issues, tested highest risk technologies, and set the overall infrastructure needed for a Module 2. Phycal terminated the project prior to executing construction of the first Module. This Final Report covers the development research, detailed design, and the proposed operating strategy for Module 1 of Phase 2.
An intelligent pilot aiding system needs models of the pilot information processing to provide the computational basis for successful cooperation between the pilot and the aiding system. By combining artificial intelligence concepts with the human information processing model of Rasmussen, an abstraction hierarchy of states of knowledge, processing functions, and shortcuts are developed, which is useful for characterizing the information processing both of the pilot and of the aiding system. This approach is used in the conceptual design of a real time intelligent aiding system for flight crews of transport aircraft. One promising result was the tentative identification of a particular class of information processing shortcuts, from situation characterizations to appropriate responses, as the most important reliable pathway for dealing with complex time critical situations.
This project demonstrated the technical viability and economic promise of a modular system for converting flared natural gas into valuable carbon nanoproducts (CNPs) through catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CVD). All major project milestones were successfully completed, including reactor design and commissioning, catalyst development, process optimization, technoeconomic analysis, and application testing in concrete systems. The overarching goal was to create a scalable, field-deployable process that valorizes stranded methane by producing high-value carbon materials for use in cementitious composites. At the lab scale, the team designed and built a fluidized bed reactor optimized for use with silica fume-supported nickel catalysts synthesized via atomic layer deposition (ALD). A statistically designed sintering study enabled precise tuning of nickel nanoparticle size, identifying the influence of oxygen partial pressure, time, and temperature on catalyst morphology and performance. These insights allowed the team to target catalyst conditions that maximize carbon nanofilament growth. Subsequent CVD experiments achieved up to 31.8 wt% carbon deposition under optimized conditions, with TEM confirming the presence of nanofilament structures and sustained hydrogen evolution during reaction. Reactor upgrades and empirical fluidization studies supported the development of reliable, repeatable experimental protocols. The modular pilot-scale skid reactor was fully constructed, instrumented, and commissioned. Capable of operating at 675–800°C and pressures up to 290 psig, the system was designed for continuous operation at a carbon production rate of 1 kg/hr. Initial demonstration runs confirmed solids handling, thermal control, and system leak-tightness, although a critical reactor component (the downfeed tube) was inadvertently omitted during final assembly. This omission limited gas–solid contact and prevented meaningful carbon deposition during pilot-scale CVD runs. Nonetheless, the system operated safely under design conditions, and the root cause of performance limitations was clearly identified. Complementary work on UHPC formulations demonstrated that small additions of carbon nanoproducts, including those derived from flare gas, can significantly enhance mechanical performance while preserving workability. A comprehensive study of CNF dispersion techniques and mix design optimization led to a clear protocol for integrating these nanomaterials into concrete. Incorporation of CNPs improved flexural toughness and reduced porosity, supporting their use in high-performance infrastructure applications. A technoeconomic analysis (TEA) confirmed that this process can produce CNP-loaded catalyst material at a levelized cost below $\$$7/kg across a range of catalyst loadings and reaction yields. With estimated market values for the carbon composite product ranging from $\$$14 to over $\$$60/kg, and the ability to blend CNPs into concrete at sub-percent levels with less than 10% added cost, the system presents a compelling economic case. While additional engineering work is needed to optimize fluidization and heat transfer at scale, this project establishes a strong foundation for commercial development. The process is not only technically sound but also economically promising, representing a viable pathway for flare gas mitigation through modular carbon nanomaterial production.
Polyethylene is one of the most widely used plastics, and over 60 million tons are produced worldwide every year. Polyethylene is obtained by the catalytic polymerization of ethylene in gas and liquid phase reactors. The gas phase processes are more advantageous, and use fluidized-bed reactors for production of polyethylene. Since they operate so close to the melting point of the polymer, agglomeration is an operational concern in all slurry and gas polymerization processes. Electrostatics and hot spot formation are the main factors that contribute to agglomeration in gas-phase processes. Electrostatic charges in gas phase polymerization fluidized bed reactors are known to influence the bed hydrodynamics, particle elutriation, bubble size, bubble shape etc. Accumulation of electrostatic charges in the fluidized-bed can lead to operational issues. In this work a first-principles electrostatic model is developed and coupled with a multi-fluid computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model to understand the effect of electrostatics on the dynamics of a fluidized-bed. The multi-fluid CFD model for gas-particle flow is based on the kinetic theory of granular flows closures. The electrostatic model is developed based on a fixed, size-dependent charge for each type of particle (catalyst, polymer, polymer fines) phase. The combined CFD model is first verified using simple test cases, validated with experiments and applied to a pilot-scale polymerization fluidized-bed reactor. The CFD model reproduced qualitative trends in particle segregation and entrainment due to electrostatic charges observed in experiments. For the scale up of fluidized bed reactor, filtered models are developed and implemented on pilot scale reactor.
Particulate contamination on astronomical mirrors degrades performance in two ways: by information loss by extinction of light; and background and noise from scattering, especially forward or Fraunhofer scattering. These effects were not generally understood, and an ambitious pilot program was outlined to measure particulate effects on telescope optical performance; develop prophylactic and cleaning procedures suitable for groundbased observatories; investigate by computational modelling the effects on telescopes in space; and communicate the results and concerns within the astronomical community.
The United States Department of Energy’s Carbon Capture Simulation for Industry Impact (CCSI2) program has developed a framework for sequential design of experiments (SDoE) that aims to maximize knowledge gained from budget- and schedule-limited pilot scale testing. SDoE was applied to the planning and execution of campaigns for testing CO2 capture systems at pilot-scale in order to optimally allocate resources available for the testing. In this methodology, a stochastic process model is developed by quantifying the parametric uncertainty in submodels of interest; for a solvent-based CO2 capture system, these may include physical properties and equipment performance submodels (e.g., mass transfer, interfacial area). This uncertainty is propagated through the full process model, over variable operating conditions, for estimating the resulting uncertainty in key model outputs (e.g., percentage of CO2 capture, solvent regeneration energy requirement). In developing a data collection plan, the predicted output uncertainty is incorporated into an algorithm that seeks simultaneously to select process operating conditions for which the predicted uncertainty is relatively high and to ensure that the entire space of operation is well represented. This test plan is then used to guide operation of the pilot plant at varying steady-state conditions, with resulting process data incorporated into the existing model using Bayesian inference to refine parameter distributions. The updated stochastic model, with reduced parametric uncertainty from data collected, is then used to guide additional data collection, thus the sequential nature of the experimental design. The SDoE process was implemented at the pilot test unit (12 MWe in scale) at Norway’s Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) in a summer 2018 test campaign with aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA). During the test campaign, the varied operating conditions included the flowrates of circulated solvent, flue gas, and reboiler steam and the CO2 concentration in the flue gas. The process data were used to update probability distributions of mass transfer and interfacial area parameters of a stochastic process model developed by the CCSI2 team. Two iterations of the SDoE process were executed, resulting in the uncertainty in model predicted CO2 capture percentage decreasing by an average of 58.0 ± 4.7% over the full input space of interest. This work demonstrates the potential of the SDoE process for model refinement through reduction in process model parametric uncertainty, and ultimately risk in scale-up, in CO2 capture technology performance.
Over the past 5 years, the UAS integration into the NAS project has worked to reduce technical barriers to integration. A major focus of this work has been in support of RTCA SC-228. This committee has recently published the first UAS integration minimum performance standards (MOPS). This work has spanned detect and avoid (DAA) as well as command and control comm datalinks. I will discuss DAA efforts with focus on the human systems work. I will discuss how automation was discussed and addressed within this context. ICAO stood up a remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) panel in 2014. They have developed an RPAS manual and are now working to revise existing annexes and standards and recommended practices. The Human In The System (HITS) has worked to infuse human factors guidelines into those documents. I will discuss that effort as well as how ICAO has defined and address autonomy. There is a great deal of interest in the control of multiple vehicles by a single operator. The UAS EXCOM Science and Research Panel (SARP) is holding a workshop on this topic in late June. I will discuss research performed on this topic when I worked for the Army and on-going work within the division and a NATO working group on Human-Autonomy Teaming.
In February 1997, President Clinton announced a national goal to reduce the weather related fatal accident rate for aviation by 80% in ten years. To support that goal, NASA established an Aviation Weather Information Distribution and Presentation Project to develop technologies that will provide timely and intuitive information to pilots, dispatchers, and air traffic controllers. This information should enable the detection and avoidance of atmospheric hazards and support an improvement in the fatal accident rate related to weather. A critical issue in the success of NASA's weather information program is the rate at which the market place will adopt this new weather information technology. This paper examines that question by developing estimated adoption curves for weather information systems in five critical aviation segments: commercial, commuter, business, general aviation, and rotorcraft. The paper begins with development of general product descriptions. Using this data, key adopters are surveyed and estimates of adoption rates are obtained. These estimates are regressed to develop adoption curves and equations for weather related information systems. The paper demonstrates the use of adoption rate curves in product development and research planning to improve managerial decision processes and resource allocation.
This project explored the possibility of predicting pilot situational awareness (SA) using human performance modeling techniques for the purpose of evaluating developing cockpit systems. The Improved Performance Research Integration Tool (IMPRINT) was combined with the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) cognitive modeling architecture to produce a tool that can model both the discrete tasks of pilots and the cognitive processes associated with SA. The techniques for using this tool to predict SA were demonstrated using the newly developed Aviation Weather Information (AWIN) system. By providing an SA prediction tool to cockpit system designers, cockpit concepts can be assessed early in the design process while providing a cost-effective complement to the traditional pilot-in-the-loop experiments and data collection techniques.
The advent of the Space Shuttle era elevated cardiovascular deconditioning from a research topic in gravitational physiology to a concern with operational consequences during critical space mission phases. NASA has identified three primary cardiovascular risks associate with short-duration (less than 18 d) spaceflight: orthostatic intolerance; decreased maximal oxygen uptake; and cardiac arrhythmias. Orthostatic hypotension (OH) was observed postflight in Mercury astronauts, studied in Gemini and Apollo astronauts, and tracked as it developed in-flight during Skylab missions. A putative hypotensive episode in the pilot during an early shuttle landing, and well documented postflight hypotension in a quarter of crewmembers, catalyzed NASA's research effort to understand its mechanisms and develop countermeasures. Shuttle investigations documented the onset of OH, tested mechanistic hypotheses, and demonstrated countermeasures both simple and complex. Similarly, decreased aerobic capacity in-flight threatened both extravehicular activity and post-landing emergency egress. In one study, peak oxygen uptake and peak power were significantly decreased following flights. Other studies tested hardware and protocols for aerobic conditioning that undergird both current practice on long-duration International Space Station (ISS) missions and plans for interplanetary expeditions. Finally, several studies suggest that cardiac arrhythmias are of less concern during short-duration spaceflight than during long-duration spaceflight. Duration of the QT interval was unchanged and the frequency of premature atrial and ventricular contractions was actually shown to decrease during extravehicular activity. These investigations on short-duration Shuttle flights have paved the way for research aboard long-duration ISS missions and beyond. Efforts are already underway to study the effects of exploration class missions to asteroids and Mars.
The Pile Fuel Storage Pond (PFSP) was built in 1949/50 to receive, store and de-can fuel and isotopes from the Windscale Piles. Following closure of the Piles in 1957, plant operations were scaled down until fuel processing eventually ceased in 1962. The facility has held an inventory of metal fuel both from the Piles and from other programmes since that time. The pond is currently undergoing remediation and removal of the fuel is a key step in that process, unfortunately the fuel export infrastructure on the plant is no longer functional and due to the size and limited lifting capability, the plant is not compatible with today's large volume heavy export flasks. The baseline scheme for the plant is to package fuel into a small capacity flask and transfer it to another facility for treatment and repackaging into a flask compatible with other facilities on site. Due to programme priorities the repackaging facility is not available to do this work for several years causing a delay to the work. In an effort accelerate the programme the Metal Fuel Pilot Project (MFPP) was initiated to challenge the norms for fuel transfer and develop a new methodology for transferring the fuel. In developing a transfer scheme the team had to overcome challenges associated with unknown fuel condition, transfers outside of bulk containment, pyro-phoricity and oxidisation hazards as well as developing remote control and recovery systems for equipment not designed for this purpose. A combination of novel engineering and enhanced operational controls were developed which resulted in the successful export of the first fuel to leave the Pile Fuel Storage Pond in over 40 years. The learning from the pilot project is now being considered by the main project team to see how the new methodology can be applied to the full inventory of the pond. (author)
The status of the Japanese photovoltaic (PV) R&D activities was surveyed through literature searches, private communications, and site visits in 1982. The results show that the Japanese photovoltaic technology is maturing rapidly, consistent with the steady government funding under the Sunshine Project. Two main thrusts of the Project are: (1) completion of the solar panel production pilot plants using cast ingot and sheet silicon materials, and (2) development of large area amorphous silicon solar cells with acceptable efficiency (10 to 12%). An experimental automated solar panel production plant rated at 500 kW/yr is currently under construction for the Sunshine Project for completion in March 1983. Efficiencies demonstrated by experimental large are amorphous silicon solar cells are approaching 8%. Small area amorphous silicon solar cells are, however, currently being mass produced and marketed by several companies at an equivalent annual rate of 2 MW/yr for consumer electronic applications. There is no evidence of an immediate move by the Japanese PV industry to enter extensively into the photovoltaic power market, domestic or otherwise. However, the photovoltaic technology itself could become ready for such an entry in the very near future, especially by making use of advanced process automation technologies.
Perceived orderliness in the ground tracks of five A/C during their simulated flights was studied. Dynamically developing ground tracks for five A/C from 21 separate runs were reproduced from computer storage and displayed on CRTS to professional pilots and controllers for their evaluations and preferences under several criteria. The ground tracks were developed in 20 seconds as opposed to the 5 minutes of simulated flight using speedup techniques for display. Metric and nonmetric multidimensional scaling techniques are being used to analyze the subjective responses in an effort to: (1) determine the meaningfulness of basing decisions on such complex subjective criteria; (2) compare pilot/controller perceptual spaces; (3) determine the dimensionality of the subjects' perceptual spaces; and thereby (4) determine objective measures suitable for comparing alternative traffic management simulations.
Piloted simulation studies of cockpit traffic display concepts require the development of representative traffic scenarios. With the exception of specific aircraft interaction issues, most research questions can be addressed using traffic scenarios consisting of prerecorded aircraft movements merged together to form a desired traffic pattern. Prerecorded traffic scenarios have distinct research advantages, allowing control of traffic encounters with repeatability of scenarios between different test subjects. A technique is described for generation of prerecorded jet transport traffic scenarios suitable for use in piloted simulation studies. Individual flight profiles for the aircraft in the scenario are created interactively with a computer program designed specifically for this purpose. The profiles are then time-correlated and merged into a complete scenario. This technique was used to create traffic scenarios for the Denver, Colorado area with operations centered at Stapleton International Airport. Traffic scenarios for other areas may also be created using this technique, with appropriate modifications made to the navigation fix locations contained in the flight profile generation program.
GE Global Research is developing technology to remove carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the flue gas of coal-fired powerplants. A mixture of 3-aminopropyl end-capped polydimethylsiloxane (GAP-1m) and triethylene glycol (TEG) is the preferred CO2-capture solvent. GE Global Research was contracted by the Department of Energy to test a pilot-scale continuous CO2 absorption/desorption system using a GAP-1m/TEG mixture as the solvent. As part of that effort, an Environmental, Health, and Safety (EH&S) assessment for a CO2-capture system for a 550 MW coal-fired powerplant was conducted. Five components of the solvent, CAS#2469-55-8 (GAP-0), CAS#106214-84-0 (GAP-1-4), TEG, and methanol and xylene (minor contaminants from the aminosilicone) are included in this assessment. One by-product, GAP- 1m/SOX salt, and dodecylbenzenesulfonicacid (DDBSA) were also identified foranalysis. An EH&S assessment was also completed for the manufacturing process for the GAP-1m solvent. The chemicals associated with the manufacturing process include methanol, xylene, allyl chloride, potassium cyanate, sodium hydroxide (NaOH), tetramethyldisiloxane (TMDSO), tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide, Karstedt catalyst, octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), Aliquat 336, methyl carbamate, potassium chloride, trimethylamine, and (3-aminopropyl) dimethyl silanol. The toxicological effects of each component of both the CO2 capture system and the manufacturing process were defined, and control mechanisms necessary to comply with U.S. EH&S regulations are summarized. Engineering and control systems, including environmental abatement, are described for minimizing exposure and release of the chemical components. Proper handling and storage recommendations are made for each chemical to minimize risk to workers and the surrounding community.
A flight test program was conducted in conjunction with a ground-based piloted simulation study to enable a comparison of handling qualities ratings for a variety of maneuvers between flight and simulation of a modern high performance airplane. Specific objectives included an evaluation of pilot-induced oscillation (PIO) tendencies and a determination of maneuver types which result in either good or poor ground-to-flight pilot handling qualities ratings. A General Dynamics F-16XL aircraft was used for the flight evaluations, and the NASA Langley Differential Maneuvering Simulator was employed for the ground based evaluations. Two NASA research pilots evaluated both the airplane and simulator characteristics using tasks developed in the simulator. Simulator and flight tests were all conducted within approximately a one month time frame. Maneuvers included numerous fine tracking evaluations at various angles of attack, load factors and speed ranges, gross acquisitions involving longitudinal and lateral maneuvering, roll angle captures, and an ILS task with a sidestep to landing. Overall results showed generally good correlation between ground and flight for PIO tendencies and general handling qualities comments. Differences in pilot technique used in simulator evaluations and effects of airplane accelerations and motions are illustrated.