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NASA NTRS2003

Advanced Propulsion Systems Study for General Aviation Aircraft

This study defines a family of advanced technology Stratified Charge Rotary Engines (SCRE) appropriate for the enablement of the development of a new generation of general aviation aircraft. High commonality, affordability, and environmental compatibility are considerations influencing the family composition and ratings. The SCRE family is comprised of three engines in the 70 Series (40 cu in. displacement per rotor), i.e. one, two, and four rotor and two engines in the 170 Series (105 cu in. displacement per rotor), i.e., two and four rotor. The two rotor engines are considered the primary engines in each series. A wide power range is considered covering 125 to 2500 HP through growth and compounding/dual pac considerations. Mission requirements, TBO, FAA Certification, engine development cycles, and costs are examined. Comparisons to current and projected reciprocating and turbine engine configurations in the 125 to 1000 HP class are provided. Market impact, estimated sales, and U.S. job creation (R&D, manufacturing and infractures) are examined.

Mount, R.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Software With Strong Ties to Space

TieFlow is a simple but powerful business process improvement solution. It can automate and simplify any generic or industry-specific work process, helping organizations to transform work inefficiencies and internal operations involving people, paper, and procedures into a streamlined, well-organized, electronicbased process. TieFlow increases business productivity by improving process cycle times. The software can expedite generic processes in the areas of product design and development, purchase orders, expense reports, benefits enrollment, budgeting, hiring, and sales. It can also shore up vertical market processes such as claims processing, loan application and processing, health care administration, contract management, and advertising agency traffic. The processes can be easily and rapidly captured in a graphical manner and enforced together with rules pertaining to assignments that need to be performed. Aside from boosting productivity, TieFlow also reduces organizational costs and errors. TieFlow was developed with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) assistance from Johnson. The SBIR support entitles all Federal Government agencies to utilize the TieFlow software technology free of charge. Tietronix emphasizes that TieFlow is an outstanding workflow resource that could produce dramatic productivity and cost improvements for all agencies, just as it has done and continues to do for NASA. The Space Agency is currently using the software throughout several mission-critical offices, including the Mission Operations Directorate and the Flight Director s Office, for worldwide participation of authorized users in NASA processes. At the Flight Director s Office, TieFlow allows personnel to electronically submit and review changes to the flight rules carried out during missions.

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NASA NTRS2003

Numerical Modeling of Shatter Cones Development in Impact Craters

Shatter cones are the characteristic forms of rock fractures in impact structures. They have been used for decades as unequivocal fingerprints of meteoritic impacts on Earth. The abundant data about shapes, apical angles, sizes and distributions of shatter cones for many terrestrial impact structures should provide insights for the determination of impact conditions and characteristics of shock waves produced by high-velocity projectiles in geologic media. However, previously proposed models for the formation of shatter cones do not agree with observations. For example, the widely accepted Johnson-Talbot mechanism requires that the longitudinal stress drops to zero between the arrival of the elastic precursor and the main plastic wave. Unfortunately, observations do not support such a drop. A model has been also proposed to explain the striated features on the surface of shatter cones but can not invoked for their conical shape. The mechanism by which shatter cones form thus remains enigmatic to date. In this paper we present a new model for the formation of shatter cones. Our model has been tested by means of numerical simulations using the hydrocodes SALE 2D enhanced with the Grady-Kipp-Melosh fragmentation model.

Baratoux, D.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Hydrogen Flame Imaging System Soars to New, Different Heights

When Judy and Dave Duncan of Auburn, Calif.-based Duncan Technologies Inc. (DTI) developed their color hydrogen flame imaging system in the early 1990's, their market prospects were limited. 'We talked about commercializing the technology in the hydrogen community, but we also looked at commercialization on a much broader aspect. While there were some hydrogen applications, the market was not large enough to suppport an entire company; also, safety issues were a concern,' said Judy Duncan, owner and CEO of Duncan Technologies. Using the basic technology developed under the Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR); DTI conducted market research, identified other applications, formulated a plan for next generation development, and implemented a far-reaching marketing strategy. 'We took that technology; reinvested our own funds and energy into a second-generation design on the overall camera electronics and deployed that basic technology intially in a series of what we call multi-spectral cameras; cameras that could image in both the visible range and the infrared,' explains Duncan. 'The SBIR program allowed us to develop the technology to do a 3CCD camera, which very few compaines in the world do, particularly not small companies. The fact that we designed our own prism and specked the coding as we had for the hydrogen application, we were able to create a custom spectral configuration which could support varying types of research and applications.' As a result, Duncan Technologies Inc. of Auburn, Ca., has achieved a milestone $ 1 million in sales.

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NASA NTRS2003

Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE): MIT Contribution

We describe in detail the instrumentation and calibrations used in the ALE, GAGE and AGAGE experiments and present a history of the majority of the anthropogenic ozone- depleting and climate-forcing gases in air based on these experiments. Beginning in 1978, these three successive automated high frequency in-situ experiments have documented the long-term behavior of the measured concentrations of these gases over the past twenty years, and show both the evolution of latitudinal gradients and the high frequency variability due to sources and circulation. We provide estimates of the long-term trends in total chlorine contained in long- lived halocarbons involved in ozone depletion. We summarize interpretations of these measurements using inverse methods to determine trace gas lifetimes and emissions. Finally, we provide a combined observational and modeled reconstruction of the evolution of chlorocarbons by latitude in the atmosphere over the past sixty years which can be used as boundary conditions for interpreting trapped air in glaciers and oceanic measurements of chlorocarbon tracers of the deep oceanic circulation. Some specific conclusions are: (a) International compliance with the Montreal Protocol is so far resulting in chlorofluorocarbon and chlorocarbon mole fractions comparable to target levels, (b) Mole fractions of total chlorine contained in long-lived halocarbons (CCl2F2, CCl3F, CH3CCl3, CCl4, CHClF2, CCl2FCClF2, CH3Cl, CH2Cl2, CHCl3, CCl2=CCl2) in the lower troposphere reached maximum values of about 3.6 ppb in 1993 and are beginning to slowly decrease in the global lower atmosphere, (c) The chlorofluorocarbons have atmospheric lifetimes consistent with destruction in the stratosphere being their principal removal mechanism, (d) Multi-annual variations in chlorofluorocarbon and chlorocarbon emissions deduced from ALUGAGWAGAGE data are consistent approximately with variations estimated independently from industrial production and sales data where available (CCl2F2 (CFC-12) and CCl2FCClF2 (CFC-113) show the greatest discrepancies), (e) The mole fractions of the hydrochlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, which are replacing the regulated halocarbons, are rising very rapidly in the atmosphere but, with the exception of the much longer manufactured CHClF2 (HCFC-22), they are not yet at levels sufficient to contribute significantly to atmospheric chlorine loading. These replacement species could in the future provide independent estimates of the global weighted-average OH concentration provided their industrial emissions are accurately documented, (f) In the future, analysis of pollution events measured using high frequency in-situ measurements of chlorofluorocarbons and their replacements may enable emission estimates at the regional level which, together with industrial end-use data, are of sufficient accuracy to be capable of identifying regional non-compliance with the Montreal Protocol.

Kurylo, Michael↗

NASA NTRS2001

A Closed-Loop Optimal Neural-Network Controller to Optimize Rotorcraft Aeromechanical Behaviour: Theory and Methodology - Volume 1

Given the predicted growth in air transportation, the potential exists for significant market niches for rotary wing subsonic vehicles. Technological advances which optimise rotorcraft aeromechanical behaviour can contribute significantly to both their commercial and military development, acceptance, and sales. Examples of the optimisation of rotorcraft aeromechanical behaviour which are of interest include the minimisation of vibration and/or loads. The reduction of rotorcraft vibration and loads is an important means to extend the useful life of the vehicle and to improve its ride quality. Although vibration reduction can be accomplished by using passive dampers and/or tuned masses, active closed-loop control has the potential to reduce vibration and loads throughout a.wider flight regime whilst requiring less additional weight to the aircraft man that obtained by using passive methads. It is ernphasised that the analysis described herein is applicable to all those rotorcraft aeromechanical behaviour optimisation problems for which the relationship between the harmonic control vector and the measurement vector can be adequately described by a neural-network model.

Leyland, Jane Anne↗

NASA NTRS2005

DMBZ Polyimides Provide an Alternative to PMR-15 for High-Temperature Applications

PMR-15, a high-temperature polyimide developed in the mid-1970's at the NASA Lewis Research Center, offers the combination of ease of processing, low cost, and good stability and performance at temperatures up to 288 C (500 F). This material is widely regarded as one of the leading high-temperature matrix resins for polymer-matrix-composite aircraft engine components. PMR-15 is widely used in both military and civilian aircraft engines. The current worldwide market for PMR-15 is on the order of 50,000 lb, with a total sales of around $5 to $10 million. However, PMR-15 is made from methylene dianiline (MDA), a known animal mutagen and a suspected human mutagen. Recent concerns about the safety of workers involved in the manufacture and repair of PMR-15 components have led to the implementation of costly protective measures to limit worker exposure and ensure workplace safety. In some cases, because of safety and economic concerns, airlines have eliminated PMR-15 components from engines in their fleets. Current efforts at Lewis are focused on developing suitable replacements for PMR-15 that do not contain mutagenic constituents and have processability, stability, and mechanical properties comparable to that of PMR-15. A recent development from these efforts is a new class of thermosetting polyimides based on 2,2'-dimethylbenzidine (DMBZ). Autoclave processing developed for PMR-15 composites was used to prepare low-void-content T650-35 carbon-fiber-reinforced laminates from DMBZ-15 polyimides. The glass transition temperatures of these laminates were about 50 C higher than those of the T650- 35/PMR-15 composites (400 versus 348 C). In addition, DMBZ-15 polyimide composites aged for 1000 hr in air at 288 C (500 F) had weight losses close to those of comparable PMR-15 laminates (0.9 versus 0.7 percent). The elevated (288 C) and room temperature mechanical properties of T650-35-reinforced DMBZ-15 polyimide and PMR-15 laminates were comparable. Standard Ames tests are being conducted on this diamine to assess its mutagenicity.

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NASA NTRS2005

Wake Vortex Wingtip-Turbine Powered Circulation Control High-Lift System

NASA s Vehicle Systems Program is investing in aeronautics technology development across six vehicle sectors, in order to improve future air travel. These vehicle sectors include subsonic commercial transports, supersonic vehicles, Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Extreme Short Takeoff and Landing (ESTOL) vehicles, Rotorcraft, and Personal Air Vehicles (PAVs). While the subsonic transport is firmly established in U.S. markets, the other vehicle sectors have not developed a sufficient technology or regulatory state to permit widespread, practical use. The PAV sector has legacy products in the General Aviation (GA) market, but currently only accounts for negligible revenue miles, sales, or market share of personal travel. In order for PAV s to ever capture a significant market, these small aircraft require technologies that permit them to be less costly, environmentally acceptable, safer, easier to operate, more efficient, and less dependent on large support infrastructures.

Moore, Mark D.↗

NASA NTRS2005

Hawaii Space Grant Consortium

The Hawai'i Space Grant Consortium is composed of ten institutions of higher learning including the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, the University of Guam, and seven Community Colleges spread over the 4 main Hawaiian islands. Geographic separation is not the only obstacle that we face as a Consortium. Hawai'i has been mired in an economic downturn due to a lack of tourism for almost all of the period (2001 - 2004) covered by this report, although hotel occupancy rates and real estate sales have sky-rocketed in the last year. Our challenges have been many including providing quality educational opportunities in the face of shrinking State and Federal budgets, encouraging science and technology course instruction at the K-12 level in a public school system that is becoming less focused on high technology and more focused on developing basic reading and math skills, and assembling community college programs with instructors who are expected to teach more classes for the same salary. Motivated people can overcome these problems. Fortunately, the Hawai'i Space Grant Consortium (HSGC) consists of a group of highly motivated and talented individuals who have not only overcome these obstacles, but have excelled with the Program. We fill a critical need within the State of Hawai'i to provide our children with opportunities to pursue their dreams of becoming the next generation of NASA astronauts, engineers, and explorers. Our strength lies not only in our diligent and creative HSGC advisory board, but also with Hawai'i's teachers, students, parents, and industry executives who are willing to invest their time, effort, and resources into Hawai'i's future. Our operational philosophy is to FACE the Future, meaning that we will facilitate, administer, catalyze, and educate in order to achieve our objective of creating a highly technically capable workforce both here in Hawai'i and for NASA. In addition to administering to programs and educating the public in the traditional sense, we also work to facilitate partnerships between other departments (geology & geophysics, engineering, geography, astronomy), state and federal government agencies in Hawai'i, and private industry. In some cases, we are the catalyst for new partnerships between private agency sponsors and education projects or for new joint research and education projects between industry and the University faculty.

Flynn, Luke P.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Video Animation of Ocean Topography From TOPEX/POSEIDON

Three video loops showing various aspects of the dynamic ocean topography obtained from the TOPEX/POSEIDON radar altimetry data will be presented. The first shows the temporal change of the global ocean topography during the first year of the mission. The time-averaged mean is removed to reveal the temporal variabilities. Temporal interpolation is performed to create daily maps for the animation. A spatial smoothing is also performed to retain only the large-sale features. Gyre-scale seasonal changes are the main features. The second shows the temporal evolution of the Gulf Stream. The high resolution gravimetric geoid of Rapp is used to obtain the absolute ocean topography. Simulated drifters are used to visualize the flow pattern of the current. Meanders and rings of the current are the main features. The third is an animation of the global ocean topography on a spherical earth. The JGM-2 geoid is used to obtain the ocean topography...

Fu, Lee-Lueng↗

NASA NTRS1978

Five Year Flashlight

An ultra-reliable flashlight, initially developed for rescue signaling and utility use by NASA astronauts and military aircrews, has attracted a broad commercial market. Called the Five Year Light, it has a shelf life at least that long because there is no power drain on the batteries when the flashlight is not in use. The NASA version of the light was developed under contract with Langley Research Center by ACR Electronics, Inc., now known as the Chromalloy Electronics Division of Chromalloy American Corporation, Hollywood, Florida. NASA wanted a light that had long shelf life and assured reliability in case it was needed in an emergency. Reliability was designed into the flashlight by means of a unique switch. Instead of the customary thumb-button, the Five Year Light is turned on by rotating its collar to make contact with the battery terminal; the turning motion wipes away any corrosion that might be present and makes contact virtually certain. The Five Year Light available commercially is a repackaged version of the NASA light. It is sold for car, home, industrial, police, firefighting, recreational and a variety of other uses, and sales have topped two million units.

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NASA NTRS1977

Tenderness Tester

Space telemetry has been transferred to food processing in the Armour;Tenderorneter, an instrument that predicts the tenderness of meat. The space component of the instrument is a sensitive, highly reliable strain gage originally produced for NASA's Surveyor lunar lander and other space programs by BLH Electronics, Waltham, Mass. Several years ago Armour & Co. began to develop a method of testing a hanging carcass to predict how tender the meat would be after cooking; no such method then existed. After considerable experimentation, Armour came up with a manifold-mounted group of-needle-like probes, which when stuck into a carcass, could measure the degree to which the meat resisted penetration. This provided a basis for predicting tenderness, but the development required one more . step; a device that could translate meat resistance into an electrical readout. Armour found it in the BLH strain gage. The resulting Tenderometer, now a standard and important part of Armour's meat processing operation, includes a large, 10-pronged fork which is plunged into a carcass and a cable-connected, handheld electronic device that translates the sensings of the prongs into a tenderness reading on a dial. The instrument is used by Armour to select and guarantee a premium line of beef known as TesTender, whose annual sales run into tens of millions of pounds.

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NASA NTRS2007

Carving a Niche for the No-Frills Carrier, Air Arabia, in Oil-Rich Skies

The concept of introducing a no-frills airline to the wealthy Arab region presented its risks. This independent study sought to position the new airline in the marketplace. After three focus groups and 400 self-administered surveys, safety (#1) and price (#2) are low-fare carrier considerations whereas safety (#1), punctuality (#2) and price (#3) apply for full-fare airlines. Recommended ways for the no-frills carrier to reach the market include newspaper ads, travel agent sales, online bookings, and call centers. Additionally, respondents appeared to evaluate this low-fare carrier as if it is a full-service airline.

McKechnie, Donelda S.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Tiny Devices Project Sharp, Colorful Images

Displaytech Inc., based in Longmont, Colorado and recently acquired by Micron Technology Inc. of Boise, Idaho, first received a Small Business Innovation Research contract in 1993 from Johnson Space Center to develop tiny, electronic, color displays, called microdisplays. Displaytech has since sold over 20 million microdisplays and was ranked one of the fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte and Touche in 2005. Customers currently incorporate the microdisplays in tiny pico-projectors, which weigh only a few ounces and attach to media players, cell phones, and other devices. The projectors can convert a digital image from the typical postage stamp size into a bright, clear, four-foot projection. The company believes sales of this type of pico-projector may exceed $1.1 billion within 5 years.

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NASA NTRS2009

Crew Management Processes Revitalize Patient Care

In 2005, two physicians, former NASA astronauts, created LifeWings Partners LLC in Memphis, Tennessee and began using Crew Resource Management (CRM) techniques developed at Ames Research Center in the 1970s to help improve safety and efficiency at hospitals. According to the company, when hospitals follow LifeWings? training, they can see major improvements in a number of areas, including efficiency, employee satisfaction, operating room turnaround, patient advocacy, and overall patient outcomes. LifeWings has brought its CRM training to over 90 health care organizations and annual sales have remained close to $3 million since 2007.

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NASA NTRS2009

Tools Lighten Designs, Maintain Structural Integrity

Collier Research Corporation of Hampton, Virginia, licensed software developed at Langley Research Center to reduce design weight through the use of composite materials. The first license of NASA-developed software, it has now been used in everything from designing next-generation cargo containers, to airframes, rocket engines, ship hulls, and train bodies. The company now has sales of the NASA-derived software topping $4 million a year and has recently received several Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts to apply its software to nearly all aspects of the new Orion crew capsule design.

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NASA NTRS2010

Inflatable Tubular Structures Rigidized with Foams

Inflatable tubular structures that have annular cross sections rigidized with foams, and the means of erecting such structures in the field, are undergoing development. Although the development effort has focused on lightweight structural booms to be transported in compact form and deployed in outer space, the principles of design and fabrication are also potentially applicable to terrestrial structures, including components of ultralightweight aircraft, lightweight storage buildings and shelters, lightweight insulation, and sales displays. The use of foams to deploy and harden inflatable structures was first proposed as early as the 1960s, and has been investigated in recent years by NASA, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, industry, and academia. In cases of deployable booms, most of the investigation in recent years has focused on solid cross sections, because they can be constructed relatively easily. However, solid-section foam-filled booms can be much too heavy for some applications. In contrast, booms with annular cross sections according to the present innovation can be tailored to obtain desired combinations of stiffness and weight through choice of diameters, wall thicknesses, and foam densities. By far the most compelling advantage afforded by this innovation is the possibility of drastically reducing weights while retaining or increasing the stiffnesses, relative to comparable booms that have solid foamfilled cross sections. A typical boom according to this innovation includes inner and outer polyimide film sleeves to contain foam that is injected between them during deployment.

Tinker, Michael L.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Kennedy Space Center's Partnership with Graftel Incorporated

NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has recently partnered with Graftel Incorporated under an exclusive license agreement for the manufacture and sale of the Smart Current Signature Sensor. The Smart Current Signature Sensor and software were designed and developed to be utilized on any application using solenoid valves. The system monitors the electrical and mechanical health of solenoids by comparing the electrical current profile of each solenoid actuation to a typical current profile and reporting deviation from its learned behavior. The objective of this partnership with Graftel is for them to develop the technology into a hand-held testing device for their customer base in the Nuclear Power Industry. The device will be used to perform diagnostic testing on electromechanical valves used in Nuclear Power plants. Initially, Graftel plans to have working units within the first year of license in order to show customers and allow them to put purchase requests into their next year's budget. The subject technology under discussion was commercialized by the Kennedy Space Center Technology Programs and Partnerships Office, which patented the technology and licensed it to Graftel, Inc., a company providing support, instrumentation, and calibration services to the nuclear community and private sector for over 10 years. For the nuclear power industry, Graftel designs, manufacturers, and calibrates a full line of testing instrumentation. Grafters smart sensors have been in use in the United States since 1993 and have proved to decrease set-up time and test durations. The project was funded by Non-Destructive Engineering, and it is felt that this technology will have more emphasis on future vehicles. Graftel plans to market the Current Signature Sensor to the Electric Utility industry. Graftel currently supplies product and services to the Nuclear Power Industry in the United States as well as internationally. Product and services sold are used in non-destructive testing for valves, penetrations and other applications. Graftel also supplies testing services to an industrial customer base. The customer base includes 90 percent of the U.S. Nuclear plants and plants in Brazil, Europe, and Asia. Graftel works internationally with two representative groups and employees and has ten people at the principle location and a group of contract engineers around the country.

Dunn, Carol Anne↗