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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 1,369 records · Page 76
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Onboard Autonomous Trajectory Planning for Mars Power Descent

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in space-qualified processors such as multi-core central processing units and graphics processing units that can withstand the adverse effects of space radiation. These processors can allow parallel programming to perform tasks that typically demand high computational power. One can study guidance schemes that can take advantage of these currently developing processors and provide more robust guidance. Software for Multi-model Autonomous Real-time Trajectories (SMART) guidance can identify robust trajectories by running an onboard Monte Carlo analysis. SMART guidance can take advantage of knowledge updates obtained from the onboard sensors, allowing it to consider the off-nominal cases that it would not typically encounter during the offline trajectory analysis. This work uses the SMART guidance for the powered divert at Mars simulation in Program to Optimize and Simulated Trajectories- II.

Autonomous Planning↗
NASA NTRS2010

Using Leaf Chlorophyll to Parameterize Light-Use-Efficiency Within a Thermal-Based Carbon, Water and Energy Exchange Model

Chlorophylls absorb photosynthetically active radiation and thus function as vital pigments for photosynthesis, which makes leaf chlorophyll content (C(sub ab) useful for monitoring vegetation productivity and an important indicator of the overall plant physiological condition. This study investigates the utility of integrating remotely sensed estimates of C(sub ab) into a thermal-based Two-Source Energy Balance (TSEB) model that estimates land-surface CO2 and energy fluxes using an analytical, light-use-efficiency (LUE) based model of canopy resistance. The LUE model component computes canopy-scale carbon assimilation and transpiration fluxes and incorporates LUE modifications from a nominal (species-dependent) value (LUE(sub n)) in response to short term variations in environmental conditions, However LUE(sub n) may need adjustment on a daily timescale to accommodate changes in plant phenology, physiological condition and nutrient status. Day to day variations in LUE(sub n) were assessed for a heterogeneous corn crop field in Maryland, U,S.A. through model calibration with eddy covariance CO2 flux tower observations. The optimized daily LUE(sub n) values were then compared to estimates of C(sub ab) integrated from gridded maps of chlorophyll content weighted over the tower flux source area. The time continuous maps of daily C(sub ab) over the study field were generated by focusing in-situ measurements with retrievals generated with an integrated radiative transfer modeling tool (accurate to within +/-10%) using at-sensor radiances in green, red and near-infrared wavelengths acquired with an aircraft imaging system. The resultant daily changes in C(sub ab) within the tower flux source area generally correlated well with corresponding changes in daily calibrated LUE(sub n) derived from the tower flux data, and hourly water, energy and carbon flux estimation accuracies from TSEB were significantly improved when using C(sub ab) for delineating spatio-temporal variations in LUE(sub n). The results demonstrate the synergy between thermal infrared and shortwave reflective wavebands in producing valuable remote sensing data for operational monitoring of carbon and water fluxes.

Houlborg, Rasmus↗
DOE OSTI2023

Spectro-Microscopy Studies of Atmospheric Particles

Our project investigated composition and physical properties of individual atmospheric particles collected in field campaigns organized by the DOE Atmospheric Systems Research and Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ASR/ARM) programs, such as the Green Ocean Amazon (GoAmazon, 2014/5), the Holistic Interactions of Shallow Clouds, Aerosols, and Land-Ecosystems (HI-SCALE, 2016/7), the Aerosol and Cloud Experiment in the Eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA, 2017/8), the Aerosol–Ice Formation Closure Pilot Study (AEROICESTUDY, 2019) and in additional small-scale supporting field experiments focused on the investigation of the light-absorbing (aka brown carbon) atmospheric particles. In these studies, we investigated the contribution of natural and anthropogenic sources to populations of atmospheric particles during representative atmospheric conditions; characterized particle composition and evaluated their hygroscopic properties and propensity to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nuclei (IN); correlated typical particle-type and mixing state characteristics with real-time measurements in the areas of studies. We used multi-modal spectro-microscopy techniques to examine elemental and molecular composition, mixing state, size, and higher order morphology for individual particles. Specifically, we used computer-controlled scanning electron microscopy and X-ray microanalysis for quantitative analysis of particle elemental composition, and we used transmission electron microscopy to provide additional information on the distribution of different components within individual particles (particle heterogeneity). We used synchrotron-based scanning transmission X-ray microscopy for quantitative description of the mixing state and molecular bonding of carbon in particles. The particle composition, mixing state, and morphology from analyzed periods was then combined with the real-time ARM measurements of aerosol size distribution, CCN concentration, hygroscopicity, and aerosol bulk composition. Combined together, results of our studies allowed us to assess the major particle sources (biogenic vs. anthropogenic, primary vs secondary) and gain insight into the atmospheric processing of aerosol particles resulting from condensation, coagulation, oxidative aging, and cloud processing. In collaboration with other scientists involved in field campaigns, we carried out statistical analysis of particle properties and their source-specific contributions to regional aerosol loading under representative air mass, meteorological, and cloud conditions.

scanning transmission X-ray microscopy↗
NASA NTRS1986

Evaluation of the infrared test method for the olympus thermal balance tests

The performance of the infrared (IR) rig used for the thermal balance testing of the Olympus S/C thermal model is discussed. Included in this evaluation are the rig effects themselves, the IRFLUX computer code used to predict the radiation inputs, the Monitored Background Radiometers (MBR's) developed to measure the absorbed radiation flux intensity, the Uniform Temperature Reference (UTR) based temperature measurement system and the data acquisition system. A preliminary set of verification tests were performed on a 1 m x 1 m zone to assess the performance of the IR lamps, calrods, MBR's and aluminized baffles. The results were used, in part, to obtain some empirical data required for the IRFLUX code. This data included lamp and calrod characteristics, the absorptance function for various surface types, and the baffle reflectivities.

Donato, M.↗
NASA NTRS2000

A Computer Learning Center for Environmental Sciences

In the fall of 1998, MacMillan Hall opened at Brown University to students. In MacMillan Hall was the new Computer Learning Center, since named the EarthLab which was outfitted with high-end workstations and peripherals primarily focused on the use of remotely sensed and other spatial data in the environmental sciences. The NASA grant we received as part of the "Centers of Excellence in Applications of Remote Sensing to Regional and Global Integrated Environmental Assessments" was the primary source of funds to outfit this learning and research center. Since opening, we have expanded the range of learning and research opportunities and integrated a cross-campus network of disciplines who have come together to learn and use spatial data of all kinds. The EarthLab also forms a core of undergraduate, graduate, and faculty research on environmental problems that draw upon the unique perspective of remotely sensed data. Over the last two years, the Earthlab has been a center for research on the environmental impact of water resource use in and regions, impact of the green revolution on forest cover in India, the design of forest preserves in Vietnam, and detailed assessments of the utility of thermal and hyperspectral data for water quality analysis. It has also been used extensively for local environmental activities, in particular studies on the impact of lead on the health of urban children in Rhode Island. Finally, the EarthLab has also served as a key educational and analysis center for activities related to the Brown University Affiliated Research Center that is devoted to transferring university research to the private sector.

Mustard, John F.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Robustness-Based Design Optimization Under Data Uncertainty

This paper proposes formulations and algorithms for design optimization under both aleatory (i.e., natural or physical variability) and epistemic uncertainty (i.e., imprecise probabilistic information), from the perspective of system robustness. The proposed formulations deal with epistemic uncertainty arising from both sparse and interval data without any assumption about the probability distributions of the random variables. A decoupled approach is proposed in this paper to un-nest the robustness-based design from the analysis of non-design epistemic variables to achieve computational efficiency. The proposed methods are illustrated for the upper stage design problem of a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) vehicle, where the information on the random design inputs are only available as sparse point and/or interval data. As collecting more data reduces uncertainty but increases cost, the effect of sample size on the optimality and robustness of the solution is also studied. A method is developed to determine the optimal sample size for sparse point data that leads to the solutions of the design problem that are least sensitive to variations in the input random variables.

Zaman, Kais↗
DOE OSTI2025

Universal scaling of electron transmission for nearly ballistic and quantum dragon nanodevices

Here, we predict two different universal scaling regimes for the quantum transmission of metallic nanodevices following the addition of a small amount of uncorrelated disorder. A nanodevice is connected to two thin semi-infinite uniform leads, and the Non-Equilibrium Green’s Function (NEGF) methodology yields the electron transmission $\mathscr{T}(E)$ as a function of the injected electron energy $E$. Ballistic nanodevices have no disorder and have $\mathscr{T}(E)=1$for all $E$ that allow electron propagation in the leads. Quantum dragon nanodevices can have extremely strong properly correlated disorder, and still have $\mathscr{T}(E)=1$for all $E$. Additional uncorrelated site disorder leads to Fano resonances in $\mathscr{T}(E)$. Averaging over the uncorrelated disorder we predict using perturbation theory two universal scaling regimes for $\mathscr{T}_{ave}(E)$. The functional form of both universal scaling regimes depend on the device length and width, energy, and variance of the uncorrelated disorder. The second scaling regime, valid for small but somewhat larger uncorrelated disorder than the first scaling regime, also has the form dependent on the density of states of the system. These two scaling regimes are demonstrated to be valid via large scale computer calculations.

Ballistic transport↗
DOE OSTI2016

Differential conductance and defect states in the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn 5

We demonstrate that the electronic band structure extracted from quasiparticle interference spectroscopy [Nat. Phys. 9, 468 (2013)] and the theoretically computed form of the superconducting gaps [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111, 11663 (2014)] can be used to understand the dI/dV line shape measured in the normal and superconducting state of CeCoIn 5 [Nat. Phys. 9, 474 (2013)]. In particular, the dI/dV line shape, and the spatial structure of defect-induced impurity states, reflects the existence of multiple superconducting gaps of d x 2 –y 2 symmetry. As a result, these results strongly support a recently proposed microscopic origin of the unconventional superconducting state.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2012

Ab initio investigations of the electronic structure and chemical bonding of Li{sub 2}ZrN{sub 2}

The electronic structure of the ternary nitride Li{sub 2}ZrN{sub 2} is examined from ab initio with DFT computations for an assessment of the properties of chemical bonding. The compound is found insulating with 1.8 eV band gap; it becomes metallic and less ionic upon removal of one equivalent of Li. The chemical interaction is found mainly between Zr and N on one hand and Li and N on the other hand. While all pair interactions are bonding, antibonding N-N interactions are found dominant at the top of the valence band of Li{sub 2}ZrN{sub 2} and they become less intense upon removal of Li. From energy differences the partial delithiation leading to Li{sub 2-x}ZrN{sub 2} (x={approx}1) is favored. - Graphical abstract: Trigonal structure of Li{sub 2}ZrN{sub 2} showing the Zr-N-Li layers along the c-axis. Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Li{sub 2}ZrN{sub 2} calculated insulating with a 1.8 eV gap in agreement with its light green color. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Lithium de-intercalation is energetically favored for one out of two Li equivalents. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Li plays little role in the change of the structure, ensured by Zr and N binding. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Similar changes in the electronic structure as for various intercalated phases of ZrN.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2017

Hyperspherical Slater determinant approach to few-body fractional quantum Hall states

In a recent study (Daily et al., 2015), a hyperspherical approach has been developed to study few-body fractional quantum Hall states. This method has been successfully applied to the exploration of few boson and fermion problems in the quantum Hall region, as well as the study of inter-Landau level collective excitations (Rittenhouse et al., 2016; Wooten et al., 2016). However, the hyperspherical method as it is normally implemented requires a subsidiary (anti-)symmetrization process, which limits its computational effectiveness. The present work overcomes these difficulties and extends the power of this method by implementing a representation of the hyperspherical many-body basis space in terms of Slater determinants of single particle eigenfunctions. A clear connection between the hyperspherical representation and the conventional single particle picture is presented, along with a compact operator representation of the theoretical framework. - Highlights: • A hyperspherical method has been implemented to study the quantum Hall effect. • The hyperspherical many-body basis space is represented with Slater determinants. • Example numerical studies of the 4- and 8-electron systems are presented.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

Spack-Based Packaging and Development for HEP

The art event-based analysis framework is used by multiple Intensity Frontier and other experiments and projects in High Energy Physics (HEP). A system of tools and scripts based around a Fermilab-originated package management system called UNIX Product Support (UPS) has evolved to provide development, packaging, release management, and distribution of the art suite, related experimental software and external dependencies in relocatable binary form. The existing system has limitations in environments such as macOS with System Integrity Protection (SIP) enabled and the various High Performance Computing (HPC) systems that the field of HEP is increasingly looking to leverage. This has led to a search for other ways of providing experiments with a packaging and build system that meets their needs. We describe our efforts to develop a packaging and release management system based on the Spack HPC package management tool to replace the existing UPS-based system. We additionally describe a companion system: SpackDev and cetmodules, allowing simultaneous development of multiple HEP software packages in a consistent environment. A successful implementation of the intended system would have applicability across HEP rather than merely to the users of the art framework.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1996

Load-Following Power Timeline Analyses for the International Space Station

Spacecraft are typically complex assemblies of interconnected systems and components that have highly time-varying thermal communications, and power requirements. It is essential that systems designers be able to assess the capability of the spacecraft to meet these requirements which should represent a realistic projection of demand for these resources once the vehicle is on-orbit. To accomplish the assessment from the power standpoint, a computer code called ECAPS has been developed at NASA Lewis Research Center that performs a load-driven analysis of a spacecraft power system given time-varying distributed loading and other mission data. This program is uniquely capable of synthesizing all of the changing spacecraft conditions into a single, seamless analysis for a complete mission. This paper presents example power load timelines with which numerous data are integrated to provide a realistic assessment of the load-following capabilities of the power system. Results of analyses show how well the power system can meet the time-varying power resource demand.

Fincannon, James↗
DOE OSTI2012

An Integrated Modeling and Data Management Strategy for Cellulosic Biomass Production Decisions

Emerging cellulosic bioenergy markets can provide land managers with additional options for crop production decisions. Integrating dedicated bioenergy crops such as perennial grasses and short rotation woody species within the agricultural landscape can have positive impacts on several environmental processes including increased soil organic matter in degraded soils, reduced sediment loading in watersheds, lower green house gas (GHG) fluxes, and reduced nutrient loading in watersheds. Implementing this type of diverse bioenergy production system in a way that maximizes potential environmental benefits requires a dynamic integrated modeling and data management strategy. This paper presents a strategy for designing diverse bioenergy cropping systems within the existing row crop production landscape in the midwestern United States. The integrated model developed quantifies a wide range environmental processes including soil erosion from wind and water, soil organic matter changes, and soil GHG fluxes within a geospatial data management framework. This framework assembles and formats information from multiple spatial and temporal scales. The data assembled includes yield and productivity data from harvesting equipment at the 1m scale, surface topography data from LiDAR mapping at the less than 1m scale, soil data from US soil survey databases at the 10m to 100m scale, and climate data at the county scale. These models and data tools are assembled into an integrated computational environment that is used to determine sustainable removal rates for agricultural residues for bioenergy production at the sub-field scale under a wide range of land management practices. Using this integrated model, innovative management practices including cover cropping are then introduced and evaluated for their impact on bioenergy production and important environmental processes. The impacts of introducing dedicated energy crops onto high-risk landscape positions currently being manage in row crop production are also investigated.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Insights into Native Single-Atom Electrocatalyst Site Structures

Single-atom electrocatalysts consisting of metal atoms embedded in a carbon matrix are promising next-generation catalysts for green hydrogen production and utilization, CO2 reduction, low-temperature CO oxidation, ammonia production, plastic decomposition, and electrochemical energy storage. The origins of activity and stability for the single-atom sites are still debatable, however, because of constrained insights into their local structure resulting from idealized models and experiments derived from a large number of individual sites. Insights into structural variations around single atomic sites are therefore critical for the continued development of these next-generation catalysts. While electron microscopy commonly provides atomic-scale information about these materials, the beam sensitivity of individual sites makes structural determination by conventional low-voltage (60 keV) techniques challenging. Here, we introduce ultralow-voltage electron ptychography, performed at 30 keV, that enables determination of the lattice structure around individual metal sites in a well-defined single-atom electrocatalyst system while essentially eliminating knock-on structural modifications. Pairing these atomic-scale, site-specific measurements with computational methods will broaden our understanding of the activity and stability of these materials, which will accelerate the development of the next generation of catalysts.

Zachman, Michael [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000319101357)↗
DOE OSTI2018

Navigation Application Programming Interface Route Fuel Saving Opportunity Assessment on Large-Scale Real-World Travel Data for Conventional Vehicles and Hybrid Electric Vehicles

The green-routing strategy instructing a vehicle to select a fuel-efficient route benefits the current transportation system with fuel-saving opportunities. This paper introduces a navigation application programming interface (API), route fuel-saving evaluation framework for estimating fuel advantages of alternative API routes based on large-scale, real-world travel data for conventional vehicles (CVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Navigation APIs, such as Google Directions API, integrate traffic conditions and provide feasible alternative routes for origin-destination pairs. This paper develops two link-based fuel-consumption models stratified by link-level speed, road grade, and functional class (local/non-local), one for CVs and the other for HEVs. The link-based fuel-consumption models are built by assigning travel from many global positioning system driving traces to the links in TomTom MultiNet and road grade data from the U.S. Geological Survey elevation data set. Fuel consumption on a link is computed by the proposed model. This paper envisions two kinds of applications: (1) identifying alternate routes that save fuel, and (2) quantifying the potential fuel savings for large amounts of travel. An experiment based on a large-scale California Household Travel Survey global positioning system trajectory data set is conducted. The fuel consumption and savings of CVs and HEVs are investigated. At the same time, the trade-off between fuel saving and travel time due to choosing different routes is also examined for both powertrains.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

I Know I'm Right, But Does My Phone?

Transportation is the largest source of green-house gas emissions in the United States. Reducing transportation emissions depends on human travel behavior, which relies on local land use and planning. Travel diaries, consisting of sequences of trips between places for a particular individual, are typically used to instrument human travel behavior. However, these diaries are only as accurate as the underlying methods used to construct them. Travel diary algorithms have been a popular research topic since the advent of GPS tracking surveys. Mode inference algorithms in particular have been well represented in literature. However, these algorithms have typically been validated using prompted recall of pre-segmented trips, which doesn't account for segmentation error, thus disregarding the continuity of mode inference. Furthermore, phone operating systems and applications have adopted battery-conserving techniques, but we are not aware of prior work that has characterized the resulting data collection errors or evaluated procedures to mitigate them. We introduce a framework to evaluate accuracy of trip length computations and mode inference. We develop a temporal alignment procedure in analyzing continuous mode-segmented trajectories for groups of trips. We then apply our framework to evaluate an example set of travel diary algorithms from the open-source OpenPATH travel diary platform against MobilityNet, a public dataset containing information from three artificial timelines that cover 15 different travel modes. Our results show that inference based on an integration with map features results in weighted F_1 scores of 0.60 (iOS) and 0.74 (android). We also show that OpenPATH tends to under count trip length, with mean of signed relative error of -0.0438 on android and -0.0704 on iOS. We hope that other travel diary algorithms will be evaluated using this standardized process, and that the results used to understand and improve the state-of-the-art in this field.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗
DOE OSTI2012

Ellipsometrically determined optical properties of nickel-containing tungsten oxide thin films: Nanostructure inferred from effective medium theory

Films of Ni{sub x}W{sub 1-x} oxide with 0.05 {<=} x {<=} 0.53 were produced by reactive dc magnetron co-sputtering onto Si. Such films have documented electrochromism. Spectroscopic ellipsometry was used to extract accurate data on the dielectric function in the photon range 0.062 to 5.62 eV. The results for 0.62 to 5.62 eV were compared with computations from the Bruggeman effective medium theory applied to two nanostructural models: one representing a random mixture of structural entities characterized by the dielectric functions of WO{sub 3} and NiWO{sub 4} and the other describing a random mixture of WO{sub 3} and NiO. Unambiguous evidence was found in favor of the former model, and hence the films are composed of nanosized tungsten oxide and nickel tungstate. This agrees excellently with an earlier investigation of ours on Ni{sub x}W{sub 1-x} oxide films, where nanostructure was inferred from Raman spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
NASA NTRS1981

Double Compton scatter telescope calibration

Calibration techniques for a medium energy gamma ray telescope are described. Gain calibration using Compton edge spectra involves comparisons of pulse height spectra with spectra simulated by a Monte Carlo computer code which includes Compton scattering and pair production, plural scattering and variable energy resolution, and cell size. The telescope considered comprises 56 cells of liquid scintillator in four size groups, with a total liquid volume of 325 l; each cell has its own photomultiplier tube. Energy and angular resolutions and the PMT gain calibration procedure are verified with double scatter data for monoenergetic gamma rays at a known location. Detection probabilities for any cell combination in the two telescope arrays are calculated per steradian as a function of the scattering for a number of different energies with a Van de Graaff accelerator.

Dayton, B.↗