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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 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

Center for Space Power, Texas A and M University

Johnson Controls is a 106 year old company employing 42,000 people worldwide with $4.7 billion annual sales. Though we are new to the aerospace industry we are a world leader in automobile battery manufacturing, automotive seating, plastic bottling, and facilities environment controls. The battery division produces over 24,000,000 batteries annually under private label for the new car manufacturers and the replacement market. We are entering the aerospace market with the nickel hydrogen battery with the help of NASA's Center for Space Power at Texas A&M. Unlike traditional nickel hydrogen battery manufacturers, we are reaching beyond the space applications to the higher volume markets of aircraft starting and utility load leveling. Though space applications alone will not provide sufficient volume to support the economies of scale and opportunities for statistical process control, these additional terrestrial applications will. For example, nickel hydrogen batteries do not have the environmental problems of nickel cadmium or lead acid and may someday start your car or power your electric vehicle. However you envision the future, keep in mind that no manufacturer moves into a large volume market without fine tuning their process. The Center for Space Power at Texas A&M is providing indepth technical analysis of all of the materials and fabricated parts of our battery as well as thermal and mechanical design computer modeling. Several examples of what we are doing with nickel hydrogen chemistry to lead to these production efficiencies are presented.

Jones, Ken↗
NASA NTRS1978

Applicability of the Remote Mobile Emplacement Package (RMEP) design as a mobility aid for proposed post-84 Mars missions, phase O

The results of study to determine the applicability of the Remote Mobile Emplacement Package (RMEP) design concept as a mobility aid for the proposed post-'84 Mars missions are presented. The RMEP wheel and mobility subsystem parameters: wheel tire size, weight, stowed volume, and environmental effects; obstacle negotiation; reliability and wear; motor and drive train; and electrical power demand were reviewed. Results indicated that: (1) the basic RMEP wheel design would be satisfactory, with additional attention to heating, side loading, tread wear and ultraviolet radiation protection; (2) motor and drive train power requirements on Mars would be less than on Earth; and (3) the mobility electrical power requirements would be small enough to offer the option of operating the Mars mini rover untethered. Payload power required for certain sampling functions would preclude the use of battery power for these missions. Hazard avoidance and reverse direction maneuvers are discussed. Limited examination of vehicle payload integration and thermal design was made, pending establishment of a baseline vehicle/payload design.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1994

Bipolar Ag-Zn battery

The silver-zinc (AgZn) battery system has been unique in its ability to safely satisfy high power demand applications with low mass and volume. However, a new generation of defense, aerospace, and commercial applications will impose even higher power demands. These new power demands can be satisfied by the development of a bipolar battery design. In this configuration the power consuming, interelectrode current conductors are eliminated while the current is then conducted via the large cross-section electrode substrate. Negative and positive active materials are applied to opposite sides of a solid silver foil substrate. In addition to reducing the weight and volume required for a specified power level, the output voltage performance is also improved as follows. Reduced weight through: elimination of the plastic cell container; elimination of plate leads and intercell connector; and elimination of internal plate current collector. Increased voltage through: elimination of resistance of current collector; elimination of resistance of plate lead; and elimination of resistance of intercell connector. EPI worked previously on development of a secondary bipolar silver zinc battery. This development demonstrated the electrical capability of the system and manufacturing techniques. One difficulty with this development was mechanical problems with the seals. However, recent improvements in plastics and adhesives should eliminate the major problem of maintaining a seal around the periphery of the bipolar module. The seal problem is not as significant for a primary battery application or for a requirement for only a few discharge cycles. A second difficulty encountered was with activation (introducing electrolyte into the cell) and with venting gas from the cell without loss of electrolyte. During previous work, the following projections for energy density were made from test data for a high power system which demonstrated in excess of 50 discharge/charge cycles. Projected system power = 100 kilowatts; discharge time = 30 seconds; discharge current density = 1.75 amps/sq in.; system weight = 86 lbs (9.7 WH/lb); and system volume = 1071 cu. in. (.78 WH/cu. in.). EPI is currently working on a development program to produce a bipolar silver-zinc battery design for NASA. The potential application would be to power electromechanical actuators for space launch vehicles.

Giltner, L. John↗
NASA NTRS2006

Nano Goes Magnetic to Attract Big Business

Glenn Research Center has combined state-of-the-art electrical designs with complex, computer-aided analyses to develop some of today s most advanced power systems, in space and on Earth. The center s Power and On-Board Propulsion Technology Division is the brain behind many of these power systems. For space, this division builds technologies that help power the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and Earth-orbiting satellites. For Earth, it has woven advanced aerospace power concepts into commercial energy applications that include solar and nuclear power generation, battery and fuel cell energy storage, communications and telecommunications satellites, cryocoolers, hybrid and electric vehicles, and heating and air-conditioning systems.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2014

Submerged AUV Charging Station

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are becoming increasingly important for military surveillance and mine detection. Most AUVs are battery powered and have limited lifetimes of a few days to a few weeks. This greatly limits the distance that AUVs can travel underwater. Using a series of submerged AUV charging stations, AUVs could travel a limited distance to the next charging station, recharge its batteries, and continue to the next charging station, thus traveling great distances in a relatively short time, similar to the Old West “Pony Express.” One solution is to use temperature differences at various depths in the ocean to produce electricity, which is then stored in a submerged battery. It is preferred to have the upper buoy submerged a reasonable distance below the surface, so as not to be seen from above and not to be inadvertently destroyed by storms or ocean going vessels. In a previous invention, a phase change material (PCM) is melted (expanded) at warm temperatures, for example, 15 °C, and frozen (contracted) at cooler temperatures, for example, 8 °C. Tubes containing the PCM, which could be paraffin such as pentadecane, would be inserted into a container filled with hydraulic oil. When the PCM is melted (expanded), it pushes the oil out into a container that is pressurized to about 3,000 psi (approx equals 20.7 MPa). When a valve is opened, the high-pressure oil passes through a hydraulic motor, which turns a generator and charges a battery. The low-pressure oil is finally reabsorbed into the PCM canister when the PCM tubes are frozen (contracted). Some of the electricity produced could be used to control an external bladder or a motor to the tether line, such that depth cycling is continued for a very long period of time. Alternatively, after the electricity is generated by the hydraulic motor, the exiting low-pressure oil from the hydraulic motor could be vented directly to an external bladder on the AUV, such that filling of the bladder causes the AUV to rise, and emptying of the bladder allows the AUV to descend. This type of direct buoyancy control is much more energy efficient than using electrical pumps in that the inefficiencies of converting thermal energy to electrical energy to mechanical energy is avoided. AUV charging stations have been developed that use electricity produced by waves on floating buoys and that use electricity from solar photovoltaics on floating buoys. This is the first device that has absolutely no floating or visible parts, and is thus impervious to storms, inadvertent ocean vessel collisions, or enemy sabotage.

Jones, Jack A.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Transient Thermal Analyses of Passive Systems on SCEPTOR X-57

As efficiency, emissions, and noise become increasingly prominent considerations in aircraft design, turning to an electric propulsion system is a desirable solution. Achieving the intended benefits of distributed electric propulsion (DEP) requires thermally demanding high power systems, presenting a different set of challenges compared to traditional aircraft propulsion. The embedded nature of these heat sources often preclude the use of traditional thermal management systems in order to maximize performance, with less opportunity to exhaust waste heat to the surrounding environment. This paper summarizes the thermal analyses of X-57 vehicle subsystems that don't employ externally air-cooled heat sinks. The high-power battery, wires, high-lift motors, and aircraft outer surface are subjected to heat loads with stringent thermal constraints. The temperature of these components are tracked transiently, since they never reach a steady-state equilibrium. Through analysis and testing, this report demonstrates that properly characterizing the material properties is key to accurately modeling peak temperature of these systems, with less concern for spatial thermal gradients. Experimentally validated results show the thermal profile of these systems can be sufficiently estimated using reduced order approximations.

Thermal Analyses↗
NASA NTRS2018

Health Monitoring and Prognostics for More Electric Aircrafts

As more and more electric vehicles emerge in our daily operation progressively, a very critical challenge lies in the prediction of remaining flying time/distance (for aircraft). This information is important, particularly in the case of unmanned vehicles, because such vehicles can become self-aware, autonomously compute its own capabilities, and identify how to best plan and successfully complete vehicular missions safely. In case of electric aircrafts, computing remaining flying time is also safety-critical, since an aircraft that runs out of battery charge while in the air will eventually lose control leading to catastrophe. In order to tackle and solve the prediction problem, it is essential to have awareness of the current state and health of the system, especially since it is necessary to perform condition-based predictions. To be able to predict the future state of the system, it is also required to possess knowledge of the current and future operations of the vehicle. Given models of the current and future system behavior, the general approach of model-based prognostics can be employed as a solution to the prior stated prediction problem.For electric aircraft, propulsion is based on power generated from batteries. Thus, it is critical to monitor battery state charge and to estimate the ability of the battery to support mission activities as it is being discharged during flight operation. The ability of the vehicle to complete its given mission very much depends on the charge left in the batteries based on its operational route, maneuvering, weather conditions along with aging health of the batteries. Hence, for the purpose this discussion, consider the scenario of an unmanned electric aircraft that has some planned sequence of waypoints to reach throughout its mission. In such a scenario, for this particular aircraft, and within the region it is flown, at most two minutes are required to safely land the aircraft. Thus, it is desired to predict at which point in time the aircraft must begin to head to the runway and land.

Goebel, Kai↗
NASA NTRS2002

Solar Electric Propulsion Technologies Being Designed for Orbit Transfer Vehicle Applications

There is increasing interest in employing Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) for new missions requiring transfer from low Earth orbit to the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, L1. Mission architecture plans place the Gateway Habitat at L1 in the 2011 to 2016 timeframe. The Gateway Habitat is envisioned to be used for Lunar exploration, space telescopes, and planetary mission staging. In these scenarios, an SEP stage, or "tug," is used to transport payloads to L1--such as the habitat module, lunar excursion and return vehicles, and chemical propellant for return crew trips. SEP tugs are attractive because they are able to efficiently transport large (less than 10,000 kg) payloads while minimizing propellant requirements. To meet the needs of these missions, a preliminary conceptual design for a general-purpose SEP tug was developed that incorporates several of the advanced space power and in-space propulsion technologies (such as high-power gridded ion and Hall thrusters, high-performance thin-film photovoltaics, lithium-ion batteries, and advanced high-voltage power processing) being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center. A spreadsheet-based vehicle system model was developed for component sizing and is currently being used for mission planning. This model incorporates a low-thrust orbit transfer algorithm to make preliminary determinations of transfer times and propellant requirements. Results from this combined tug mass estimation and orbit transfer model will be used in a higher fidelity trajectory model to refine the analysis.

Sarver-Verhey, Timothy R.↗
NASA NTRS2011

TPSAS-NF1676L-11812-DND

Reducing the weight of spacecraft will reduce the fabrication costs and the launch costs . The elimination of wiring and wiring harnesses reduces the total mass of the vehicle . Wireless sensor technology can reduce the weight and therefore the costs of spacecraft . The Decadal Survey of Civil Aeronautics survey identified that "self-powered, wireless microelectromechanical sensors" warrant attention over the next decade . Current wireless sensor systems have low data rates and require batteries. The environment of aerospace vehicles is often very harsh, with temperature extremes ranging from cryogenic to very high temperatures during re-entry. For example, X-37B mini unmanned shuttle will require high temperature sensors mounted on the structure, as well as cryogenic sensors for monitoring fuel tanks. Batteries do not work well in either temperature extremes. Also, sensors are typically located in internal structures with limited access, making the periodic changing of batteries costly and time consuming. Passive wireless sensors are needed that operate across an extremely large temperature range and do not require batteries. NASA recently instrumented an all Composite Crew Module for structural testing on the ground. Wireless sensors could have reduced the time to instrument the module and check out the sensor wiring.

W (Cy) Wilson↗
NASA NTRS2017

Flight Tests of a Remaining Flying Time Prediction System for Small Electric Aircraft in the Presence of Faults

This paper addresses the problem of building trust in the online prediction of a battery powered aircraft's remaining flying time. A series of flight tests is described that make use of a small electric powered unmanned aerial vehicle (eUAV) to verify the performance of the remaining flying time prediction algorithm. The estimate of remaining flying time is used to activate an alarm when the predicted remaining time is two minutes. This notifies the pilot to transition to the landing phase of the flight. A second alarm is activated when the battery charge falls below a specified limit threshold. This threshold is the point at which the battery energy reserve would no longer safely support two repeated aborted landing attempts. During the test series, the motor system is operated with the same predefined timed airspeed profile for each test. To test the robustness of the prediction, half of the tests were performed with, and half were performed without, a simulated powertrain fault. The pilot remotely engages a resistor bank at a specified time during the test flight to simulate a partial powertrain fault. The flying time prediction system is agnostic of the pilot's activation of the fault and must adapt to the vehicle's state. The time at which the limit threshold on battery charge is reached is then used to measure the accuracy of the remaining flying time predictions. Accuracy requirements for the alarms are considered and the results discussed.

Hogge, Edward F.↗
NASA NTRS1980

JPL's electric and hybrid vehicles project: Project activities and preliminary test results

Efforts to achieve a 100 mile urban range, to reduce petroleum usage 40% to 70%, and to commercialize battery technology are discussed with emphasis on an all plastic body, four passenger car that is flywheel assisted and battery powered, and on an all metal body, four passenger car with front wheel drive and front motor. For the near term case, a parallel hybrid in which the electric motor and the internal combustion engine may directly power the drive wheels, is preferred to a series design. A five passenger car in which the electric motor and the gasoline engine both feed into the same transmission is discussed. Upgraded demonstration vehicles were tested using advanced lead acid, nickel zinc, nickel iron, and zinc chloride batteries to determine maximum acceleration, constant speed, and battery behavior. The near term batteries demonstrated significant improvement relative to current lead acid batteries. The increase in range was due to improved energy density, and ampere hour capacity, with relatively 1 small weight and volume differences.

Barber, T. A.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Baseline tests of the AM General DJ-5E electruck electric delivery van

An electric quarter ton truck designed for use as a postal delivery vehicle was tested to characterize the state of the art of electric vehicles. Vehicle performance test results are presented. It is powered by a single-module, 54 volt industrial battery through a silicon controlled rectifier continuously adjustable controller with regenerative braking applied to a direct current compound wound motor.

Dustin, M. O.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Micro-Tubular Fuel Cells

Micro-tubular fuel cells that would operate at power levels on the order of hundreds of watts or less are under development as alternatives to batteries in numerous products - portable power tools, cellular telephones, laptop computers, portable television receivers, and small robotic vehicles, to name a few examples. Micro-tubular fuel cells exploit advances in the art of proton-exchange-membrane fuel cells. The main advantage of the micro-tubular fuel cells over the plate-and-frame fuel cells would be higher power densities: Whereas the mass and volume power densities of low-pressure hydrogen-and-oxygen-fuel plate-and-frame fuel cells designed to operate in the targeted power range are typically less than 0.1 W/g and 0.1 kW/L, micro-tubular fuel cells are expected to reach power densities much greater than 1 W/g and 1 kW/L. Because of their higher power densities, micro-tubular fuel cells would be better for powering portable equipment, and would be better suited to applications in which there are requirements for modularity to simplify maintenance or to facilitate scaling to higher power levels. The development of PEMFCs has conventionally focused on producing large stacks of cells that operate at typical power levels >5 kW. The usual approach taken to developing lower-power PEMFCs for applications like those listed above has been to simply shrink the basic plate-and-frame configuration to smaller dimensions. A conventional plate-and-frame fuel cell contains a membrane/electrode assembly in the form of a flat membrane with electrodes of the same active area bonded to both faces. In order to provide reactants to both electrodes, bipolar plates that contain flow passages are placed on both electrodes. The mass and volume overhead of the bipolar plates amounts to about 75 percent of the total mass and volume of a fuel-cell stack. Removing these bipolar plates in the micro-tubular fuel cell significantly increases the power density.

Kimble, Michael C.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Commercialization of a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell System

This paper describes a major breakthrough in energy technology developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that can be used in a wide variety of portable, remote, and transportation applications without polluting the environment. The status, performance, and design considerations of the JPL non-polluting, direct methanol, fuel cell system for consumer equipment and transportation applications are reported herein. This new fuel cell technology utilizes the direct oxidation of a 3 percent aqueous liquid methanol solution as the fuel and air (O&sub2;) as the oxidant. The only products are CO&sub2; and water. Therefore, because recharging can be accomplished by refueling with methanol, vehicles can enjoy unlimited range and extended use compared to battery operated devices requiring recharging time and power accessibility.

fuel↗
NASA NTRS1997

Metal-Air Batteries: (Latest citations from the Aerospace Database)

The bibliography contains citations concerning applications of metal-air batteries. Topics include systems that possess different practical energy densities at specific powers. Coverage includes the operation of air electrodes at different densities and performance results. The systems are used in electric vehicles as a cost-effective method to achieve reliability and efficiency. Zinc-air batteries are covered more thoroughly in a separate bibliography. (Contains 50-250 citations and includes a subject term index and title list.)

FUEL CELLS↗
NASA NTRS2009

Power Goals for NASA's Exploration Program

Exciting Future Programs ahead for NASA. Power is needed for all Exploration vehicles and for the missions. For long term missions as in Lunar and Mars programs, safe, high energy/ultra high energy batteries are required. Safety is top priority for human-rated missions. Two-fault tolerance to catastrophic failures is required for human-rated safety To meet power safety goals -inherent cell safety may be required; it can lessen complexity of external protective electronics and prevents dependency on hardware that may also have limitations. Inherent cell safety will eliminate the need to carry out screening of all cells (X-rays, vibration, etc.)

Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Verification of a Remaining Flying Time Prediction System for Small Electric Aircraft

This paper addresses the problem of building trust in online predictions of a battery powered aircraft's remaining available flying time. A set of ground tests is described that make use of a small unmanned aerial vehicle to verify the performance of remaining flying time predictions. The algorithm verification procedure described here uses a fully functional vehicle that is restrained to a platform for repeated run-to-functional-failure experiments. The vehicle under test is commanded to follow a predefined propeller RPM profile in order to create battery demand profiles similar to those expected in flight. The fully integrated aircraft is repeatedly operated until the charge stored in powertrain batteries falls below a specified lower-limit. The time at which the lower-limit on battery charge is crossed is then used to measure the accuracy of remaining flying time predictions. Accuracy requirements are considered in this paper for an alarm that warns operators when remaining flying time is estimated to fall below a specified threshold.

Hogge, Edward F.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Baseline tests of the power-train electric delivery van

Vehicle maximum speed, range at constant speed, range over stop-and-go driving schedules, maximum acceleration, gradeability, gradeability limit, road energy consumption, road power, indicated energy consumption, braking capability, battery charger efficiency, and battery characteristics were determined for a modified utility van powered by sixteen 6-volt batteries connected in series. A chopper controller actuated by a foot accelerator pedal changes the voltage applied to the 22-kilowatt (30-hp) series-wound drive motor. In addition to the conventional hydraulic braking system, the vehicle has hydraulic regenerative braking. Cycle tests and acceleration tests were conducted with and without hydraulic regeneration.

Lumannick, S.↗