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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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2,888 records · Page 84
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2015

Study of Stable Cathodes and Electrolytes for High Specific Density Lithium-Air Battery

Future NASA missions require high specific energy battery technologies, greater than 400 Wh/kg. Current NASA missions are using "state-of-the-art" (SOA) Li-ion batteries (LIB), which consist of a metal oxide cathode, a graphite anode and an organic electrolyte. NASA Glenn Research Center is currently studying the physical and electrochemical properties of the anode-electrolyte interface for ionic liquid based Li-air batteries. The voltage-time profiles for Pyr13FSI and Pyr14TFSI ionic liquids electrolytes studies on symmetric cells show low over-potentials and no dendritic lithium morphology. Cyclic voltammetry measurements indicate that these ionic liquids have a wide electrochemical window. As a continuation of this work, sp2 carbon cathode and these low flammability electrolytes were paired and the physical and electrochemical properties were studied in a Li-air battery system under an oxygen environment.

cathodes↗
DOE OSTI2025

Integration and Optimization of Loads, and Renewables for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

Deploying advanced building control strategies in small- and medium-sized commercial buildings (SMBs) is critical but constrained by two major challenges: (1) the lack of sensor and control infrastructure (SCI) and (2) the significant engineering effort required for implementation and configuration. While these barriers limit large-scale adoption in SMBs, they remain underexplored in the literature, which has largely emphasized feasibility over scalability.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tensorized Interior Radiative Heat Transfer for a Scalable and Calibrated Building Energy Simulator

Building energy simulation is a critical tool for developing and testing advanced control strategies, such as Reinforcement Learning (RL), to provide demand flexibility and affordable energy costs. The recently introduced Smart Buildings Control Suite (sbsim) provides a lightweight, scalable, and data-calibrated simulation environment based on a 2D finite-difference model. However, the initial model primarily focused on conductive and convective heat transfer, neglecting the significant impact of long-wave radiative heat exchange between interior surfaces. This paper presents a significant extension to the sbsim framework by incorporating a physically-grounded model for interior radiative heat transfer. Our primary contribution is the development and integration of a fully tensorized radiative heat transfer module, which preserves the computational efficiency and scalability of the original simulator. This was achieved by developing a pipeline for view factor calculation, including an algorithm to identify directly seeing surfaces within complex floor plans, and formulating the net radiation equations for efficient execution on modern hardware accelerators. We validate the numerical accuracy of our tensorized implementation by comparing its results against a traditional iterative approach, demonstrating identical outcomes. This enhancement increases the physical fidelity of sbsim, enabling more accurate training of RL agents for building energy optimization.

Ham, Sang woo↗
NASA NTRS1975

Interpretation of Various Radiation Backgrounds Observed in the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer Experiments Carried on the Apollo Missions and Implications for Diffuse Gamma-Ray Measurements

Since the report of a preliminary analysis of cosmic gamma-ray measurements made during the Apollo 15 mission, an improved calculation of the spallation activation contribution has been made including the effects of short-lived spallation fragments, which can extend the correction to 15 MeV. In addition, a difference between Apollo 15 and 16 data enables an electron bremsstrahlung contribution to be calculated. A high level of activation observed in a crystal returned on Apollo 17 indicates a background contribution from secondary neutrons. These calculations and observations enable an improved extraction of spurious components and suggest important improvements for future detectors.

C S Dyer↗
NASA NTRS1990

A Laboratory Breadboard System for Dual-Arm Teleoperation

The computing architecture of a novel dual-arm teleoperation system is described. The novelty of this system is that: (1) the master arm is not a replica of the slave arm; it is unspecific to any manipulator and can be used for the control of various robot arms with software modifications; and (2) the force feedback to the general purpose master arm is derived from force-torque sensor data originating from the slave hand. The computing architecture of this breadboard system is a fully synchronized pipeline with unique methods for data handling, communication and mathematical transformations. The computing system is modular, thus inherently extendable. The local control loops at both sites operate at 100 Hz rate, and the end-to-end bilateral (force-reflecting) control loop operates at 200 Hz rate, each loop without interpolation. This provides high-fidelity control. This end-to-end system elevates teleoperation to a new level of capabilities via the use of sensors, microprocessors, novel electronics, and real-time graphics displays. A description is given of a graphic simulation system connected to the dual-arm teleoperation breadboard system. High-fidelity graphic simulation of a telerobot (called Phantom Robot) is used for preview and predictive displays for planning and for real-time control under several seconds communication time delay conditions. High fidelity graphic simulation is obtained by using appropriate calibration techniques.

A K Bejczy↗
NASA NTRS2003

A High Temperature Cyclic Oxidation Data Base for Selected Materials Tested at NASA Glenn Research Center

The cyclic oxidation test results for some 1000 high temperature commercial and experimental alloys have been collected in an EXCEL database. This database represents over thirty years of research at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The data is in the form of a series of runs of specific weight change versus time values for a set of samples tested at a given temperature, cycle time, and exposure time. Included on each run is a set of embedded plots of the critical data. The nature of the data is discussed along with analysis of the cyclic oxidation process. In addition examples are given as to how a set of results can be analyzed. The data is assembled on a read-only compact disk which is available on request from Materials Durability Branch, NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio.

Scale Spalling Models↗
DOE OSTI2024

Intake runner for gaseous fuel engine, system, and method

A gaseous fuel engine system includes a hydrogen fuel supply, an engine housing having an intake port extending to a cylinder, and an intake runner. The intake runner includes a valve mount attached to a conduit and having a valve mounting face, and a gaseous fuel admission valve is mounted upon the valve mounting face. A hydrogen fuel passage extends from the valve mount through the conduit and is oriented angularly to at least one of a clamping face of the intake runner or the valve mounting face. Related apparatus and methodology is also disclosed.

Singh, Jaswinder↗
NASA NTRS2014

Online Prediction of Battery Discharge and Estimation of Parasitic Loads for an Electric Aircraft

Predicting whether or not vehicle batteries contain sufficient charge to support operations over the remainder of a given flight plan is critical for electric aircraft. This paper describes an approach for identifying upper and lower uncertainty bounds on predictions that aircraft batteries will continue to meet output power and voltage requirements over the remainder of a flight plan. Battery discharge prediction is considered here in terms of the following components; (i) online battery state of charge estimation; (ii) prediction of future battery power demand as a function of an aircraft flight plan; (iii) online estimation of additional parasitic battery loads; and finally, (iv) estimation of flight plan safety. Substantial uncertainty is considered to be an irremovable part of the battery discharge prediction problem. However, high-confidence estimates of flight plan safety or lack of safety are shown to be generated from even highly uncertain prognostic predictions.

Battery Discharge Prediction↗
DOE OSTI2024

Thermodynamically informed priors for uncertainty propagation in first-principles statistical mechanics

Here, this work demonstrates how first-principles statistical mechanics approaches within a Bayesian framework can quantify and propagate uncertainties to downstream thermodynamic calculations. To address the issue of Bayesian prior selection, knowledge of 0 K ground states in the material system of interest is incorporated into the prior. The effectiveness of this framework is shown by creating a phase diagram for the fcc zirconium nitride system, including confidence intervals on order-disorder transition temperatures.

Bayesian methods↗
NASA NTRS2019

Evaluation of Various Methods for Determining Bulk Compositions of Chondrules and Other Objects in Petrographic Thin Sections

Studies of many objects in petrographic thin section, such as melt inclusions in igneous rocks, chondrules and Ca-Al rich inclusions in chondritic meteorites, or clasts in lunar and other breccias, require or can benefit from knowledge of their bulk compositions. Given the scarcity of these materials, the reluctance of curators to provide more abundant material, and the extreme difficulty of cleanly separating such objects from their rock matrices, geochemical and cosmochemical studies need the ability to determine their bulk compositions from in situ methods, such as defocused beam analysis, or quantitative chemical mapping by electron beam methods.

Daniel Kent Ross↗
DOE OSTI2026

Trajectory-independent speed limits for controlled open quantum systems

Existing quantum speed limits for controlled open quantum systems depend on the specified trajectory. For example, lower bounds on quantum annealing times in the presence of dissipation depend explicitly on the chosen annealing schedule. Recently, schedule-independent speed limits have been derived for annealing in the closed quantum system setting [L. P. García-Pintos et al ., SciPost Phys. 18 , 159 (2025)]. In this work, we generalize these results to open quantum systems, deriving schedule-independent lower bounds for quantum annealing times in systems described by a Lindblad master equation. We analyze the interplay between coherent control and dissipation in single- and two-qubit examples, demonstrating that the derived lower bounds capture key scaling behavior with respect to the strength of the dissipator. Finally, we apply the bound to thermal state preparation and show that the bound matches the expected asymptotic behavior for an Ising model in the high-temperature limit.

open quantum systems & decoherence↗
NASA NTRS2013

Electrochemistry-based Battery Modeling for Prognostics

Batteries are used in a wide variety of applications. In recent years, they have become popular as a source of power for electric vehicles such as cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and commericial passenger aircraft. In such application domains, it becomes crucial to both monitor battery health and performance and to predict end of discharge (EOD) and end of useful life (EOL) events. To implement such technologies, it is crucial to understand how batteries work and to capture that knowledge in the form of models that can be used by monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis algorithms. In this work, we develop electrochemistry-based models of lithium-ion batteries that capture the significant electrochemical processes, are computationally efficient, capture the effects of aging, and are of suitable accuracy for reliable EOD prediction in a variety of usage profiles. This paper reports on the progress of such a model, with results demonstrating the model validity and accurate EOD predictions.

battery↗
DOE OSTI2024

Analytical Model for Atomic Relaxation in Twisted Moiré Materials

By virtue of being atomically thin, the electronic properties of heterostructures built from two-dimensional materials are strongly influenced by atomic relaxation. The atomic layers behave as flexible membranes rather than rigid crystals. Here we develop an analytical theory of lattice relaxation in twisted moiré materials. We obtain analytical results for the lattice displacements and corresponding pseudo gauge fields, as a function of twist angle. We benchmark our results for twisted bilayer graphene and twisted WSe 2 bilayers using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. Our single-parameter theory is valid in graphene bilayers for twist angles 𝜃 ≳ 0.7°, and in twisted WSe 2 for 𝜃 ≳ 1.6°. Furthermore, we also investigate how relaxation alters the electronic structure in twisted bilayer graphene, providing a simple extension to the continuum model to account for lattice relaxation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2026

Recommended Practices in Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) Diagnostics for Electric Propulsion

Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy uses Doppler-shifted laser photons to excite a bound electron transition in an atom or ion, with subsequent fluorescence emission detected in order to measure the local velocity distribution function (VDF) and/or particle density. Due to its non-invasive nature, high spatial resolution, and acceptable difficulty of implementation, LIF has become a favored diagnostic for electric propulsion (EP) plasmas, particularly in the study of Hall thrusters. This paper presents recommended best practices for LIF measurements in electric thrusters, drawn from over three decades of implementation heritage in the EP community. Focusing on both single-photon LIF (typically used to measure VDFs) and two-photon LIF (TALIF, typically used to determine densities), the paper covers selection of atomic transitions to target, experimental setups, and interpretation of data. A number of special topics and advanced applications are discussed, including uncertainty analysis, techniques for high-speed measurements, and applications to a variety of propellants.

plasma plume↗
NASA NTRS1983

Full-charge indicator for battery chargers

A full-charge indicator for battery chargers, includes a transistor which is in a conductive state as long as charging current to the battery is not less than a level which indicates that the battery did not reach full charge. When the battery reaches full charge, a voltage drop in a resistor in the charging current path is not sufficient to maintain the transistor in a conducting state, and therefore it is switched off. When this occurs an LED is turned on, to indicate a full charge state of the battery. A photocoupler together with a photocoupler transistor are included. When the transistor is off, the photocoupler activates the photocoupler transistor to shunt out a resistor, thereby reducing the charging current to the battery to a float charging current and prevent the battery from being overcharged and damaged.

Cole, Steven W.↗
DOE OSTI2026

A Unified Scaling Framework for Comparative Analysis of Major Electrical Machine Topologies

This paper presents a unified framework for comparing major electrical machine topologies under identical output and thermal constraints, with emphasis on supply-chain-aware selection among rare-earth-intensive, reduced-rare-earth, and rare-earth-free solutions. Using power factor and air-gap flux density as the principal descriptors, the framework links topology choice to relative size, copper demand, magnet dependence, cost sensitivity, and inertia. To support robust early-stage screening, the deterministic scaling model is combined with uncertainty representation, Monte Carlo scenario propagation, and hesitationaware ranking. The results show that rare-earth-rich machines remain compact and dense, whereas reduced-rare-earth and rare-earth-free alternatives become more attractive under specific material-risk and cost scenarios.

Kumar, Praveen [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000291877857)↗