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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1975

Building application of solar energy. Study no. 2: Representative buildings for solar energy performance analysis and market penetration

The following topics are discussed: (1) Assignment of population to microclimatic zones; (2) specifications of the mix of buildings in the SCE territory; (3) specification of four typical buildings for thermal analysis and market penetration studies; (4) identification of the materials and energy conserving characteristics of these typical buildings; (5) specifications of the HVAC functions used in each typical building, and determination of the HVAC systems used in each building; and (6) identification of the type of fuel used in each building.

Hirshberg, A. S.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Fungal colonization of fiberglass insulation in the air distribution system of a multi-story office building: VOC production and possible relationship to a sick building syndrome

Complaints characteristic of those for sick building syndrome prompted mycological investigations of a modern multi-story office building on the Gulf coast in the Southeastern United States (Houston-Galveston area). The air handling units and fiberglass duct liner of the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system of the building, without a history of catastrophic or chronic water damage, demonstrated extensive colonization with Penicillium spp and Cladosporium herbarum. Although dense fungal growth was observed on surfaces within the heating-cooling system, most air samples yielded fewer than 200 CFU m-3. Several volatile compounds found in the building air were released also from colonized fiberglass. Removal of colonized insulation from the floor receiving the majority of complaints of mouldy air and continuous operation of the units supplying this floor resulted in a reduction in the number of complaints.

NASA Program Environmental Health↗
NASA NTRS1999

[Build and Demonstrate a X-Ray Interferometer and Build and Fly a High Resolution Telescope on a Sounding Rocket}

This report is written with eight months still go on the 36 month period of the grant. This grant, as originally proposed three years ago, was two pronged - to build and demonstrate a practical x-ray interferometer, and to build and fly a high resolution telescope on a sounding rocket. As we started into these projects, we received community feedback that led to our giving priority to the interferometer., The rocket would achieve O.2-arcsecond resolution that, while better, than that of Chandra, would, because of the limited signal of a sub-orbital flight, not be of substantially greater scientific use. The interferometry, on the other hand, shows the potential for many orders of magnitude improvement. For this reason we gave priority to the lab interferometry, and the building of the telescope lagged behind. With our new understanding (and practical demonstration) of how to build an interferometer, we changed the telescope design from spherical surfaces in the Kirkpatrick-Baez configuration, to an interferometer with resolution between .005 and .05 arcseconds.

Source record↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA MUREP-DEAP Institutes - Year 1 Updates on Capacity Building, Community Building and Research Initiatives

Through the Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP), NASA engages underrepresented populations via various initiatives, including by means of three year competitive awards for Data Science Equity, Access, and Priority in Research and Education (DEAP) Institutes led by Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). MUREP DEAP Institutes, multi-institutional consortia, conduct data science research and capacity building initiatives that aim to enhance the research, academic, and technological capabilities of the participating HBCUs while providing NASA-specific knowledge, skills and opportunities for students and faculty who have historically been underrepresented and underserved in the STEM workforce. Three MUREP DEAP Institutes, led by Bethune-Cookman University, North Carolina A&T University, and North Carolina Central University, are conducting data science and natural hazard related research utilizing remote sensing and earth observations, with mentorship for the Institutes provided by scientists from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Each Institute has unique capabilities, needs, and goals, but overlap in their common interest to conduct cutting edge data science and natural hazard related research and to build capacity, broaden participation, and increase retention of a diverse group of participating students and faculty​. Here, successes and challenges from the first year of activities at each MUREP DEAP institute are discussed, where activities focused primarily on the recruitment of a diverse group of students and the upskilling of students and faculty in data science and remote sensing concepts. The planned activities and goals of each DEAP Institute for the upcoming two years of activities will also be discussed, both from research and community-building perspectives.

Ronan Lucey↗
NASA NTRS1976

Building application of solar energy. Study no. 4: Scenarios for the utilization of solar energy in southern California buildings, change 1

Plausible future market scenarios for solar heating and cooling systems into buildings in the area served by the Southern California Edison Company. A range of plausible estimates for the number of solar systems which might be installed and the electrical energy which might be displaced by energy from these systems are provided. The effect on peak electrical load was not explicitly calculated but preliminary conclusions concerning peak load can be inferred from the estimates presented. Two markets are investigated: the single family market and the large power commercial market.

Davis, E. S.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Locating buildings in aerial photos

Algorithms and techniques for use in the identification and location of large buildings in digitized copies of aerial photographs are developed and tested. The building data would be used in the simulation of objects located in the vicinity of an airport that may be detected by aircraft radar. Two distinct approaches are considered. Most building footprints are rectangular in form. The first approach studied is to search for right-angled corners that characterize rectangular objects and then to connect these corners to complete the building. This problem is difficult because many nonbuilding objects, such as street corners, parking lots, and ballparks often have well defined corners which are often difficult to distinguish from rooftops. Furthermore, rooftops come in a number of shapes, sizes, shadings, and textures which also limit the discrimination task. The strategy used linear sequences of different samples to detect straight edge segments at multiple angles and to determine when these segments meet at approximately right-angles with respect to each other. This technique is effective in locating corners. The test image used has a fairly rectangular block pattern oriented about thirty degrees clockwise from a vertical alignment, and the overall measurement data reflect this. However, this technique does not discriminate between buildings and other objects at an operationally suitable rate. In addition, since multiple paths are tested for each image pixel, this is a time consuming task. The process can be speeded up by preprocessing the image to locate the more optimal sampling paths. The second approach is to rely on a human operator to identify and select the building objects and then to have the computer determine the outline and location of the selected structures. When presented with a copy of a digitized aerial photograph, the operator uses a mouse and cursor to select a target building. After a button on the mouse is pressed, with the cursor fully within the perimeter of the building, the program scans from the position of the cursor to a perimeter position where a shift in grayscale is detected. Once at the perimeter, the process traces along it, around the building, until it eventually returns to the perimeter starting point. Spatial resolution limits cause the perimeter trace to be somewhat course so that a line straightening algorithm is employed. One result is that the building corner positions become more distinctly defined.

Green, James S.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Estimation of the Relationship Between Remotely Sensed Anthropogenic Heat Discharge and Building Energy Use

This paper examined the relationship between remotely sensed anthropogenic heat discharge and energy use from residential and commercial buildings across multiple scales in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The anthropogenic heat discharge was estimated with a remote sensing-based surface energy balance model, which was parameterized using land cover, land surface temperature, albedo, and meteorological data. The building energy use was estimated using a GIS-based building energy simulation model in conjunction with Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration survey data, the Assessor's parcel data, GIS floor areas data, and remote sensing-derived building height data. The spatial patterns of anthropogenic heat discharge and energy use from residential and commercial buildings were analyzed and compared. Quantitative relationships were evaluated across multiple scales from pixel aggregation to census block. The results indicate that anthropogenic heat discharge is consistent with building energy use in terms of the spatial pattern, and that building energy use accounts for a significant fraction of anthropogenic heat discharge. The research also implies that the relationship between anthropogenic heat discharge and building energy use is scale-dependent. The simultaneous estimation of anthropogenic heat discharge and building energy use via two independent methods improves the understanding of the surface energy balance in an urban landscape. The anthropogenic heat discharge derived from remote sensing and meteorological data may be able to serve as a spatial distribution proxy for spatially-resolved building energy use, and even for fossil-fuel CO2 emissions if additional factors are considered.

Multi-scale↗
NASA NTRS2015

An Assessment of Actual and Potential Building Climate Zone Change and Variability From the Last 30 Years Through 2100 Using NASA's MERRA and CMIP5 Simulations

Background: In the US, residential and commercial building infrastructure combined consumes about 40% of total energy usage and emits about 39% of total CO2 emission (DOE/EIA "Annual Energy Outlook 2013"). Building codes, as used by local and state enforcement entities are typically tied to the dominant climate within an enforcement jurisdiction classified according to various climate zones. These climate zones are based upon a 30-year average of local surface observations and are developed by DOE and ASHRAE. Establishing the current variability and potential changes to future building climate zones is very important for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reducing energy costs and emissions in the future. Objectives: This paper demonstrates the usefulness of using NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) atmospheric data assimilation to derive the DOE/ASHRAE building climate zone maps and then using MERRA to define the last 30 years of variability in climate zones for the Continental US. An atmospheric assimilation is a global atmospheric model optimized to satellite, atmospheric and surface in situ measurements. Using MERRA as a baseline, we then evaluate the latest Climate Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) climate model Version 5 runs to assess potential variability in future climate zones under various assumptions. Methods: We derive DOE/ASHRAE building climate zones using surface and temperature data products from MERRA. We assess these zones using the uncertainties derived by comparison to surface measurements. Using statistical tests, we evaluate variability of the climate zones in time and assess areas in the continental US for statistically significant trends by region. CMIP 5 produced a data base of over two dozen detailed climate model runs under various greenhouse gas forcing assumptions. We evaluate the variation in building climate zones for 3 different decades using an ensemble and quartile statistics to provide an assessment of potential building climate zone changes relative to the uncertainties demonstrated using MERRA. Findings and Conclusions: These results show that there is a statistically significant increase in the area covered by warmer climate zones and a tendency for a reduction of area in colder climate zones in some limited regions. The CMIP analysis shows that models vary from relatively little building climate zone change for the least sensitive and conservation assumptions to a warming of at most 3 zones for certain areas, particularly the north central US by the end of the 21st century.

Stackhouse, Paul W., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Spacecraft Cabin Air Quality Control and Its Application to Tight Buildings

Air quality is an important consideration not only for the external environment, but also for the indoor environment. Most people spend a majority of their lives indoors and the air that they breathe is important to their physical and emotional well being. Since most modern building designs have focused on energy efficiency, less fresh air is brought from the outside. As a result, pollutants from building materials, furniture, cleaning, and cooking have no place to go. To make matters worse, most ventilation systems do not include any means for removing pollutants from the recycled air. Unfortunately, pollution at even a small level can result in eye, throat, and lung irritation in addition to chronic headaches, nausea, and fatigue. A spacecraft cabin, which represents the worst case in tight building design, requires special consideration of air quality since any effects pollutants may have on a crewmember can potentially place a mission or other crewmembers at risk. A detailed approach has been developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to minimize cabin atmosphere pollution and provide the crew with an environment which is as free of pollutants as possible. This approach is a combination of passive and active contamination control concepts involving the evaluation and selection of materials to be used onboard the spacecraft, the establishment of air quality standards to ensure crew health, and the use of active control means onboard the spacecraft to further ensure an acceptable atmosphere. This approach has allowed NASA to prevent illness by providing crewmembers with a cabin atmosphere which contains pollutant concentrations up to 100 times lower than those specified for terrestrial indoor environments. Standard building construction, however, does not take into account the potentially harmful effects of materials used in the construction process on the health of future occupants and relies primarily on remedial rather than preventive techniques when addressing contamination. This approach results in a building that theoretically has low operating costs, but may actually have high costs associated with lost work days, increased medical claims, decreased productivity, and problem remediation. A similar approach to NASA's may be adopted by the building construction community which can tap the extensive database of material offgassing properties that has been collected to support the space program. Many materials used by NASA are commercially available and are frequently used in building construction. In addition, computer models which have been developed for assessing various methods of active contamination control can be applied to building ventilation system design and the analysis of their economics. Through using NASA' s experience, the expense associated with the current remedial approach can be avoided.

Perry, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Fade Measurements into Buildings from 500 to 3000 MHz

Slant-path fade measurements from 500 to 3000 MHz were made into six different buildings employing a vector network analyzer, a tower-mounted transmitting antenna and an automatically positioned receiving antenna. The objective of the measurements was to provide information for satellite audio broadcasting and personal communications satellite design on the correlation of fading inside buildings. Fades were measured with 5 cm spatial separation and every 0.2 percent of the frequency. Median fades ranged from 10 to 20 dB in woodframe houses with metal roofs and walls without and with an aluminum heat shield, respectively. The median decorrelation distance was from 0.5 to 1.1. m and was independent of frequency. The attenuation into the buildings increased only moderately with frequency in most of the buildings with a median slope of about 1 to 3 db/GHz, but increased fastest in the least attenuating building with a slope of 5 dB/GHz. The median decorrelation bandwidth ranged from 1.2 to 3.8 percent of frequency in five of the buildings, and was largest in the least attenuating building, with 20.2 percent of frequency.

Vogel, Wolfhard J.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Fade Measurements into Buildings from 500 to 3000 MHz

Slant-path fade measurements from 500 to 3000 MHz were made into six different buildings employing a vector network analyzer, a tower-mounted transmitting antenna and an automatically positioned receiving antenna. The objective of the measurements was to provide information for satellite audio broadcasting and personal communications satellite design on the correlation of fading inside buildings. Fades were measured with 5 cm spatial separation and every 0.2% of the frequency. Median fades ranged from 10 to 20 dB in woodframe houses with metal roofs and walls without and with an aluminum heatshield, respectively. The median decorrelation distance was from 0.5 to 1.1 m and was independent of frequency. The attenuation into the buildings increased only moderately with frequency in most of the buildings with a median slope of about 1 to 3 dB/GHz, but increased fastest in the least attenuating building with a slope of 5 dB/GHz. The median decorrelation bandwidth ranged from 1.2 to 3.8% of frequency in five of the buildings, and was largest in the least attenuating building, with 20.2% of frequency.

Vogel, Wolfhard J.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Virtual Build: Low-Tech Simulations Can Be High on IPPD Content

After two years of design, component testing, and parts fabrication, the project team was within months of starting assembly on the first major elements of a new product assembly. Schedules were extremely tight and there was no room for error in the first unit build-up for test. The first draft of the assembly drawing was nearing completion and needed to be approved by key members of the Integrated Product Team (IPT) before release. Only then could the manufacturing planning be finalized and released for assembly to begin. What could we do to improve the quality of our first build effort? How could we minimize all the changes inherent in the first-time build of a complex mechanical system? Why not a dress rehearsal of the build process with all the participating players, hardware, and build documentation? A "virtual build simulation". In an organization employing integrated product teams there is no substitute for clear communication between the various cross-functional members. Despite team collocation, integrated solid modeling, and frequent coordination meetings. elements of the product-process design can still slip through the cracks and show up on the assembly floor. The virtual build exercise was designed to provide one intensive hands-on experience for all members of the design and assembly team in time to make corrections without schedule impact.

Hilscher, Rick↗
NASA NTRS2000

Dynamics of airborne fungal populations in a large office building

The increasing concern with bioaerosols in large office buildings prompted this prospective study of airborne fungal concentrations in a newly constructed building on the Gulf coast. We collected volumetric culture plate air samples on 14 occasions over the 18-month period immediately following building occupancy. On each sampling occasion, we collected duplicate samples from three sites on three floors of this six-story building, and an outdoor sample. Fungal concentrations indoors were consistently below those outdoors, and no sample clearly indicated fungal contamination in the building, although visible growth appeared in the ventilation system during the course of the study. We conclude that modern mechanically ventilated buildings prevent the intrusion of most of the outdoor fungal aerosol, and that even relatively extensive air sampling protocols may not sufficiently document the microbial status of buildings.

NASA Program Biomedical Research and Countermeasur↗
NASA NTRS2007

A Comparison of Two Balance Calibration Model Building Methods

Simulated strain-gage balance calibration data is used to compare the accuracy of two balance calibration model building methods for different noise environments and calibration experiment designs. The first building method obtains a math model for the analysis of balance calibration data after applying a candidate math model search algorithm to the calibration data set. The second building method uses stepwise regression analysis in order to construct a model for the analysis. Four balance calibration data sets were simulated in order to compare the accuracy of the two math model building methods. The simulated data sets were prepared using the traditional One Factor At a Time (OFAT) technique and the Modern Design of Experiments (MDOE) approach. Random and systematic errors were introduced in the simulated calibration data sets in order to study their influence on the math model building methods. Residuals of the fitted calibration responses and other statistical metrics were compared in order to evaluate the calibration models developed with different combinations of noise environment, experiment design, and model building method. Overall, predicted math models and residuals of both math model building methods show very good agreement. Significant differences in model quality were attributable to noise environment, experiment design, and their interaction. Generally, the addition of systematic error significantly degraded the quality of calibration models developed from OFAT data by either method, but MDOE experiment designs were more robust with respect to the introduction of a systematic component of the unexplained variance.

DeLoach, Richard↗
NASA NTRS2012

Usage of NASA's Near Real-Time Solar and Meteorological Data for Monitoring Building Energy Systems Using RETScreen International's Performance Analysis Module

This paper describes building energy system production and usage monitoring using examples from the new RETScreen Performance Analysis Module, called RETScreen Plus. The module uses daily meteorological (i.e., temperature, humidity, wind and solar, etc.) over a period of time to derive a building system function that is used to monitor building performance. The new module can also be used to target building systems with enhanced technologies. If daily ambient meteorological and solar information are not available, these are obtained over the internet from NASA's near-term data products that provide global meteorological and solar information within 3-6 days of real-time. The accuracy of the NASA data are shown to be excellent for this purpose enabling RETScreen Plus to easily detect changes in the system function and efficiency. This is shown by several examples, one of which is a new building at the NASA Langley Research Center that uses solar panels to provide electrical energy for building energy and excess energy for other uses. The system shows steady performance within the uncertainties of the input data. The other example involves assessing the reduction in energy usage by an apartment building in Sweden before and after an energy efficiency upgrade. In this case, savings up to 16% are shown.

Paul W Stackhouse, Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2013

A System for Measuring the Sway of the Vehicle Assembly Building

A system was developed to measure the sway of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center. This system was installed in the VAB and gathered more than one total year of data. The building movement was correlated with measurements provided by three wind towers in order to determine the maximum deflection of the building during high-wind events. The VAB owners were in the process of obtaining new platforms for use in assembling very tall rockets when analysis of the VAB showed that a high wind could move the building sufficiently that an upper platform might impact a rocket. The problem arises because safety requires a relatively small gap between the platform and the rocket, while a large enough gap is needed to ensure that stacking tolerances prevent contact between the rocket and the platform. This only leaves an inch or two (approximately 2 to 5 cm) of total clearance, so when the analysis showed that more than a couple of inches of motion could occur in a high wind, there was a potential for damaging the rocket. The KSC Applied Physics Laboratory was asked to install a system in the VAB that could measure the motion of the building in high winds to determine the actual building sway. The motion of the VAB roof under wind load was measured optically, and under analysis, it was determined that a relatively large-aperture optical system would be required to reduce diffraction effects to less than a small fraction of an inch (approximately mm) at a distance of 500 ft (≈150 m). A 10-in. (approximately 250 mm) telescope was placed on the floor of the building, looking at the ceiling. On the ceiling, a flat plate with three white LEDs was mounted in an "L" shape, such that the telescope was essentially looking at three stars. Software was written to track the motion of these three points using an image processing system. This provided a better than 1/10-in. (approximately 2.5-mm) 2D measurement faster than once a second. Data was downloaded once a month for comparison with the wind tower data. The system was fully operational and provided enough data to show that the VAB will only move 1 in. (approximately 2.5 cm) at the ceiling under 70-knot winds. Adjustable platforms are not required.

Youngquist, Robert↗