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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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NASA NTRS2016

Bearingless Flywheel Systems, Winding and Control Schemes, and Sensorless Control

Flywheel systems are disclosed that provide increased energy density and operational effectiveness. A first bearingless motor and a second bearingless motor may be configured to simultaneously suspend the central rotor in a radial direction and to rotate the central rotor. However, certain implementations may have one motor or more than two motors, depending on the design. A plurality of the flywheel systems may be collectively controlled to perform community energy storage with higher storage capacities than individual flywheel systems.

Jansen, Ralph H↗

NASA NTRS2016

High-Efficiency Food Production in a Renewable Energy Based Micro-Grid Power System

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems can be used to produce high-quality, desirable food year round, and the fresh produce can positively contribute to the health and well being of residents in communities with difficult supply logistics. While CEA has many positive outcomes for a remote community, the associated high electric demands have prohibited widespread implementation in what is typically already a fully subscribed power generation and distribution system. Recent advances in CEA technologies as well as renewable power generation, storage, and micro-grid management are increasing system efficiency and expanding the possibilities for enhancing community supporting infrastructure without increasing demands for outside supplied fuels. We will present examples of how new lighting, nutrient delivery, and energy management and control systems can enable significant increases in food production efficiency while maintaining high yields in CEA. Examples from Alaskan communities where initial incorporation of renewable power generation, energy storage and grid management techniques have already reduced diesel fuel consumption for electric generation by more than 40% and expanded grid capacity will be presented. We will discuss how renewable power generation, efficient grid management to extract maximum community service per kW, and novel energy storage approaches can expand the food production, water supply, waste treatment, sanitation and other community support services without traditional increases of consumable fuels supplied from outside the community. These capabilities offer communities with a range of choices to enhance their communities. The examples represent a synergy of technology advancement efforts to develop sustainable community support systems for future space-based human habitats and practical implementation of infrastructure components to increase efficiency and enhance health and well being in remote communities today and tomorrow.

Fuel↗

NASA NTRS2017

High-Efficiency Food Production in a Renewable Energy Based Micro-Grid

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems can be used to produce high-quality, desirable food year round, and the fresh produce can positively contribute to the health and well being of residents in communities with difficult supply logistics. While CEA has many positive outcomes for a remote community, the associated high electric demands have prohibited widespread implementation in what is typically already a fully subscribed power generation and distribution system. Recent advances in CEA technologies as well as renewable power generation, storage, and micro-grid management are increasing system efficiency and expanding the possibilities for enhancing community supporting infrastructure without increasing demands for outside supplied fuels. We will present examples of how new lighting, nutrient delivery, and energy management and control systems can enable significant increases in food production efficiency while maintaining high yields in CEA.Examples from Alaskan communities where initial incorporation of renewable power generation, energy storage and grid management techniques have already reduced diesel fuel consumption for electric generation by more than 40 and expanded grid capacity will be presented. We will discuss how renewable power generation, efficient grid management to extract maximum community service per kW, and novel energy storage approaches can expand the food production, water supply, waste treatment, sanitation and other community support services without traditional increases of consumable fuels supplied from outside the community. These capabilities offer communities with a range of choices to enhance their communities. The examples represent a synergy of technology advancement efforts to develop sustainable community support systems for future space-based human habitats and practical implementation of infrastructure components to increase efficiency and enhance health and well-being in remote communities today and tomorrow.

Renewable Energy↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Power: Global Solar Insolation, Meteorological Parameter Data, and Web Services to Support Sustainable Building Design and Operations

The buildings industry is currently striving to adopt green solutions to make infrastructure more energy-efficient in order to meet the 2050 net-zero climate goals. This planning requires reliable environmental datasets that are crucial in designing, building, and maintaining our world’s-built environment, as well as other energy-related processes and investments. This webinar for the National Institute of Building Sciences provides an overview of NASA’s Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) Project that informs decision-making and development for sustainable building design and operations by enabling public open discovery, efficient access, and convenient distribution of NASA’s Earth Observations and global atmospheric model datasets. POWER’s datastore is comprised of solar radiation and surface meteorology parameters, spanning nearly 40 years of hourly data, that are easily accessible via several access methods and tools to support three focus areas: 1) renewable energy deployment and management, 2) sustainable infrastructure, and 3) agroclimatology applications. POWER and NASA Earth Science both plan future data parameters, updated tools, and improved observations that could directly support U.S. and international sustainable development goals, climate strategies, and building information modeling. To this end, solar data from several NASA projects and meteorological data from NASA assimilation models have already been reformatted and disseminated to the public via a user-friendly web GIS-enabled based data portal through the POWER Project. POWER data is analysis-ready and accessible through an Application Programming Interface (API), ArcGIS Image Services, and the project’s Data Access Viewer enhanced (DAVe), an interactive online tool. The POWER DAVe also features data consistent with ASHRAE Climate Design Conditions and has developed web image services showing Building Climate Zones and their variability. Through those tools, the data can be downloaded into multiple formats that support the infrastructure community, including CSV and Energy Plus Weather (EPW). POWER’s entire data product catalog is available through Amazon Web Services (AWS) Open Data Registry (ODR) via a free and publicly accessible Simple Storage Service (S3). This webinar provides a full overview of the NASA POWER Project's data and services developed in collaboration with the sustainable infrastructure community. Examples of how the renewable energy and building communities have utilized POWER data products to make decisions and a preview of future data product expansion, including climate projections, and web services will also be provided. Additionally, use case stories from our broad community of users will be presented.

Paul W. Stackhouse↗

NASA NTRS1979

Phase 1 of the First Small Power System Experiment (engineering Experiment No. 1). Volume 1: Executive Summary

The development of a modular solar thermal power system for application in the 1 to 10 MWe range is presented. The system is used in remote utility applications, small communities, rural areas, and for industrial uses. Investigations are performed on the energy storage requirements and type of energy storage, concentrator design and field optimization, energy transport, and power conversion subsystems. The system utilizes a Rankine cycle, an axial flow steam turbine for power conversion, and heat transfer sodium for collector fluid.

Holl, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Hydroclimatic Controls over Global Variations in Phenology and Carbon Flux

The connection between phenological and hydroclimatological variations are quantified through joint analyses of global NDVI, LAI, and precipitation datasets. The global distributions of both NDVI and LAI in the warm season are strongly controlled by three quantities: mean annual precipitation, the standard deviation of annual precipitation, and Budyko's index of dryness. Upon demonstrating that these same basic (if biased) relationships are produced by a dynamic vegetation model (the dynamic vegetation and carbon storage components of the NCAR Community Land Model version 4 combined with the water and energy balance framework of the Catchment Land Surface Model of the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office), we use the model to perform a sensitivity study focusing on how phenology and carbon flux might respond to climatic change. The offline (decoupled from the atmosphere) simulations show us, for example, where on the globe a given small increment in precipitation mean or variability would have the greatest impact on carbon uptake. The analysis framework allows us in addition to quantify the degree to which climatic biases in a free-running GCM are manifested as biases in simulated phenology.

Koster, Randal↗

NASA NTRS2025

Airports as Energy Nodes Activity Summary

Advanced aircraft concepts that use non-traditional aviation energy storage methods such as batteries or cryogenic hydrogen are in development and expected to enter regular service at airports worldwide within the next decade. The energy needs for these aircraft may quickly overwhelm the existing energy infrastructure at airports, particularly at smaller and more remote facilities. Without energy upgrades, these airports will not be able to host these advanced vehicles, but without the advanced vehicle traffic, these airports will not have the rationale or funding to build up their energy infrastructure. The Airports as Energy Nodes (ÆNodes) activity, a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), was executed to understand and model the energy needs that advanced aircraft concepts may levy on these smaller airports, determine cost-effective approaches to enhance the airport energy infrastructure, and demonstrate the enhanced resilience of these energy infrastructure upgrades to the airport and surrounding community via “digital twin” simulation at relevant energy and dynamic time scales. The ÆNodes team also investigated future reference aircraft designs and materials to enable cryogenic hydrogen storage for aircraft. The ÆNodes team conducted analysis at two U.S. airport partner sites — Winchester Regional Airport in Winchester, Virginia, and Tweed/New Haven Airport in New Haven, Connecticut. The goal of this partnership was to develop data and reference infrastructure designs that could accommodate advanced aircraft in the future at these airports while also enhancing the resiliency of the energy supply to the surrounding airport community, which could be used to capture funding to enable the infrastructure upgrades. Over the course of the study, a method was developed to estimate air traffic requiring advanced energy services over the course of a year using a mix of historical data and companion studies on advanced aircraft transportation networks. The study has concluded at NASA but continues at NREL, who will develop a final report discussing the energy infrastructure upgrades and digital twin results. Preliminary results indicate that unrestricted adoption of advanced battery-electric aircraft may double traffic at these airports and increase peak daily power usage by an order of magnitude, while increase electricity energy needs by a factor of two to four. The infrastructure upgrades necessary to accommodate these increased energy needs could be used to provide enhanced energy services to the airport community to offset the cost and increase the utility of the upgrades, which will be described in the NREL final report.

Airports↗

NASA NTRS1979

Phase 1 of the First Small Power System Experiment (engineering Experiment No. 1). Volume 5: Supporting Analyses and Trade Studies

The development and design of a modular solar thermal power system for application in the 1 to 10 MWe range is described. The system is used in remote utility applications, small communities, rural areas, and for industrial uses. Thermal and stress analyses are performed on the collector subsystem, energy storage subsystem, energy transport subsystem, the power conversion subsystem, and the plant control subsystem.

Holl, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Extreme Environment Simulation - Current and New Capabilities to Simulate Venus and Other Planetary Bodies

Science, technology, and planetary mission communities have a growing interest in components and systems that are capable of working in extreme (high) temperature and pressure conditions. Terrestrial applications range from scientific research, aerospace, defense, automotive systems, energy storage and power distribution, deep mining and others. As the target environments get increasingly extreme, capabilities to develop and test the sensors and systems designed to operate in such environments will be required. An application of particular importance to the planetary science community is the ability for a robotic lander to survive on the Venus surface where pressures are nearly 100 times that of Earth and temperatures approach 500C. The scientific importance and relevance of Venus missions are stated in the current Planetary Decadal Survey. Further, several missions to Venus were proposed in the most recent Discovery call. Despite this interest, the ability to accurately simulate Venus conditions at a scale that can test and validate instruments and spacecraft systems and accurately simulate the Venus atmosphere has been lacking. This paper discusses and compares the capabilities that are known to exist within and outside the United States to simulate the extreme environmental conditions found in terrestrial or planetary surfaces including the Venus atmosphere and surface. The paper then focuses on discussing the recent additional capability found in the NASA Glenn Extreme Environment Rig (GEER). The GEER, located at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is designed to simulate not only the temperature and pressure extremes described, but can also accurately reproduce the atmospheric compositions of bodies in the solar system including those with acidic and hazardous elements. GEER capabilities and characteristics are described along with operational considerations relevant to potential users. The paper presents initial operating results and concludes with a sampling of investigations or tests that have been requested or expected.

Extreme Environment↗

NASA NTRS2021

Center for High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft (CHEETA)

The aeronautics industry has been challenged on many fronts to increase efficiency, reduce emissions, and decrease dependency on carbon-based fuels. With subsonic transports serving as the dominant contributor to the fuel consumption and carbon footprint of global aviation, the need for environmentally-responsible transportation has been met with a boom of research in the field of aircraft propulsion electrification across industry, government, and academic organizations. However, adoption of electrified propulsion systems for large commercial aircraft today is unattainable, due to the lack of motors and power electronics appropriately sized for these vehicles, high weight requirements of conventional electrical energy storage systems, and new principles required to design these classes of aircraft. The mission of the Center for High-Efficiency Electrical Technologies for Aircraft (CHEETA) program is to develop, mature, and design disruptive technologies for electric commercial aviation. The associated technologies being researched include distributed aero-propulsion system integration, high-efficiency electrochemical power conversion, flight-weight electric machines and power electronics, materials and systems for superconducting high-efficiency power transmission, and methods for complex system integration and optimization. Additionally, the current program is investigating the use of unconventional energy storage and power generation architectures, such as liquid hydrogen fuel and high-efficiency fuel cell systems. The research program provides a direct line-of-sight to not only achieving, but potentially even exceeding the aviation community goals for transition to alternative propulsion and energy through convergence of various novel technologies. The end result of maturation and integration of these technologies is an aircraft system with a quiet, efficient propulsion system that produces zero carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter emissions at the vehicle level.

Koushik Datta↗

NASA NTRS1979

Phase 1 of the First Small Power System Experiment (engineering Experiment No. 1). Volume 2: System Concept Selection

The development of a modular solar thermal power system for application in the 1 to 10 MWe range is presented. The system is used in remote utility applications, small communities, rural areas, and for industrial uses. Systems design and systems optimization studies are conducted which consider plant size, annual capacity factors, and startup time as variables. Investigations are performed on the energy storage requirements and type of energy storage, concentrator design and field optimization, energy transport, and power conversion subsystems. The system utilizes a Rankine cycle, an axial flow steam turbine for power conversion, and heat transfer sodium for collector fluid.

Holl, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS1981

municipal recreation center is heated and cooled by solar energy

Major fraction of energy requirements for community building is ksupplied by Sun. The 238 flat plate solar collectors are roof mounted on single story structure enclosing gymnasium, locker area, and health care clinic; heat exchanger transfers collected energy to 6,000 gallon storage tank. Final report chronicles project from inception to completion, documenting performance, costs, operating modes, and data acquisition system. Appendix contains manufacturers' product literature and engineering drawings.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2016

Bringing the Future Within Reach: Celebrating 75 Years of the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, has been making the future for 75 years. The center's work with aircraft engines, high-energy fuels, communications technology, electric propulsion, energy conversion and storage, and materials and structures has been, and continues to be, crucial to both the Agency and the region. Glenn has partnered with industry, universities, and other agencies to continually advance technologies that are propelling the nation's aerospace community into the future. Nonetheless these continued accomplishments would not be possible without the legacy of our first three decades of research, which led to over one hundred R&D 100 Awards, three Robert J. Collier Trophies, and an Emmy. Glenn, which is located in Cleveland, Ohio, is 1 of 10 NASA field centers, and 1 of only 3 that stem from an earlier research organization-the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Glenn began operation in 1942 as the NACA Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL). In 1947 the NACA renamed the lab the Flight Propulsion Laboratory to reflect the expansion of the research. In September 1948, following the death of the NACA's Director of Aeronautics, George Lewis, the NACA rededicated the lab as the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. On 1 October 1958, the lab was incorporated into the new NASA space agency and was renamed the NASA Lewis Research Center. Following John Glenn's return to space on the space shuttle, on 1 March 1999 the center name was changed once again, becoming the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center.

Arrighi, Robert S.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Modeling the Ecosystem Services Provided by Trees in Urban Ecosystems: Using Biome-BGC to Improve i-Tree Eco

As the world becomes increasingly urban, the need to quantify the effect of trees in urban environments on energy usage, air pollution, local climate and nutrient run-off has increased. By identifying, quantifying and valuing the ecological activity that provides services in urban areas, stronger policies and improved quality of life for urban residents can be obtained. Here we focus on two radically different models that can be used to characterize urban forests. The i-Tree Eco model (formerly UFORE model) quantifies ecosystem services (e.g., air pollution removal, carbon storage) and values derived from urban trees based on field measurements of trees and local ancillary data sets. Biome-BGC (Biome BioGeoChemistry) is used to simulate the fluxes and storage of carbon, water, and nitrogen in natural environments. This paper compares i-Tree Eco's methods to those of Biome-BGC, which estimates the fluxes and storage of energy, carbon, water and nitrogen for vegetation and soil components of the ecosystem. We describe the two models and their differences in the way they calculate similar properties, with a focus on carbon and nitrogen. Finally, we discuss the implications of further integration of these two communities for land managers such as those in Maryland.

Brown, Molly E.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA POWER: Providing Present and Future Climate Services Based on NASA Data for the Energy, Agricultural, and Sustainable Buildings Communities

NASA’s Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource (POWER) project facilitates the use of NASA Earth Science data holdings within the renewable energy, agricultural, and building heating/cooling design industries. POWER packages solar and meteorological data at various temporal levels from several NASA projects in a user friendly GIS-enabled web services system (https://power.larc.nasa.gov). Data users can access these data either through an intuitive data viewer, image services fully integrable with GIS analysis, connections in the cloud through an Amazon Web Services S3 Bucket, or fully customizable access through an API. Data provided by POWER has been successfully used by decision makers to support actions that address climate change. For example, POWER data has been used to remotely monitor solar array fields and integrated in a sizing tool for off-grid solar and storage systems. POWER data has also been coupled with key building decision tools to support design and retrofitting of building energy systems for energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gases. POWER is now developing climate services to provide time series of the projected future evolution of key quantities that interest our users, such as heating/cooling degree days, temperature, wind speed, and downwelling solar flux. We demonstrate the potential of the new climate services by presenting here a range of possible future changes in these quantities at different NASA centers across the continental United States. These data services are based on downscaled climate model data from the NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP) data set. We highlight the important insights that new climate services can provide. Our climate services will help our user communities quantify the impacts of climate change to support their key decisions in planning for the future, both inside and outside the Federal Government, especially for decisions in renewable energy and in building heating and cooling.

Bradley Hegyi↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Earth Energy Balance Assessment at the 2022 BIPM-WMO Metrology for Climate Action Workshop

The BIPM and WMO hosted a five-day workshop in Sept. 2022 to assess the state of current metrology and identify future meteorological needs regarding climate change for the upcoming decade. A resulting broad policy-oriented workshop summary report, written by the workshop’s ~70 international organizers and reviewed by meeting attendees, identifies the current issues in each of nine high-level topic areas and provides recommendations to address them, listing specific needs, pathways, timelines, and responsible agencies or organizations for each. One prominent Topic within the workshop, “Earth Energy Balance,” was organized by the authors of this presentation and resulted in a section of the workshop summary report using the contributions from the topic’s several pre-recorded oral and poster presentations and the outcomes of two interactive real-time community-wide discussion sessions. The Earth-energy-balance topic issues centered on three areas: Radiometric energy measurements, including needed accuracies and stabilities and the use of SI-Traceable Satellites (SITSats), such as CLARREO and TRUTHS, to achieve them; improved on-orbit calibration sources, including the Sun and the Moon, thermal-infrared and UV sources, and space-flight blackbodies; and the four primary Earth-heat storage reservoirs of the oceans, land, permafrost, and cryosphere, giving an inventory of where and how much of the Earth’s energy is stored and how much uptake there is of the incoming energy. This presentation will summarize the results of the Earth Energy Balance topic from the 2022 BIPM-WMO Metrology for Climate Action Workshop.

earth↗

NASA NTRS2026

A Summary of Test and Analysis Results from a Second Lift+Cruise Full-Scale Drop Test

The realization of advanced air mobility markets is enabling new forms of transportation to take shape in the United States and around the world. Though currently in development, as these markets mature, new types of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles have been undergoing development for use. There are many factors which must be addressed prior to these types of vehicles becoming viable alternative forms of transportation in these markets. These factors include incorporation into the existing airspaces, the logistics of operating in urban environments, along with numerous factors associated with safety and reliability. To address some of the safety aspects associated with the development of these new types of vehicles, NASA has been conducting research into the performance of an example electric VTOL (eVTOL) aircraft as a part of the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) project. Over the course of this research, many aspects including the development of energy absorbing components, the evaluation of seating systems, the development of advanced finite element material model systems and the acquisition of full-scale vehicle impact data were investigated. The report will discuss aspects related to the acquisition of full-scale vehicle data which occurred in the form of a full-scale impact test conducted in the Summer of 2025. This test was on a NASA designed Lift+Cruise composite cabin test article and represented a partial capstone in the entirety of previous eVTOL research conducted for the project. In this test, a variety of experiments were included in order to investigate the effect of a full-scale environment on the experiment results. In parallel, the development of a computational impact model to simulate the full-scale test will be discussed in this report. A model of the Lift+Cruise test article was developed utilizing data collected from previous sub- and full-scale test data and then simulated in the current test environment. The model development, its use in pre-test predictions, and its use in post-test correlation will all be presented. This report will present the test data acquired from the Lift+Cruise test and document several of the results obtained. One intended result is to determine the effect of a complex full-scale crash impact on the identification of occupant injury risk within seat and vehicle designs. A second intended result is to determine whether high-fidelity models can be used with some confidence in the prediction of test events and can allow for additional test cases to be simulated without the need of having to conduct additional tests. The overall goal of the test is to provide the community with data that can be used for design, development or certification efforts, along with providing data on what an example eVTOL crash incident could entail.

energy storage systems↗

NASA NTRS1993

AXAF FITS standard for ray trace interchange

A standard data format for the archival and transport of x-ray events generated by ray trace models is described. Upon review and acceptance by the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) Software Systems Working Group (SSWG), this standard shall become the official AXAF data format for ray trace events. The Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is well suited for the purposes of the standard and was selected to be the basis of the standard. FITS is both flexible and efficient and is also widely used within the astronomical community for storage and transfer of data. In addition, software to read and write FITS format files are widely available. In selecting quantities to be included within the ray trace standard, the AXAF Mission Support team, Science Instruments team, and the other contractor teams were surveyed. From the results of this survey, the following requirements were established: (1) for the scientific needs, each photon should have associated with it: position, direction, energy, and statistical weight; the standard must also accommodate path length (relative phase), and polarization. (2) a unique photon identifier is necessary for bookkeeping purposes; (3) a log of individuals, organizations, and software packages that have modified the data must be maintained in order to create an audit trail; (4) a mechanism for extensions to the basic kernel should be provided; and (5) the ray trace standard should integrate with future AXAF data product standards.

Hsieh, Paul F.↗