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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 NTRS2017

Design of Multifunctional Materials: Chalcogenides and Chalcopyrites

There is a strong need for developing multifunctional materials to reduce the cost of applied material without compromising the performance of the detectors, devices and sensors. The materials design, processing, growth and fabrication of bulk and nanocrystals and fabrication into devices and sensors involve huge cost and resources including a multidisciplinary team of experts. Because of this reason, prediction of multifunctionality of materials before design and development should be evaluated. Chalcogenides and chalcopyrites are a very exciting class of materials for developing multifunctionality. Materials such as Gallium selenide GaSe and zinc selenide ZnSe have been proven to be excellent examples. GaSe is a layered material and very difficult to grow in large crystal. However, it's ternary and quaternary analogs such as thallium gallium selenide TlGaSe2, thallium gallium selenide sulfide TlGaSe2-xSs, thallium arsenic selenide Tl3AsSe3, silver gallium selenide AgGaGe3Se8, AgGaGe5Se12 and several others have shown great promise for multifunctionality. Several of these materials have shown good efficiency for frequency conversion (nonlinear optical NLO), electro-optic modulation, and acousto-optic tunable filters and imagers suitable for the visible, near-infrared wavelength, mid wave infrared (MWIR), long wave infrared (LWIR) and even up to Tera hertz wavelength (THW) regions. In addition, this class of materials have demonstrated low absorption coefficients and power handling capability in the systems. Also, these crystals do not require post growth annealing, show very large transparency range and fabricability.

Singh, N. B.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hierarchical Hybrid Multifunctional Materials through Interface Engineering

This project focuses on the development of stimuli-responsive hybrid multifunctional materials. We place emphasis on the design, synthesis, structural characterization, evaluation of functional properties (electronic, thermal and optical) of several (1-x)Cu 2 Se/(x)WBGS hierarchical bulk composites between Cu 2 Se, a narrow band gap semiconductor (NBGS), with a range of wider band gap semiconductors (WBGS) such as CuMSe 2 (M = Al, Ga, In, Fe, Cr) and Cu 4 TiSe 4 . Cu2Se is a well-studied NBGS with excellent thermoelectric properties (high electrical conductivity, large thermopower, etc.) while CuMSe 2 and Cu 4 TiSe 4 are high performance solar absorber materials (large band gap, large absorption coefficient, etc.). Our primary objectives are (i) to demonstrate the ability to integrate dissimilar functional properties such as large optical absorption coefficient and high electronic conductivity, within (1-x)Cu 2 Se/(x)WBGS composite; and (ii) to establish the correlation between the hierarchical structural entanglement of Cu 2 Se with WBGS (CuMSe 2 or Cu 4 TiSe 4 ) phase, the interactions between native electronic defects within the coexisting phases in the resulting (1-x)Cu 2 Se/(x)WBGS bulk composites , and the impacts on their electronic conductivity, thermal transport and optical properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Crafting Multifunctional Materials with Tailored Mechanical and Magnetic Properties by Solid-State Non-equilibrium Processing

Aluminum matrix composites hold promise for creating lightweight structural components with multifunctional properties. Nonetheless, achieving desired magnetic or electrical characteristics without compromising their fundamental mechanical properties presents a significant challenge. Here, in this study, we explore mechanical stir-based extrusion as a solid-state metalworking technique to develop fine-grained microstructures and highly refined metallic composites. Our study focuses on creating a SmCo 5 -reinforced aluminum matrix composite using solid stir extrusion (SSE) and assessing its microstructure, mechanical, and magnetic properties through a comprehensive suite of characterization tools, including x-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and magnetometry. Our findings reveal that incorporating a small amount (3.76 wt.%) of SmCo 5 phase in a non-heat-treatable, non-magnetic aluminum alloy via SSE yields a composite that exhibits good hard magnetic characteristics with a large coercivity (H ci = 13.5 kOe) and improved mechanical properties. This study underscores non-equilibrium processing via solid-state high-speed stirring as a compelling method for crafting multifunctional materials with tailored mechanical and magnetic properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2005

Strain Sensitivity in Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Multifunctional Materials

Single walled carbon nanotubes represent the future of structural aerospace vehicle systems due to their unparalleled strength characteristics and demonstrated multifunctionality. This multifunctionality rises from the CNT's unique capabilities for both metallic and semiconducting electron transport, electron spin polarizability, and band gap modulation under strain. By incorporating the use of electric field alignment and various lithography techniques, a single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) test bed for measurement of conductivity/strain relationships has been developed. Nanotubes are deposited at specified locations through dielectrophoresis. The circuit is designed such that the central, current carrying section of the nanotube is exposed to enable atomic force microscopy and manipulation in situ while the transport properties of the junction are monitored. By applying this methodology to sensor development a flexible single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) based strain sensitive device has been developed. Studies of tensile testing of the flexible SWNT device vs conductivity are also presented, demonstrating the feasibility of using single walled HiPCO (high-pressure carbon monoxide) carbon nanotubes as strain sensing agents in a multi-functional materials system.

Heath, D. M.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Meeting Radiation Protection Requirements and Reducing Spacecraft Mass - A Multifunctional Materials Approach

Both crew and radio-sensitive systems, especially electronics must be protected from the effects of the space radiation environment. One method of mitigating this radiation exposure is to use passive-shielding materials. In previous vehicle designs such as the International Space Station (ISS), materials such as aluminum and polyethylene have been used as parasitic shielding to protect crew and electronics from exposure, but these designs add mass and decrease the amount of usable volume inside the vehicle. Thus, it is of interest to understand whether structural materials can also be designed to provide the radiation shielding capability needed for crew and electronics, while still providing weight savings and increased useable volume when compared against previous vehicle shielding designs. In this paper, we present calculations and analysis using the HZETRN (deterministic) and FLUKA (Monte Carlo) codes to investigate the radiation mitigation properties of these structural shielding materials, which includes graded-Z and composite materials. This work is also a follow-on to an earlier paper, that compared computational results for three radiation transport codes, HZETRN, HETC, and FLUKA, using the Feb. 1956 solar particle event (SPE) spectrum. In the following analysis, we consider the October 1989 Ground Level Enhanced (GLE) SPE as the input source term based on the Band function fitting method. Using HZETRN and FLUKA, parametric absorbed doses at the center of a hemispherical structure on the lunar surface are calculated for various thicknesses of graded-Z layups and an all-aluminum structure. HZETRN and FLUKA calculations are compared and are in reasonable (18% to 27%) agreement. Both codes are in agreement with respect to the predicted shielding material performance trends. The results from both HZETRN and FLUKA are analyzed and the radiation protection properties and potential weight savings of various materials and materials lay-ups are compared.

Atwell, William↗
NASA NTRS2018

Role of a Chemist in Modern Industries: Design and Development of Nanoengineered Multifunctional Materials

During the past fifteen years significant investment has been made for the applications of nanotechnology in almost every aspect of life. Almost every area of research has projected improvements including biotechnology, bioinspired electronic, optical and radiological sensors, or a promise for the emergence of some novel device technologies. For such applications major focus has been placed on research nanoparticles, nanotubes nanorods and two-dimensional structures similar to that of graphene. Some near- term applications of nano- particles and nanowires have produced very promising results for better synthesis of energy storage materials, design of biologically active composites like apatites, laser host crystals, photodetectors and sensor materials for radiation detection. To achieve desired morphologies, nanomaterials can be utilized some organic melt and orient the grains by the directional solidification method. The organic treated materials produce different characteristics than coarsened oxide materials. The focus is also understanding the morphology and performance function in human organs that occur because of aging or disease, and responses to interventions. We annealed to determine the changes in morphologies and hence effect of aging. In this presentation, we will discuss correlation between the designed composition, micromorphology and the performance parameters of nanomaterials. To understand the mechanism of formation of nanoparticles, nanoboloids, fibers experimental details and observations on the of multinary compounds will be presented. These observations on the transition of nanomorphology can highlight the mechanism of the phase transition in some oxides and selenides.

Singh, N. B.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Material Challenges and Opportunities for Commercial Electric Aircraft

Significant reduction in carbon dioxide emission for future air transportation system will require adoption of electric propulsion system and more electric architectures. Various options for aircraft electric propulsion include hybrid electric, turboelectric, and full electric system. Realization of electric propulsion system for commercial aircraft applications will require significant increases in power density of electric motors and energy density of energy storage system, such as the batteries and fuel cells. In addition, transmission of MW of power in the aircraft will require high voltage power transmission system to reduce the weight of the power transmission system. Finally, there will be significant thermal management challenges. Significant advances in material technologies will be required to meet these challenges. Technologies of interest include materials with higher electrical conductivity than Cu, high thermal conductivity materials, and lightweight electrically insulating materials with high breakdown voltage, high temperature magnets, advanced battery and fuel cell materials, and multifunctional materials. The presentation will include various challenges for commercial electric aircraft and provide an overview of material improvements that will be required to meet these challenges.

materials↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Multifunctional Structural Materials for Sustainable Human Exploration in Extreme Space Environments

Extreme space environments such as space vacuum, radiation, jagged lunar dust, microgravity, high thermal excursion, micrometeoroids, thrust plume ejecta, seismic events, and their synergistically-adverse effects make sustainable space exploration extremely challenging. More robust and sustainable advanced materials and structures are needed to protect crew and equipment to extend space missions longer and safer with minimum service and repair needs. Recent progress of NASA efforts on sustainable multifunctional structural materials will be introduced.

Space Exploration↗
NASA NTRS2016

Multifunctional 2D- Materials: Selenides and Halides

Material is the key component and controls the performance of the detectors, devices and sensors. The materials design, processing, growth and fabrication of bulk and nanocrystals and fabrication into devices and sensors involve multidisciplinary team of experts. This places a large burden on the cost of the novel materials development. Due to this reason there is a big thrust for the prediction of multifunctionality of materials before design and development. Up to some extent design can achieve certain properties. In multinary materials processing is also a big factor. In this presentation, examples of two classes of industrially important materials will be described.

Singh, N. B.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Machine learning enabled discovery of superhard and ultrahard carbon polymorphs

The demand for multifunctional materials has motivated the move from near-equilibrium materials to metastable i.e. out-of-equilibrium phases that can meet several desired target properties. The search for such metastable phases with exotic properties is non-trivial and often serendipitous. Inverse design approaches based on evolutionary search have been powerful tools, but such traditional searches have focused on identifying primarily stable and metastable materials with the lowest enthalpy. The inverse design of materials, with a focus on a desired property such as, for example, hardness is a challenging task because of the expensive computational cost involved in sampling multiple structures. The recent advances in machine learning have brought new powerful AI techniques to the forefront which can potentially revolutionize the inverse design and discovery of materials, especially metastable phases capable of meeting multifunctionality. Here, in this work, we develop and apply an automated reinforcement learning workflow for inverse design that integrates first principles physics and atomistic simulations with machine learning (ML), and high-performance computing to allow rapid exploration of the superhard and ultrahard metastable phases of Carbon. We demonstrate an automatic machine learning based inverse design workflow to map new undiscovered metastable states ranging from near equilibrium to those far-from-equilibrium that satisfy multiple property objectives, specifically bulk moduli, shear moduli and hardness. We create a comprehensive library of carbon stable and metastable phases with varying hardness and subsequently shortlist 10 top performing candidate carbon structures, including two newly reported phases, based on their hardness and characterize their temperature dependent mechanical properties. A neural network model is built using featurization of allotropes of carbon to predict the quasi-harmonic Gibbs free energies. The Gibbs free energies of the top performing phases are analyzed to get an estimate of the experimental synthesizability of these superhard and ultrahard carbon phases. In general, we show using machine learning based inverse design approaches how hitherto inaccessible metastable states can be identified and potentially synthesized to meet the demand for multifunctional materials.

Balasubramanian, Karthik [Univ. of Illinois, Chica↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-33911-DND

Future NASA missions for space exploration require key technological elements that must provide sustainability, survivability and operational envelope in extreme environments, such as the high and low extremes in pressures and temperatures, ionizing radiations, chemical and/or physical corrosion, and hypervelocity particles. Advanced multifunctional materials enable revolutionary design schemes for future aerospace vehicles and structures for the extreme environments of NASA missions. Recent studies of nanocomposite materials have shown the potential for both structural integrity and multifunctional capabilities, such as sensing, actuating, health monitoring, radiation shielding, energy harvesting, thermal management, and thermal protection in extreme environments. After the advent of carbon nanotube (CNT) in 1991, scientists predicted that boron and nitrogen, carbons immediate neighbors on the periodic chart, might also form perfect nanotubes, namely boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). The discovery and progress of a new catalyst-free method for synthesizing highly crystalline, very long, and small diameter BNNTs under a high temperature and pressure (HTP) environment have enabled new applications for multifunctional materials. The white color BNNTs offer extraordinary properties including neutron radiation shielding, piezoelectricity, electrostriction, high thermal oxidative stability (>800?C in air), not present in CNTs, as well as excellent mechanical strength and toughness, equivalent to CNTs. The characteristics of the novel BNNTs and their composites along with CNT composites are discussed in this presentation along with their potential aerospace applications in extreme environments.

Cheol Park↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-35440-DND

Future NASA missions for space exploration require key technological elements that must provide sustainability, survivability and operational envelope in extreme environments, such as the high and low extremes in pressures and temperatures, ionizing radiations, chemical and/or physical corrosion, and hypervelocity particles. Advanced multifunctional materials enable revolutionary design schemes for future aerospace vehicles and structures for the extreme environments of NASA missions. Recent studies of nanocomposite materials have shown the potential for both structural integrity and multifunctional capabilities, such as sensing, actuating, health monitoring, radiation shielding, energy harvesting, thermal management, and thermal protection in extreme environments. After the advent of carbon nanotube (CNT) in 1991, scientists predicted that boron and nitrogen, carbon's immediate neighbors on the periodic chart, might also form perfect nanotubes, namely boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). The discovery and progress of a new catalyst-free method for synthesizing highly crystalline, very long, and small diameter BNNTs under a high temperature and pressure (HTP) environment have enabled new applications for multifunctional materials. The white color BNNTs offer extraordinary properties including neutron radiation shielding, piezoelectricity, electrostriction, high thermal oxidative stability(>800 C in air), not present in CNTs, as well as excellent mechanical strength and toughness, equivalent to CNTs. The characteristics of the BNNTs and their composites along with CNT composites are discussed in this presentation along with their potential aerospace applications in extreme environments.

Cheol Park↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

High Temperature Pressure (HTP) Boron Nitride Nanotube (BNNT): Discovery and Commercialization

Future NASA missions for space exploration require key technological elements that must provide sustainability, survivability and operational envelope in extreme environments, such as the high and low extremes in pressures and temperatures, ionizing radiations, chemical and/or physical corrosion, and hypervelocity particles. Advanced multifunctional materials enable revolutionary design schemes for future aerospace vehicles and structures for the extreme environments of NASA missions. Recent studies of nanocomposite materials have shown the potential for both structural integrity and multifunctional capabilities, such as sensing, actuating, health monitoring, radiation shielding, energy harvesting, thermal management, and thermal protection in extreme environments. After the advent of carbon nanotube (CNT) in 1991, scientists predicted that boron and nitrogen, carbons immediate neighbors on the periodic chart, might also form perfect nanotubes, namely boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). The discovery and progress of a new catalyst-free method for synthesizing highly crystalline, very long, and small diameter BNNTs under a high temperature and pressure (HTP) environment have enabled new applications for multifunctional materials. The white color BNNTs offer extraordinary properties including neutron radiation shielding, piezoelectricity, electrostriction, high thermal oxidative stability (>800C in air), not present in CNTs, as well as excellent mechanical strength and toughness, equivalent to CNTs. The characteristics of the BNNTs and their composites along with CNT composites are discussed in this presentation along with their potential aerospace applications in extreme environments.

Cheol Park↗
NASA NTRS2000

Structures Technology for Future Aerospace Systems

An overview of structures technology for future aerospace systems is given. Discussion focuses on developments in component technologies that will improve the vehicle performance, advance the technology exploitation process, and reduce system life-cycle costs. The component technologies described are smart materials and structures, multifunctional materials and structures, affordable composite structures, extreme environment structures, flexible load bearing structures, and computational methods and simulation-based design. The trends in each of the component technologies are discussed and the applicability of these technologies to future aerospace vehicles is described.

Noor, Ahmed K.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Advanced Multifunctional MMOD Shield: Radiation Shielding Assessment

As NASA is looking to explore further into deep space, multifunctional materials are a necessity for decreasing complexity and mass. One area where multifunctional materials could be extremely beneficial is in the micrometeoroid orbital debris (MMOD) shield. A typical MMOD shield on the International Space Station (ISS) is a stuffed whipple shield consisting of multiple layers. One of those layers is the thermal blanket, or multi-layer insulation (MLI). By increasing the MMOD effectiveness of MLI blankets, while still preserving their thermal capabilities, could allow for a less massive MMOD shield. Thus, a study was conducted to evaluate concept MLI blankets for MMOD shields. In conjunction, these MLI blankets and the subsequent MMOD shields were also evaluated for their radiation shielding effectiveness towards protecting crew. These concepts were evaluated against the ISS MLI blankets and the ISS MMOD shield, which acted as the baseline. These radiation shielding assessments were performed using the high charge and energy transport software (HZETRN). This software is based on a one-dimensional formula of the Boltzmann transport equation with a straight-ahead approximation. Each configuration was evaluated against the following environments to provide a diverse view of radiation shielding effectiveness in most space environments within the heliosphere: August 1972 solar particle event, October 1989 solar particle event, 1982 galactic cosmic ray environment (during solar maximum), 1987 galactic cosmic ray environment (during solar minimum), and a low earth orbit environment in 1970 that corresponded to an altitude of 400 km and inclination of 51.6 . Both the absorbed dose and the dose equivalent were analyzed, but the focus of the discussion was on the dose equivalent since the data is most concerned with radiation shielding of the crew. The following paper outlines the evaluations performed and discusses the results and conclusions of this evaluation for radiation shielding effectiveness. Future work will focus on optimizing the radiation shielding properties for the MMOD shield. Submission

Rojdev, Kristina↗