Results for “beverage delivery”

DOE OSTI2026

FleetREDI Insight: Beverage Delivery in New York City

Capturing real-world data is critical to improving efficiency and supporting technology advancements in commercial vehicles. FleetREDI’s insights provide detailed duty cycle information and highlight unique aspects of the given dataset. Each insight delivers a quick look at the collected data by summarizing the operation and identifying key findings of the initial analysis. This FleetREDI insight explores beverage delivery tractors operating in New York City. Last-mile beverage delivery supports local bars and restaurants throughout Manhattan and the broader New York City area. Manhattan Beer Distributors is a beverage delivery company operating in Manhattan and the Bronx. Logging devices were installed in 17 vehicles, and operational data were collected between August and October 2022. Two types of vehicles were included in data collection: 7 tractors and 10 bay trucks. Using NLR’s FleetREDI data platform, this dataset provides a summary of daily operation to help understand duty cycle characteristics. This includes daily distance, fuel use, and estimated engine-produced energy consumption for 17 bay trucks and tractors that operated more than 7,500 miles in slow-speed urban operation. ![FleetREDI beverage delivery](FleetREDI-beverage-delivery-nyc.jpg)

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2024

Electrification Analysis: Manhattan Beer

This one-page highlight details the key takeaways from a project that utilized NREL's Fleet Research, Energy Data, and Insights (FleetREDI) data analysis pipeline, the Manhattan Beer Electrification Project. This project determined that Class-8 beverage distribution trucks operating in Manhattan show substantial electrification potential due to daily driving distances below 50 miles and low average speeds of 22mph or less. Their duty cycle needs can often be met by even modestly sized batteries and charging infrastructure. Vulnerable communities near their routes would benefit from fleet electrification.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

NASA NTRS2009

Food Mass Reduction Trade Study

Future long duration manned space flights beyond low earth orbit will require the food system to remain safe, acceptable, and nutritious while efficiently balancing appropriate vehicle resources such as mass, volume, power, water, and crewtime. Often, this presents a challenge since maintaining the quality of the food system can result in a higher mass and volume. The Orion vehicle is significantly smaller than the Shuttle vehicle and the International Space Station and the mass and volume available for food is limited. Therefore, the food team has been challenged to reduce the mass of the packaged food from 1.82 kg per person per day to 1.14 kg per person per day. Past work has concentrated on how to reduce the mass of the packaging which contributes to about 15% of the total mass of the packaged food system. Designers have also focused on integrating and optimizing the Orion galley equipment as a system to reduce mass. To date, there has not been a significant effort to determine how to reduce the food itself. The objective of this project is to determine how the mass and volume of the packaged food can be reduced while maintaining caloric and hydration requirements. The following tasks are the key elements to this project: (1) Conduct further analysis of the ISS Standard Menu to determine moisture, protein, carbohydrate, and fat levels. (2) Conduct trade studies to determine how to bring the mass of the food system down. Trade studies may include removing the water of the total food system and/or increasing the fat content. (3) Determine the preferred method for delivery of the new food (e.g. bars, or beverages) and the degree of replacement. (4) Determine whether there are commercially available products that meet the requirements. By the end of this study, an estimate of the mass and volume savings will be provided to the Constellation Program. In addition, if new technologies need to be developed to achieve the mass savings, the technologies, timeline, and budget will be identified at the end of the project.

Perchonok, Michele H.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Suited Contingency Ops Food - 2

The contingency scenario for an emergency cabin depressurization event may require crewmembers to subsist in a pressurized suit for up to 144 hours. This scenario requires the capability for safe nutrition delivery through a helmet feed port against a 4 psi pressure differential to enable crewmembers to maintain strength and cognition to perform critical tasks. Two nutritional delivery prototypes were developed and analyzed for compatibility with the helmet feed port interface and for operational effectiveness against the pressure differential. The bag-in-bag (BiB) prototype, designed to equalize the suit pressure with the beverage pouch and enable a crewmember to drink normally, delivered water successfully to three different subjects in suits pressurized to 4 psi. The Boa restrainer pouch, designed to provide mechanical leverage to overcome the pressure differential, did not operate sufficiently. Guidelines were developed and compiled for contingency beverages that provide macro-nutritional requirements, a minimum one-year shelf life, and compatibility with the delivery hardware. Evaluation results and food product parameters have the potential to be used to improve future prototype designs and develop complete nutritional beverages for contingency events. These feeding capabilities would have additional use on extended surface mission EVAs, where the current in-suit drinking device may be insufficient.

Glass, J. W.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Development of a Nutritional Delivery System to Feed Crew in a Pressurized Suit

The contingency scenario for an emergency cabin depressurization event may require crewmembers to subsist in a pressurized suit for up to 144 hours. This scenario requires the capability for safe nutrition delivery through a helmet feed port against a 4 psi pressure differential to enable crewmembers to maintain strength and cognition to perform critical tasks. Two nutritional delivery prototypes were developed and analyzed for compatibility with the helmet feed port interface and for operational effectiveness against the pressure differential. The bag-in-bag (BiB) prototype, designed to equalize the suit pressure with the beverage pouch and enable a crewmember to drink normally, delivered water successfully to three different subjects in suits pressurized to 4 psi. The Boa restrainer pouch, designed to provide mechanical leverage to overcome the pressure differential, did not operate sufficiently. Guidelines were developed and compiled for contingency beverages that provide macro-nutritional requirements, a minimum one-year shelf life, and compatibility with the delivery hardware. Evaluation results and food product parameters have the potential to be used to improve future prototype designs and develop complete nutritional beverages for contingency events. These feeding capabilities would have additional use on extended surface mission EVAs, where the current in-suit drinking device may be insufficient.

Glass, J. W.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Commercial Vehicle Driver Behaviors and Decision Making: Lessons Learned from Urban Ridealongs

As e-commerce and urban deliveries spike, cities grapple with managing urban freight more actively. In order to effectively manage urban deliveries, city planners and policy makers need to better understand driver behaviors and the challenges they experience in performing deliveries. In this study, we collected data on commercial vehicle (CV) driver behaviors by performing ridealongs with various logistics carriers. Ridealongs were performed in Seattle, Washington, covering a range of vehicles (cars, vans, and trucks), goods (parcels, mail, beverages, and printed materials), and customer types (residential, office, large and small retail). Observers collected qualitative observations and quantitative data on trip and dwell times, while also tracking vehicles through GPS devices. The results showed that, on average, urban CVs spent 80 percent of their daily operating time parked. The study also found that, unlike the common belief, drivers (especially those operating heavier vehicles) parked in authorized parking locations, with only less than 5 percent of stops occurring in the travel lane. Dwell times associated with authorized parking locations were significantly longer than those of other parking locations, and mail and heavy goods deliveries generally had longer dwell times. We also identified three main criteria CV drivers used for choosing a parking location: avoiding unsafe maneuvers, minimizing conflicts with other users of the road, and coopetition with other commercial drivers. Here, the results provide estimates for trip times, dwell times, and parking choice types, as well as insights into why those decisions are made and the factors affecting driver choices.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Roadmap for Deployment of Modularized Hydrothermal Liquefaction: Understanding the Impacts of Industry Learning, Optimal Plant Scale, and Delivery Costs on Biofuel Pricing

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a promising technology for converting abundant organic wastes into fuels. Previous techno-economic analyses (TEAs) of HTL have been used to estimate the minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) of biofuel products, but these analyses often assume a bespoke plant design where each plant operates under unique process conditions and neglect transportation costs. However, transportation costs must be included in realistic TEAs, and further, a mass-produced fixed-scale modular plant design approach may be more effective than case-by-case plant design, provided that there is sufficient market capacity to benefit from modularization. This study estimates fuel price behavior in the presence of transportation costs and benefits stemming from modular plant design. This analysis indicates that a modular process capable of handling 60 dry tons per day (DTPD) is optimal, resulting in a ~25% reduction in MFSP (from $4.70/GGE, fully upgraded) at complete market feedstock utilization compared with case-by-case design. The associated cost reductions are attributable to learning benefits and modularization. Several HTL deployment “roadmaps” are then explored, with each roadmap consisting of different periods of case-by-case design followed by adoption of a modularized approach. A period of nonmodular industry growth up to market saturation of ~7% followed by implementation of modular plant design strikes a balance between the investment risk and learned cost reductions associated with modular plant design. However, if bespoke plants built during this period of nonmodular growth saturate more than 23% of available feedstock, learned cost reductions are significantly diminished. Here, this study points to the potential benefits of modularized and decentralized waste-to-energy processes when the modularization follows an optimal deployment strategy.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗