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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

Space Station Freedom power management and distribution design status

The design status of the power management and distribution electric power system for the Space Station Freedom is presented. The current design is a star architecture, which has been found to be the best approach for meeting the requirement to deliver 120 V dc to the user interface. The architecture minimizes mass and power losses while improving element-to-element isolation and system flexibility. The design is partitioned into three elements: energy collection, storage and conversion, system protection and distribution, and management and control.

Javidi, S.↗

Electronic document distribution: Design of the anonymous FTP Langley Technical Report Server

An experimental electronic dissemination project, the Langley Technical Report Server (LTRS), has been undertaken to determine the feasibility of delivering Langley technical reports directly to the desktops of researchers worldwide. During the first six months, over 4700 accesses occurred and over 2400 technical reports were distributed. This usage indicates the high level of interest that researchers have in performing literature searches and retrieving technical reports at their desktops. The initial system was developed with existing resources and technology. The reports are stored as files on an inexpensive UNIX workstation and are accessible over the Internet. This project will serve as a foundation for ongoing projects at other NASA centers that will allow for greater access to NASA technical reports.

Nelson, Michael L.↗

One approach for evaluating the Distributed Computing Design System (DCDS)

The Distributed Computer Design System (DCDS) provides an integrated environment to support the life cycle of developing real-time distributed computing systems. The primary focus of DCDS is to significantly increase system reliability and software development productivity, and to minimize schedule and cost risk. DCDS consists of integrated methodologies, languages, and tools to support the life cycle of developing distributed software and systems. Smooth and well-defined transistions from phase to phase, language to language, and tool to tool provide a unique and unified environment. An approach to evaluating DCDS highlights its benefits.

Ellis, J. T.↗

Proton dosimeter design for distributed body organs.

The design of a real-time rem-rad dosimeter with sufficient generality for inclusion of dose distribution factors for space applications is discussed. This generalized dosimetric system is only slightly more complex than dosimeters in current use.

Khandelwal, G. S.↗

JPL Facilities and Software for Collaborative Design: 1994 - Present

The viewgraph presentation provides an overview of the history of the JPL Project Design Center (PDC) and, since 2000, the Center for Space Mission Architecture and Design (CSMAD). The discussion includes PDC objectives and scope; mission design metrics; distributed design; a software architecture timeline; facility design principles; optimized design for group work; CSMAD plan view, facility design, and infrastructure; and distributed collaboration tools.

project design center↗

Microwave Driven Actuators Power Allocation and Distribution

Design, fabrication and test of a power allocation and distribution (PAD) network for microwave driven actuators is presented in this paper. Development of a circuit that would collect power from a rectenna array amplify and distribute the power to actuators was designed and fabricated for space application in an actuator array driven by a microwave. A P-SPICE model was constructed initially for data reduction purposes, and was followed by a working real-world model. A voltage up - converter (VUC) is used to amplify the voltage from the individual rectenna. The testing yielded a 26:1 voltage amplification ratio with input voltage at 9 volts and a measured output voltage 230VDC. Future work includes the miniaturization of the circuitry, the use of microwave remote control, and voltage amplification technology for each voltage source. The objective of this work is to develop a model system that will collect DC voltage from an array of rectenna and propagate the voltage to an array of actuators.

Forbes, Timothy↗

Proton dosimeter design for distributed body organs

A simple dosimeter design has been developed by NASA to monitor the space proton dose (in rads) to a distributed body organ as a linear combination of ion chambers with varying wall thickness. Estimated doses are given for ion chambers of thickness 2, 3, 4, and 5 g/sq cm. The analytical equation used to calculate the dose distribution factor is also given.

Wilson, J. W.↗

Distributed System Design Checklist

This report describes a design checklist targeted to fault-tolerant distributed electronic systems. Many of the questions and discussions in this checklist may be generally applicable to the development of any safety-critical system. However, the primary focus of this report covers the issues relating to distributed electronic system design. The questions that comprise this design checklist were created with the intent to stimulate system designers' thought processes in a way that hopefully helps them to establish a broader perspective from which they can assess the system's dependability and fault-tolerance mechanisms. While best effort was expended to make this checklist as comprehensive as possible, it is not (and cannot be) complete. Instead, we expect that this list of questions and the associated rationale for the questions will continue to evolve as lessons are learned and further knowledge is established. In this regard, it is our intent to post the questions of this checklist on a suitable public web-forum, such as the NASA DASHLink AFCS repository. From there, we hope that it can be updated, extended, and maintained after our initial research has been completed.

Hall, Brendan↗

Design of Distributed Mail-Slot Propulsion System on a Hybrid Wingbody Aircraft

This paper deals with designing a thrust distribution strategy when a Turboelectric Distributed Propulsion (TeDP) system of 16 embedded propulsors is installed on an aerodynamically optimized hybrid wing-body configuration. This HWB previously designed to satisfy conditions of trim, longitudinally static stability and specific cargo space is employed as the baseline configuration for the current study of seeking an optimal propulsion/power system. According to the nature of the entrance flow condition for each distributed propulsion passage in hybrid wing-body aircraft, the ingested boundary layer thickness differs and results in different propulsive reaction. An optimal distribution of thrust and power output is determined by how the system utilizes the propulsive characteristics of each passage. The design space and the number of design variables are selected and described accordingly. An actuator disk model is employed to model thrust generation and shaft power from the propulsor. To carry out the optimization of the propulsion/power system on a computationally expensive CFD model, a Kriging method in conjunction with a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is applied. Throughout the design process, the propulsion performances of the sampled propulsion/power system are analyzed and compared to those of a clean flow engine. The performance metrics includes mass flow rate, fan pressure ratio besides the thrust and shaft power. Minimization of total shaft power from the distributed engine is performed at multiple thrust levels. The benefit of boundary layer ingestion propulsion system is quantified via comparison of thrust equivalent, shaft power and mass flow equivalent clean flow engines with CFD based system design.

Hybrid Wingbody↗

Emergent Aerospace Designs Using Negotiating Autonomous Agents

This paper presents a distributed design methodology where designs emerge as a result of the negotiations between different stake holders in the process, such as cost, performance, reliability, etc. The proposed methodology uses autonomous agents to represent design decision makers. Each agent influences specific design parameters in order to maximize their utility. Since the design parameters depend on the aggregate demand of all the agents in the system, design agents need to negotiate with others in the market economy in order to reach an acceptable utility value. This paper addresses several interesting research issues related to distributed design architectures. First, we present a flexible framework which facilitates decomposition of the design problem. Second, we present overview of a market mechanism for generating acceptable design configurations. Finally, we integrate learning mechanisms in the design process to reduce the computational overhead.

Deshmukh, Abhijit↗

Concurrent Engineering Working Group White Paper Distributed Collaborative Design: The Next Step in Aerospace Concurrent Engineering

As aerospace missions grow larger and more technically complex in the face of ever tighter budgets, it will become increasingly important to use concurrent engineering methods in the development of early conceptual designs because of their ability to facilitate rapid assessments and trades of performance, cost and schedule. To successfully accomplish these complex missions with limited funding, it is essential to effectively leverage the strengths of individuals and teams across government, industry, academia, and international agencies by increased cooperation between organizations. As a result, the existing concurrent engineering teams will need to increasingly engage in distributed collaborative concurrent design. The purpose of this white paper is to identify a near-term vision for the future of distributed collaborative concurrent engineering design for aerospace missions as well as discuss the challenges to achieving that vision. The white paper also documents the advantages of creating a working group to investigate how to engage the expertise of different teams in joint design sessions while enabling organizations to maintain their organizations competitive advantage.

Hihn, Jairus↗

Evaluation of Response Surface Experiment Designs for Distributed Propulsion Aircraft Aero-Propulsive Modeling

Modern distributed hybrid and electric propulsion aircraft, including vertical, short, and conventional takeoff and landing configurations, exhibit significant aero-propulsive complexity and a large number of interacting test factors. This paper presents the development and evaluation of experiment designs for aero-propulsive characterization of distributed propulsion aircraft. Five different foundational response surface designs are evaluated to inform the development of two sequential design approaches tailored to complex aircraft aerodynamic characterization experiments. The first approach, which builds on sequential face-centered central composite designs, has been used previously to develop aero-propulsive models for complex aircraft using wind tunnel testing. The second approach is a new design strategy leveraging a regular I-optimal and nested I-optimal design that was developed for this study. The two sequential design strategies are compared for experiments with a large number of test factors using pre-experiment design evaluation metrics, as well as modeling results obtained from simulated wind tunnel data for the NASA LA-8 aircraft. The design evaluation metrics show that the sequential I-optimal base design has higher statistical power, lower correlation among candidate regressors, lower prediction variance, and more precise parameter estimates. The simulated wind tunnel experiments conducted using each design reveal that the sequential I-optimal base design has better predictive capability with fewer test points. The experiment design and evaluation procedures are described in detail to inform future aerodynamic characterization experiments for complex aircraft.

design of experiments↗

Designing a Distributed Space Systems Simulation in Accordance with the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO)

Simulations are essential for engineering design. These virtual realities provide characteristic data to scientists and engineers in order to understand the details and complications of the desired mission. A standard development simulation package known as Trick is used in developing a source code to model a component (federate in HLA terms). The runtime executive is integrated into an HLA based distributed simulation. TrickHLA is used to extend a Trick simulation for a federation execution, develop a source code for communication between federates, as well as foster data input and output. The project incorporates international cooperation along with team collaboration. Interactions among federates occur throughout the simulation, thereby relying on simulation interoperability. Communication through the semester went on between participants to figure out how to create this data exchange. The NASA intern team is designing a Lunar Rover federate and a Lunar Shuttle federate. The Lunar Rover federate supports transportation across the lunar surface and is essential for fostering interactions with other federates on the lunar surface (Lunar Shuttle, Lunar Base Supply Depot and Mobile ISRU Plant) as well as transporting materials to the desired locations. The Lunar Shuttle federate transports materials to and from lunar orbit. Materials that it takes to the supply depot include fuel and cargo necessary to continue moon-base operations. This project analyzes modeling and simulation technologies as well as simulation interoperability. Each team from participating universities will work on and engineer their own federate(s) to participate in the SISO Spring 2011 Workshop SIW Smackdown in Boston, Massachusetts. This paper will focus on the Lunar Rover federate.

Cowen, Benjamin↗

An Efficient Multiblock Method for Aerodynamic Analysis and Design on Distributed Memory Systems

The work presented in this paper describes the application of a multiblock gridding strategy to the solution of aerodynamic design optimization problems involving complex configurations. The design process is parallelized using the MPI (Message Passing Interface) Standard such that it can be efficiently run on a variety of distributed memory systems ranging from traditional parallel computers to networks of workstations. Substantial improvements to the parallel performance of the baseline method are presented, with particular attention to their impact on the scalability of the program as a function of the mesh size. Drag minimization calculations at a fixed coefficient of lift are presented for a business jet configuration that includes the wing, body, pylon, aft-mounted nacelle, and vertical and horizontal tails. An aerodynamic design optimization is performed with both the Euler and Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations governing the flow solution and the results are compared. These sample calculations establish the feasibility of efficient aerodynamic optimization of complete aircraft configurations using the RANS equations as the flow model. There still exists, however, the need for detailed studies of the importance of a true viscous adjoint method which holds the promise of tackling the minimization of not only the wave and induced components of drag, but also the viscous drag.

Reuther, James↗