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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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Optmization and Fabrication Studies in the Development of Structurally Integrated Thermal Protection System Technology

NASA HYP M&S is pursuing the development of SITPS: 1) Working with HYP MDAO to formulate methodology to incorporate SITPS into hypersonic vehicle design trades. 2) SITPS-0 to SITPS-1 (FY10): a) Manufacturing development and weight reduction (5.8 to 3.1 lb(sub m)/sq ft); b) Structural testing to mature SITPS model. 3) SITPS-2 (FY11): a) Focus on panel closeout, panel-to-panel load transfer, and panel curvature. 4) Extend fabrication technology to include alternate cores and insulations (FY12).

Stephens, Craig A.↗

Bridging Equipment Reliability Data and Robust Decisions in a Plant Operation Context

In order to reduce operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, nuclear power plants (NPPs) are moving from corrective and periodic maintenance to predictive maintenance strategies. Such transition requires changes on the data that needs to be retrieved and on the type of decision processes to be employed. Advanced monitoring and data analysis technologies are essential to support predictive strategies. They can in fact provide precise information about health of a component, track its degradation trends, and provide information of its expected failure time. With such information, maintenance operations for a component can be performed right before its expected failure time. This dynamic context of O&M operations requires new methods to analyze data, propagate component health information from the component to the system level, and optimize plant resources. In this respect, the risk informed asset management (RIAM) project has been tasked to develop and test this new class of methods into a risk analytics toolset. This toolset consists of data analytics tools coupled with reliability methods designed to manage plant assets and performances in a predictive maintenance context. This report shows the latest improvements on such development and the initial testing of our methods on the three main research areas that the RIAM project is focusing on. These areas are the following: equipment reliability data analytics, system reliability modeling, and plant resources optimization methods. We show how the methods developed in these areas can support predictive maintenance strategies by: 1) analyzing equipment reliability data (either in numeric and textual form), 2) assessing component and system health through an innovative margin-based reliability approach, and 3) identifying the most critical components and set optimal maintenance schedule based on plant economic and operational constraints.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Runway Scheduling Using Generalized Dynamic Programming

A generalized dynamic programming method for finding a set of pareto optimal solutions for a runway scheduling problem is introduced. The algorithm generates a set of runway fight sequences that are optimal for both runway throughput and delay. Realistic time-based operational constraints are considered, including miles-in-trail separation, runway crossings, and wake vortex separation. The authors also model divergent runway takeoff operations to allow for reduced wake vortex separation. A modeled Dallas/Fort Worth International airport and three baseline heuristics are used to illustrate preliminary benefits of using the generalized dynamic programming method. Simulated traffic levels ranged from 10 aircraft to 30 aircraft with each test case spanning 15 minutes. The optimal solution shows a 40-70 percent decrease in the expected delay per aircraft over the baseline schedulers. Computational results suggest that the algorithm is promising for real-time application with an average computation time of 4.5 seconds. For even faster computation times, two heuristics are developed. As compared to the optimal, the heuristics are within 5% of the expected delay per aircraft and 1% of the expected number of runway operations per hour ad can be 100x faster.

optmization↗

Development and Application of a Risk Analysis Toolkit for Plant Resources Optimization

This report summarizes the R&D activities of the Risk Informed Asset Management (RIAM) project during fiscal year 2020 (FY20). This project focuses on the development of methods designed to optimize plant operations (e.g., maintenance/replacement schedule, optimal maintenance posture) provided system/component health/cost data. This project development lives in cooperation with the Plant Health Management (PHM) project which focuses on the development of methods that integrate component health data and propagate such information at the system level to evaluate most relevant sources of risk. This year’s activities for the RIAM project focused on the continuation of schedule optimization algorithms developed in FY19. While in FY19 we focused on both deterministic and stochastic capital budgeting methods, in FY20 we moved forward by implementing two versions of schedule optimization methods. The first one reformulates the capital budgeting problem in a distributionally robust form which allows the user to rely on data directly rather than proposing a distribution from the data itself. The second version reformulates the capital budgeting explicitly using risk measures as variables to maximize/minimize. Lastly, we focused on the development of methods designed to identify the optimal maintenance posture based on the Pareto Frontier analysis. Rather than performing a tradeoff analysis (i.e., identify the absolute best posture), the Pareto Frontier analysis performs a trade space exploration approach (i.e., identify value and costs of several postures and have the analyst perform the task of imposing desired value and cost constraints). This is performed by identifying maintenance postures that maximize value (e.g., system availability) and minimize operational costs, i.e., the Pareto frontier in a value-cost trade space.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Bridging Equipment Reliability Data and Risk Informed Decisions in a Plant Operation Context

Industry equipment reliability and asset management programs are essential elements that help ensure the safe and economical operation of nuclear power plants. The effectiveness of these programs is addressed in several industry-developed and regulatory programs. The Risk-Informed Asset Management (RIAM) project is tasked to develop tools in support of the equipment reliability and asset management programs at nuclear power plants. These tools are designed to create a direct bridge between component health/lifecycle data and decision making (e.g., maintenance scheduling and project prioritization). The goal of this article is to provide a guide for specific use cases that the RIAM project is targeting. We have grouped uses cases into three main areas. The first area focuses on the analysis of equipment reliability data with a particular emphasis on condition-based data, such as test/surveillance reports and component monitoring data. The second area focuses on the integration of equipment reliability into system/plant reliability models to determine system/plant health and identify the components that are critical to maintain an operational system. Lastly, the third area manages plant resources, such as maintenance activities and replacement scheduling using optimization methods. Here the primary focus is on supporting typical system engineer decisions regarding maintenance activity scheduling and component aging management. This is performed in a risk-informed context where the term “risk” is broadly constructed to include both plant reliability and economics. This framework combines data analytics tools to analyze equipment reliability data with risk-informed methods designed to support system engineer decisions (e.g., maintenance and replacement schedules, optimal maintenance posture) in a customizable workflow.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗