Instrumentation and Control Needs for Reliable Operation of Lunar Base Surface Nuclear Power Systems

As one of the near-term goals of the President's Vision for Space Exploration, establishment of a multi-person lunar base will require high-endurance power systems which are independent of the sun, and can operate without replenishment for several years. These requirements may be obtained using nuclear power systems specifically designed for use on the lunar surface. While it is envisioned that such a system will generally be supervised by humans, some of the evolutions required maybe semi or fully autonomous. The entire base complement for near-term missions may be less than 10 individuals, most or all of which may not be qualified nuclear plant operators and may be off-base for extended periods thus, the need for power system autonomous operation. Startup, shutdown, and load following operations will require the application of advanced control and health management strategies with an emphasis on robust, supervisory, coordinated control of, for example, the nuclear heat source, energy conversion plant (e.g., Brayton Energy Conversion units), and power management system. Autonomous operation implies that, in addition to being capable of automatic response to disturbance input or load changes, the system is also capable of assessing the status of the integrated plant, determining the risk associated with the possible actions, and making a decision as to the action that optimizes system performance while minimizing risk to the mission. Adapting the control to deviations from design conditions and degradation due to component failures will be essential to ensure base inhabitant safety and mission success. Intelligent decisions will have to be made to choose the right set of sensors to provide the data needed to do condition monitoring and fault detection and isolation because of liftoff weight and space limitations, it will not be possible to have an extensive set of instruments as used for earth-based systems. Advanced instrumentation and control technologies will be needed to enable this critical functionality of autonomous operation. It will be imperative to consider instrumentation and control requirements in parallel to system configuration development so as to identify control-related, as well as integrated system-related, problem areas early to avoid potentially expensive work-arounds . This paper presents an overview of the enabling technologies necessary for the development of reliable, autonomous lunar base nuclear power systems with an emphasis on system architectures and off-the-shelf algorithms rather than hardware. Autonomy needs are presented in the context of a hypothetical lunar base nuclear power system. The scenarios and applications presented are hypothetical in nature, based on information from open-literature sources, and only intended to provoke thought and provide motivation for the use of autonomous, intelligent control and diagnostics

Index to 1986 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 11, numbers 1-4

Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1986 Tech Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences

ЭКСПЕРИМЕНТАЛЬНЫЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ СПЕКТРА СОБСТВЕННЫХ ФОРМ И ЧАСТОТ КОЛЕБАНИЙ ЛОПАТОК КОМПРЕССОРОВ ВСПОМОГАТЕЛЬНОГО АВИАДВИГАТЕЛЯ

The article presents the results of the blades vibration studies, where the blades are rigidly fixed to the disk of the high-pressure compressor of the auxiliary power unit (APU). The task of the study is set because of the destruction of the blades cascade, which led to the APU failure. The designated APU resource was not provided. Destruction of compressor blades occurred since the introduction of gas turbine engines, but it was not always possible to comprehensively investigate the problem and completely prevent the destruction of compressor blades. Analysis of fatigue failure statistics led to the conclusion that all the blades, regardless of their size and material are destroyed in certain areas on the back, edges and tip. The relative coordinates of the crack location are approximately the same. This indicates the availability of common patterns of the blades dynamic loading and the resulting tension in them with resonance vibrations. Moreover, the availability of operational damage on the blades does not affect these patterns. However, these patterns are not fully applicable to the blades represented in this study (wide-chord, with variable thickness from the leading to the trailing edge), but they have some similarities. The study of the forms spectrum and the blade frequency vibration is the first step in solving the problem of the blades destruction. Every detail has an infinite number of frequency characteristics that form the spectrum. Each frequency of natural oscillations corresponds to its own form of vibration. The form of the vibrations is determined by the pattern of alternating displacements or deflections and the position of the nodal lines. In nodal lines the displacements are infinitely small and considered null. The displacements of the vibrating sections on different sides of the nodal lines are in antiphase. The combination of the vibration shapes forms a variety of shapes. In this study, a sand method for determining the spectrum of vibration frequencies was used. This experiment will allow to define the sectors of defects occurrence with the subsequent development of fatigue cracks and to define real dynamic loading of the given blades design.В статье представлены результаты проведенных исследований колебаний лопаток, жестко закрепленных на диске компрессора высокого давления вспомогательной силовой установки (ВСУ). Задача исследования поставлена ввиду разрушения каскада лопаток, что привело к выводу ВСУ из строя. Назначенный ресурс ВСУ не был обеспечен. С разрушением лопаток компрессоров сталкивались с момента появления газотурбинных двигателей, однако не всегда было возможно всесторонне исследовать эту проблему и полностью предотвратить разрушения лопаток компрессоров. В результате анализа статистики усталостных разрушений лопаток выявлено, что все лопатки независимо от их размера, материала изготовления разрушаются в определенных зонах на спинке, кромках, торце. Относительные координаты расположения трещин примерно одинаковы. Это свидетельствует о наличии общих закономерностей динамического нагружения лопаток и возникающей в них напряженности при резонансных колебаниях. Причем наличие эксплуатационных повреждений на лопатках не влияет на эти закономерности. Однако к лопаткам, представленным в настоящем исследовании (широкохордным, с переменной толщиной от входной к выходной кромке), данные закономерности не в полной мере применимы, в отличие от лопаток классической стандартной формы, но имеют некоторое сходство. Исследование спектра собственных форм и частот колебаний лопатки является первым этапом в решении проблемы разрушений лопаток. Каждая деталь имеет бесконечное количество частотных характеристик, образующих спектр. Каждой частоте собственных колебаний соответствует своя форма колебаний. Форма колебаний определяется картиной знакопеременных смещений или прогибов, а также положением узловых линий. В узловых линиях перемещения бесконечно малы и считаются нулевыми. По разные стороны узловых линий смещения колеблющихся участков находятся в противофазе. Совокупность форм колебаний детали образует спектр форм [1]. В представленном исследовании использовался песочный метод определения спектра частот колебаний. Эксперимент позволит определить зоны возникновения дефектов с последующим развитием усталостных трещин и реальную динамическую нагруженность лопаток данной конструкции

A Concept of Operations for an Integrated Vehicle Health Assurance System

This document describes a Concept of Operations (ConOps) for an Integrated Vehicle Health Assurance System (IVHAS). This ConOps is associated with the Maintain Vehicle Safety (MVS) between Major Inspections Technical Challenge in the Vehicle Systems Safety Technologies (VSST) Project within NASA s Aviation Safety Program. In particular, this document seeks to describe an integrated system concept for vehicle health assurance that integrates ground-based inspection and repair information with in-flight measurement data for airframe, propulsion, and avionics subsystems. The MVS Technical Challenge intends to maintain vehicle safety between major inspections by developing and demonstrating new integrated health management and failure prevention technologies to assure the integrity of vehicle systems between major inspection intervals and maintain vehicle state awareness during flight. The approach provided by this ConOps is intended to help optimize technology selection and development, as well as allow the initial integration and demonstration of these subsystem technologies over the 5 year span of the VSST program, and serve as a guideline for developing IVHAS technologies under the Aviation Safety Program within the next 5 to 15 years. A long-term vision of IVHAS is provided to describe a basic roadmap for more intelligent and autonomous vehicle systems

Method and apparatus for in-situ detection and isolation of aircraft engine faults

A method for performing a fault estimation based on residuals of detected signals includes determining an operating regime based on a plurality of parameters, extracting predetermined noise standard deviations of the residuals corresponding to the operating regime and scaling the residuals, calculating a magnitude of a measurement vector of the scaled residuals and comparing the magnitude to a decision threshold value, extracting an average, or mean direction and a fault level mapping for each of a plurality of fault types, based on the operating regime, calculating a projection of the measurement vector onto the average direction of each of the plurality of fault types, determining a fault type based on which projection is maximum, and mapping the projection to a continuous-valued fault level using a lookup table

Aeronautics and space report of the President, 1980 activities

The year's achievements in the areas of communication, Earth resources, environment, space sciences, transportation, and space energy are summarized and current and planned activities in these areas at the various departments and agencies of the Federal Government are summarized. Tables show U.S. and world spacecraft records, spacecraft launchings for 1980, and scientific payload anf probes launched 1975-1980. Budget data are included

Variations on the Kalman filter for enhanced performance monitoring of gas turbine engines

Since their advent in the 1940's, gas turbines have been used in a wide range of land, sea and air applications due to their high power density and reliability. In today's competitive market, gas turbine operators need to optimise the dispatch availability (it i.e., minimise operational issues such as aborted take-offs or in-flight shutdowns) as well as the direct operating costs of their assets. Besides improvements in the design and manufacture processes, proactive maintenance practices, based on the actual condition of the turbine, enable the achievement of these objectives. Generating dependable information about the health condition of the gas turbine is a requisite for a successful implementation of condition-based maintenance. In this thesis, we focus on the assessment of the performance of the thermodynamic cycle, also known as Module Performance Analysis. The purpose of module performance analysis is to detect, isolate and quantify changes in engine module performance, described by so-called health parameters, on the basis of measurements collected along the gas-path of the engine. Generally, the health parameters are correcting factors on the efficiency and the flow capacity of the modules while the measurements are inter-component temperatures, pressures, shaft speeds and fuel flow. Module performance analysis can be cast as an estimation problem that is characterised by a number of difficulties such as non-linearity of the system and noise and bias in the measurements. Moreover the number of health parameters usually exceeds the number of gas-path measurements, making the estimation problem underdetermined. This thesis starts with a survey of the state-of-the-art in module performance analysis. We then propose enhancements to a monitoring tool for steady-state data developed by Dr. P. Dewallef during his thesis at the Turbomachinery Group. Specifically, the improvements concern the fault detection and isolation tasks, respectively handled by a hypothesis testing and a sparse estimator. As a complement, we define metrics for the selection and analysis of sensor--health parameter suites based on the Information Theory. In a second step, we investigate the feasibility and the benefit that could be expected from the processing of data collected during transient operation of a gas turbine. We also discuss the impact of modelling errors on the estimation procedure and propose a solution that makes the health assessment robust with respect to modelling errors. The theoretical developments are evaluated on the basis of simulated test-cases through a series of metrics that gauge the estimation accuracy and the performance of the fault detection and isolation modules

Variations on the Kalman filter for enhanced performance monitoring of gas turbine engines

Since their advent in the 1940's, gas turbines have been used in a wide range of land, sea and air applications due to their high power density and reliability. In today's competitive market, gas turbine operators need to optimise the dispatch availability (it i.e., minimise operational issues such as aborted take-offs or in-flight shutdowns) as well as the direct operating costs of their assets. Besides improvements in the design and manufacture processes, proactive maintenance practices, based on the actual condition of the turbine, enable the achievement of these objectives. Generating dependable information about the health condition of the gas turbine is a requisite for a successful implementation of condition-based maintenance. In this thesis, we focus on the assessment of the performance of the thermodynamic cycle, also known as Module Performance Analysis. The purpose of module performance analysis is to detect, isolate and quantify changes in engine module performance, described by so-called health parameters, on the basis of measurements collected along the gas-path of the engine. Generally, the health parameters are correcting factors on the efficiency and the flow capacity of the modules while the measurements are inter-component temperatures, pressures, shaft speeds and fuel flow. Module performance analysis can be cast as an estimation problem that is characterised by a number of difficulties such as non-linearity of the system and noise and bias in the measurements. Moreover the number of health parameters usually exceeds the number of gas-path measurements, making the estimation problem underdetermined. This thesis starts with a survey of the state-of-the-art in module performance analysis. We then propose enhancements to a monitoring tool for steady-state data developed by Dr. P. Dewallef during his thesis at the Turbomachinery Group. Specifically, the improvements concern the fault detection and isolation tasks, respectively handled by a hypothesis testing and a sparse estimator. As a complement, we define metrics for the selection and analysis of sensor--health parameter suites based on the Information Theory. In a second step, we investigate the feasibility and the benefit that could be expected from the processing of data collected during transient operation of a gas turbine. We also discuss the impact of modelling errors on the estimation procedure and propose a solution that makes the health assessment robust with respect to modelling errors. The theoretical developments are evaluated on the basis of simulated test-cases through a series of metrics that gauge the estimation accuracy and the performance of the fault detection and isolation modules

NASA thesaurus. Volume 1: Hierarchical Listing

There are over 17,000 postable terms and nearly 4,000 nonpostable terms approved for use in the NASA scientific and technical information system in the Hierarchical Listing of the NASA Thesaurus. The generic structure is presented for many terms. The broader term and narrower term relationships are shown in an indented fashion that illustrates the generic structure better than the more widely used BT and NT listings. Related terms are generously applied, thus enhancing the usefulness of the Hierarchical Listing. Greater access to the Hierarchical Listing may be achieved with the collateral use of Volume 2 - Access Vocabulary and Volume 3 - Definitions