Browse Topic: Water
NASA’s Johnson Space Center is offering an innovative freeze-resistant hydration system for licensing. The technology substantially improves on existing hydration systems because it prevents water from freezing in the tubing, container, and mouthpiece, even in the harshest conditions on Earth.
A research team has developed diamond quantum sensors that can be used to improve resolution in magnetic imaging. In order to test the method, the scientists placed a microchip with microscopic water-filled channels on the diamond quantum sensor. This allowed the researchers to simulate microstructures of a cell. They were able to successfully analyze the diffusion of water molecules within the microstructure.
In today's world, there is an increasing emphasis on the responsible use of fiber reinforced materials in the automobile applications, construction of buildings, machinery, and appliances as these materials are effectively reused, recycled, or disposed with minimum impact on the environment. As such, it has become mandatory to incorporate sustainable, environmental friendly and green concepts in the development of new materials and processes. The primary objective of this study is to manufacture composites using fibers obtained from Thespesia Lampas plants, which are known for their soft, long fibers that are commonly used in various domestic products. The composites are made by combining these fibers with a general purpose polyisocyanurate resin, and their potential applications in both domestic and commercial products are explored. To evaluate the properties of these composites, tests are conducted for tensile strength, flexure, and water absorption. The laminates are fabricated using both unidirectional and cross woven mats to assess its effect on the properties. In addition, the impact of NaOH treatment at different proportions on the properties of the fiber composites is also investigated. The laminates are fabricated using both unidirectional and cross woven mats to assess its effect on the properties. In addition, the impact of NaOH treatment at different proportions on the properties of the fiber composites is also investigated. The flexural strength of unidirectional treated (4% NaOH) fiber composites was found to be 216.75 MPa. Thespesia Lampas treated (4% NaOH) has a higher ultimate tensile strength of 27.85 MPa. Cross woven laminates have superior water absorption resistance than treated (4% NaOH) unidirectional fiber composite.
NASA engineers have developed a new approach to mitigating unwanted motion in floating structures. Ideally suited to applications including offshore wind energy platforms and barges, the innovation uses water ballast as a motion damping fluid.
NASA instrumentation is at risk for contamination from dusty space environments. Additionally, contamination from water and ice buildup can affect instrumentation function. Researchers at the Goddard Space Flight Center have developed a viable dust, water, and ice mitigation optical coating for space flight, aeronautical, and ground applications. The innovation of the LOTUS coating prevents contamination on sensitive surfaces, like optics, that cannot be cleaned during space missions.
Dubbed an “engineered living material,” a new type of material developed at the University of California San Diego could offer a sustainable and eco-friendly solution to clean pollutants from water.
Personal devices feed our sight and hearing virtually unlimited streams of information while leaving our sense of touch mostly … untouched.
A Northwestern University research team has developed a revolutionary transistor that is expected be ideal for lightweight, flexible, high-performance bioelectronics. The electrochemical transistor is compatible with blood and water and can amplify important signals.
Researchers from Northwestern University have collaborated on the implementation of an accurate, low-cost, and easy-to-use test for detecting toxic levels of fluoride in water. The new biosensor device has been field tested in Kenya — proving that testing water for fluoride can be easily accomplished outside of a lab and accurately interpreted by nonexperts.
Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1 percent of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis.
Exploring the possibility of all-weather secure quantum communication using macroscopic quantum states of light. Air Force Research Laboratory, Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development, Tokyo, Japan More than half a century has passed since the birth of quantum signal detection theory, which is the cornerstone of modern quantum communication theory. Quantum stream cipher, the quantum-noise-based direct encryption scheme for optical communications at the center of our research, is based on the foundations of quantum communication theory. For quantum cryptography to progress from a theoretical possibility to a more realistic technology, experimental and theoretical research must be complementary. We have reported several experimental and theoretical studies on the quantum stream cipher connecting two points via optical fibers and also fabricated a prototype based on them. To enhance the usability of a quantum stream cipher, free-space optical communications must be explored in addition to point-to-point optical communications connected by optical fibers. In the case of free-space optical communications, various environmental changes caused by the weather affect the communication channel. Therefore, quantum communications, including cryptographic applications, must be considered from experimental and theoretical perspectives under various harsh weather conditions such as fog, rain, snow, and turbulence.
More than half a century has passed since the birth of quantum signal detection theory, which is the cornerstone of modern quantum communication theory. Quantum stream cipher, the quantum-noise-based direct encryption scheme for optical communications at the center of our research, is based on the foundations of quantum communication theory. For quantum cryptography to progress from a theoretical possibility to a more realistic technology, experimental and theoretical research must be complementary.
As rains get heavier and more frequent, flooding, especially in cities, is becoming a serious problem. The traditional way of managing stormwater has been to quickly get it off the road and into the storm sewer system to be sent downstream, said Lauren McPhillips, Assistant Professor of civil and environmental engineering and of agricultural and biological engineering at Penn State. “With the stormwater out of sight, the problem was out of mind.” However, whisking the water away increases risks of extreme flooding downstream.
Most of the world is covered in oceans, which are unfortunately highly polluted. One of the strategies to combat the mounds of waste found in these very sensitive ecosystems — especially around coral reefs — is to employ robots to master the cleanup. However, existing underwater robots are mostly bulky with rigid bodies, unable to explore and sample in complex and unstructured environments, and are noisy due to electrical motors or hydraulic pumps. For a more suitable design, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart looked to nature for inspiration.
In the last decades there have been many temporary engine failures, engine-related events and erroneous airspeed indication measurements that occurred by a phenomenon known as Ice Crystal Icing (ICI). This type of icing mainly occurs in high altitudes close to tropical convection in areas with a high concentration of ice crystals. Direct measurements or in-situ pilot observations of ICI that could be used as a warning to other air-traffic are rare to nearly non-existent. To detect those dangerous high Ice Water Content (IWC) areas with already existing airborne measurement instruments, Lufthansa analyzed observed Total Air Temperature (TAT) anomalies and used a self-developed search algorithm, depicting those TAT anomalies that are related to ice crystal icing events. To optimize the flight route for dispatchers several hours before the flight, e.g. for long distance flights through the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), reliable forecasts to identify hazardous high IWC regions are necessary. For this purpose, detected TAT anomalies were used as training data to find correlations in between these and the DWD’s ICON (ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic) model output. The combination of obtained frequency distributions of model cloud ice water content, base and top of moist convection and specific humidity by a fuzzy logic leads to a model-based prototype to forecast areas with high IWC in a simple manner. To show the high potential of the prototype’s procedure, an ICI event as observed during the CIRRUS-HL (Cirrus in High Latitudes) flight campaign in 2021 serves as good validation case. Here we show first promising, as it is still under development.
The paper describes a tools’ suite able of analyzing numerically 3D ice-accretion problems of aeronautical interest. The methodology consists of linking different modules each of them performing a specific function inside the ice-simulation chain. It has been specifically designed from the beginning with multi-step capability in mind. Such a feature plays a key role when studying the dynamic evolution of the icing process. Indeed, the latter has the character of a multi-physic and time-dependent phenomenon which foresees a strong interaction of the air- and water fields with the wall thermodynamics. Our multi-layer approach assumes that the physical problem can be discretized by a series of pseudo-steady conditions. The simulation process starts with the automatic generation of a Cartesian three-dimensional mesh which represents the input for the immersed boundary (IB) RANS solver. Once obtained, the air-phase is used by the Eulerian tool to solve the transport of the water-phase on the same domain-grid. Both the volumetric solvers share the same unstructured data management and the finite-volume (FV) approach which is based on locally refined Cartesian meshes. Part of the research effort is devoted to the development of a thermodynamic 3D method which solves the surface liquid-film by Messinger balances of mass and energy. The main outputs are the equilibrium temperature and the mass of ice. The latter is used to compute the local ice-height for accretion purposes. A Lagrangian modification of the geometry is applied at each step by moving the wall vertices along the local unit normal vector. The modified 3D surface is passed again to the automatic mesher for renewing the computational loop. The accuracy and the limits of the present method are discussed by analyzing the results on three-dimensional benchmarks proposed in the framework of the 1st ice prediction workshop (IPW).
Ice and snow accretion on aircraft surfaces imposes operational and safety challenges, severely impacting aerodynamic performance of critical aircraft structures and equipment. For optimized location-based ice sensing and integrated ‘smart’ de-icing systems of the future, microwave resonant-based planar sensors are presented for their high sensitivity and versatility in implementation and integration. Here, a conformal, planar complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) based microwave sensor is presented for robust detection of localized ice and snow accretion. The sensor has a modified thick aluminum-plate design and is coated with epoxy for greater durability. The fabricated sensor operates at a resonant frequency of 1.18 GHz and a resonant amplitude of -33 dB. Monitoring the resonant frequency response of the sensor, the freezing and thawing process of a 0.1 ml droplet of water is monitored, and a 60 MHz downshift is observed for the frozen droplet. Using an artificial snow chamber to create falling snow, a 1 mm thick accretion of snow shows a 35 MHz downshift in resonant frequency. The proposed sensor system can be extended using a novel radar-inspired method of Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR). TDR based ice/snow sensors can be implemented in an array or network structure for reliable, local and distributed ice and snow accretion monitoring on aircraft structures. Applying Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR) methods, three identical sensors with the same resonant frequency are monitored over an approximate length of 10 m and localized sensing of water is presented. This novel method offers a pathway towards implementation of large network-based resonant-microwave sensors for future reliable integrated localized icing and snow accretion rate-measurement sensors.
Threats to aviation safety as a result of super-cooled large drops (SLD) has been addressed by the FAA rules change (14 CFR Part 25) with the additional icing certification requirement. SLD clouds often consist of bi-modal drop size spectra leading to significant problems in simulating and characterizing these conditions in situ and in icing wind tunnels. Legacy instrumentation for measuring drop size distributions and liquid water content are challenged under these conditions. The large size range measurement problem is addressed with the development of the Phase Doppler Interferometer, Flight Probe Dual-Range (PDI FPDR). The method is described in this report along with the measurement capabilities including the dynamic measurement range and overall working size range. The PDI instrument bases drop size measurements on the light wavelength as the measurement length scale. The light wavelength is a much more robust scale, especially as compared to the light scattering intensity. Methods for accurately characterizing the sample volume in situ based on measured drop velocity and transit time are reviewed, given the importance of this parameter for merging results and measuring LWC. Droplet coincidence in the sample volume can be problematic so this condition is treated with an innovative signal parsing approach. Measurement examples acquired in the NASA IRT are provided. Measurements of LWC showed good agreement with the Artium Particle Imaging (PI) instrument but diverged from the tunnel calibration results for larger MVD values.
A fundamental understanding of the icing process for aircraft requires a more thorough analysis of the thermodynamics of supercooled droplet impingement. To better study such thermodynamic processes, a novel temperature sensor that functions within supercooled water and ice crystals was developed. The temperature sensor is non-intrusive and provides temperature and phase change information for both liquid water and solid ice. The temperature sensor is an optical sensor based on the luminophore pyranine. The use of pyranine allows for the measurement of spatially and temporally resolved temperature fields for icing applications. The sensitivity of the sensor is -9.2±0.1%/K for temperature measurement in the solid phase and 0.8±0.1%/K for the liquid phase. The performance of the sensor was demonstrated through a calibration process using spectral analysis, the observation of the melting process of a rectangular prism created from the luminescent ice, and the study of the temperature profile of accreted ice onto a cooled surface. Measurements of the melting and accreted ice were performed using a high-speed color camera.
To support an industry wide response to an EASA proposed Special Condition regarding the threat of in-flight supercooled liquid water icing conditions at altitudes above FL300, Boeing 777 fleet data were used to estimate the frequency and severity of such icing occurrences. The data were from the calendar year 2019 and included ~ 950,000 airline revenue flights from around the world by multiple operators. The unique architecture of the Primary Ice Detection System (PIDS) on that model, in addition to robust meteorological data that was able to be correlated, afforded an opportunity to conservatively estimate the Total Water Exposure (TWE) and thus the Liquid Water Content (LWC) of the icing encounters captured at FL295 and above. This paper will outline the key methods used and present the findings.
Considerable amounts of water accumulate in aircraft fuel tanks due to condensation of vapor during flight or directly during fueling with contaminated kerosene. This can result in a misreading of the fuel meters. In certain aircraft types, ice blocks resulting from the low temperatures at high altitude flights or in winter time can even interfere with the nozzles of the fuel supply pipes from the tanks to the engines. Therefore, as part of the maintenance operations, water has to be drained in certain intervals ensuring that no remaining ice is present. In the absence of an established method for determining residual ice blocks inside, the aircraft operator has to wait long enough, in some cases too long, to start the draining procedure, leading potentially to an unnecessary long ground time. A promising technology to determine melting ice uses acoustic signals generated and emitted during ice melting. With acoustic emissions, mainly situated in the ultrasonic frequency range, a very high number of events can be recorded to characterize stress relaxation processes that occur during conversions from ice to water. In the present paper, in addition to the case of the fuel tank, the icing of a fuselage panel is also considered. The results obtained provide evidence that it is possible to determine the moment when all ice has melted. However, it is not possible to give exact figures on the amount of ice remaining or melted, which is not a limitation in practice.
The prevailing mission-based paradigm for ocean color remote sensing typically involves high-cost satellite platforms launched and operated by government agencies such as NASA, NOAA, ESA, and JAXA. These platforms host state-of-the-art ocean-viewing radiometers with design and sensitivity specifications appropriate for delineating a comparatively weak water-leaving radiance from the total radiant signal detected at the top of the atmosphere. The current suite of such operational ocean color sensors includes NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradi-ometer (MODIS; Aqua satellite), NOAA’s VIIRS (SNPP and NOAA-20 satellites), the Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI; Sentinel-3 A/B satellites), and the Second-Generation Global Imager (SGLI) onboard the GCOM-C satellite. All of these sensors provide multi-spectral band sets (visible, near-infrared (NIR), and shortwave infrared (SWIR)) with daily coverage at approximately kilometer-scale spatial resolution. However, even kilometer-scale spatial resolution may be unable to resolve finer-scale features near rivers and estuaries that are critical for scientific and environmental resource management applications.
More than five million people in the United States live with some form of paralysis and may encounter difficulties completing everyday tasks, like grabbing a glass of water or putting on clothes. New research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute (RI) aims to increase autonomy for individuals with such motor impairments by introducing a head-worn device that will help them control a mobile manipulator.
Products for nautical applications face an unusual set of design challenges. The corrosiveness of salt water can cause premature degradation, and the impact of fast-moving vessels bouncing up against forceful ocean waves can also damage equipment.
An automotive door latch that functions manually or electronically is a vital component of a door closure system. It primarily aims to provide security of the occupants by securing the door system by ensuring timely locking and unlocking of the doors. A wide range of factors like safety, ergonomics, and security influence the development of these latches to eliminate safety. With the growing trend and advancements, automotive electronics is becoming more complex and prevalent. Hence, any exposure of electrical/electronic components to water make them susceptible to short circuits, corrosion etc., thereby may make it the functionality of systems and increasing the chances of failure in these devices. Intrusion of water possible into the latch system can be disastrous depending on the climatic conditions. Stringent safety criteria have given rise to unconventional test methods that are time-consuming and hence necessitate virtual validation techniques. Virtual validation becomes a viable option and with proper correlation work it helps to address these types of problems at low cost and in early stages of product development The latch is subjected to an impact by a jet of water, modelled using Smoothened Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. SPH is a mesh-free method used to simulate fluid flow and has found its application in many engineering problems & fluid structure interaction (FSI) models. Since it can handle problems involving free surfaces, deformable boundaries, moving interfaces, extremely large deformation, and crack propagation, this was found to be an ideal technique for simulation. Water is made to impinge on the latch assembly and the/those water accumulated regions observed in the simulation were compared with the test results which are found to have good correlation. A design modification was suggested to prevent/minimize water ingression into the system which was further analyzed and proved to be efficient based on the FSI methodology.
A team of researchers at University of California, Riverside, has moved a step closer to finding a use for the hundreds of millions of tons of plastic waste produced every year that often winds up clogging streams and rivers and polluting our oceans.
The model-based design is very much prominent in the vehicle level control system design and state estimation algorithms. It gives the edge to understand and interpret the dynamic systems. Three-way catalytic converter is a thermo-chemical device to convert the toxic oxides into carbon dioxide and water vapor, during this conversion reactions it generates the heat over the catalyst surface. Detailed chemical and thermal model of the catalyst will be able to predict the conversion efficiency, state of stored oxygen (SoX) and oxygen storage capacity (OSC). As the catalyst get aged, the reaction rates of conversion reactions deteriorate, in results the temperature dynamics also varies which wanes the exothermic heat. In this work, a novel perspective is presented to capture the behavior of SoX and health of the catalytic converter using thermal model analysis of TWC. An equivalent second order multi input single output (MISO) linear sub-space model is identified for the complex detailed thermal model. A second order MISO system is obtained using measured temperature sensor signals across the device. Recursive least square method will be updating the system parameters online then Kalman filter is employed for state estimation. Joint estimation of the hidden state is tested and validated on urban drive cycle with differently aged catalytic converters.
The development of perception functions for tomorrow’s automated vehicles is driven by enormous amounts of data: often exceeding a gigabyte per second and reaching into the terabytes per hour. Data is typically gathered by a fleet of dozens of mule vehicles which multiply the data generated into the hundreds of petabytes per year. Traditional methods for fueling data-driven development would record every bit of every second of a data logging drive on solid-state drives located on a PC in the vehicle. Recorded data must then be exported from these drives using an upload station which pushes to the data lake after arriving back at the garage. This paper considers different techniques for curating logged data. These curation methods are performed to maximize the usefulness of the data throughout its lifecycle and minimize the amount of data necessary for perception development and validation The reduction of logged data has the effect of not only curtailing storage costs, but also minimizing latency for data availability and maximizing possible campaign drive time. Advanced techniques considered include: (a) the real-time evaluation of sensor and bus signals, (b) the application of artificial intelligence (e.g. for similarity-based image discovery and dynamic scene content detection), and (c) using function prototyping to inform the data curation process. In addition, various possible integration points for the curation techniques are considered in the data ingestion pipeline - from the cloud in the datacenter to the in-vehicle logging system on the edge. The trade-offs for each proposed techniques are considered across the various components of the data ingestion pipeline to explore the feasibility of - and to arrive at some conclusions for - designing more intelligent data collection campaigns.
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