Briefs: Motion Control
Piezoelectrically Actuated Microvalve for Liquid Effluents
Modifications have been proposed to effect further improvement of the device described in “Improved Piezo- electrically Actuated Microvalve” (NPO-30158), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol....
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Larger-Stroke Piezoelectrically Actuated Microvalve
A proposed normally-closed microvalve would contain a piezoelectric bending actuator instead of a piezoelectric linear actuator like that of the microvalve described in the preceding...
Briefs: Motion Control
Bearing-Seal System for Safe Motion Transfer in Deep Submersible Pressure Vessels
Designers of deep submersibles are reluctant to use conventional shafts and seals to penetrate the hulls of deep submersible, pressure vessels fearing seal...
Briefs: Motion Control
Safer Roadside Crash Walls Would Limit Deceleration
The figure depicts the aspects of a proposed deceleration-limiting design for crash walls at the sides of racetracks and highways. The proposal is intended to overcome the dis- advantages...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Techniques for Characterizing Microwave Printed Antennas
The combination of a de-embedding technique and a direct on-substrate measurement technique has been devised to enable measurement of the electrical characteristics (impedances,...
Briefs: Software
Predicting Accumulations of Ice on Aerodynamic Surfaces
LEWICE is a computer program that predicts the accumulation of ice on two-dimensional aerodynamic surfaces under conditions representative of the flight of an aircraft through an icing cloud. The software first calculates the airflow surrounding the body of interest, then uses the airflow...
Briefs: Medical
Improved Interactive Medical-Imaging System
An improved computational-simulation system for interactive medical imaging has been invented. The system displays high-resolution, three-dimensional-appearing images of anatomical objects based on...
Briefs: Medical
Software Simulates Chewing Biomechanics for Anthropology Study
Fossils of primates and early humans exhibit great diversity in the size and shape of the jaw, teeth, and facial skeleton. Anthro- pologists theorize that these different skull...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Scanning Microscopes Using X Rays and Microchannels
Scanning microscopes that would be based on microchannel filters and advanced electronic image sensors and that utilize x-ray illumination have been proposed. Because the finest resolution...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Slotting Fins of Heat Exchangers To Provide Thermal Breaks
Heat exchangers that include slotted fins (in contradistinction to continuous fins) have been invented. The slotting of the fins provides thermal breaks that reduce thermal conduction along flow paths (longitudinal thermal conduction), which reduces heat-transfer efficiency. By...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Methane Clathrate Hydrate Prospecting
A method of prospecting for methane has been devised. The impetus for this method lies in the abundance of CH4 and the growing shortages of other fuels. The method is intended especially to enable identification of subpermafrost locations where significant amounts of methane are trapped in the form of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Cylindrical Antenna With Partly Adaptive Phased-Array Feed
A proposed design for a phased array fed cylindrical reflector microwave antenna would enable enhancement of the radiation pattern through partially adaptive amplitude and phase...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Command Interface ASIC - Analog Interface ASIC Chip Set
A command interface application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and an analog interface ASIC have been developed as a chip set for remote actuation and monitoring of a collection of...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Innovative, High-Pressure, Cryogenic Control Valve: Short Face-to-Face, Reduced Cost
A control valve that can throttle high-pressure cryogenic fluid embodies several design features that distinguish it over conventional valves designed for...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Flight-Test Evaluation of Flutter-Prediction Methods
The flight-test community routinely spends considerable time and money to determine a range of flight conditions, called a flight envelope, within which an aircraft is safe to fly. The...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Aerostructures Test Wing
The Aerostructures Test Wing (ATW) was an apparatus used in a flight experiment during a program of research on aeroelastic instabilities. The ATW experiment was performed to study a specific instability known as...
Briefs: Information Technology
Acoustical Applications of the HHT Method
A document discusses applications of a method based on the Huang-Hilbert transform (HHT). The method was described, without the HHT name, in "Analyzing Time Series Using EMD and Hilbert Spectra" (GSC-13817), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 24, No. 10 (October 2000), page 63. To recapitulate: The method is...
Briefs: Information Technology
Developments at the Advanced Design Technologies Testbed
A report presents background and historical information, as of August 1998, on the Advanced Design Technologies Testbed (ADTT) at Ames Research Center. The ADTT is characterized as an activity initiated to facilitate improvements in aerospace design processes; provide a proving ground for...
Briefs: Information Technology
Remote Sensing and Information Technology for Large Farms
A method of applying remote sensing (RS) and information- management technology to help large farms produce at maximum efficiency is undergoing development. The novelty of the method does not lie in the concept of "precision agriculture," which involves variation of seeding, of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Vector-Ordering Filter Procedure for Data Reduction
The vector-ordering filter (VOF) technique involves a procedure for sampling a large population of data vectors to select a subset of data vectors that fully characterize the state space of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Automated Monitoring With a BCP Fault-Decision Test
The Bayesian conditional probability (BCP) technique is a statistical fault-decision technique that is suitable as the mathematical basis of the fault-manager module in the...
Briefs: Information Technology
Automated Monitoring With a BSP Fault-Detection Test
The figure schematically illustrates a method and procedure for automated monitoring of an asset, as well as a hardware-and- software system that implements the method and procedure. As...
Briefs: Software
High-Speed Recording of Test Data on Hard Disks
Disk Recording System (DRS) is a systems- integration computer program for a direct-to-disk (DTD) high-speed data-acquisition system (HDAS) that records rocket-engine test data. The HDAS consists partly of equipment originally designed for recording the data on tapes. The tape recorders were...
Briefs: Information Technology
Expert Seeker
Expert Seeker is a computer program of the knowledge- management-system (KMS) type that falls within the category of expertise-locator systems. The main goal of the KMS system implemented by Expert Seeker is to organize and distribute knowledge of who are the domain experts within and without a given institution, company, or other...
Briefs: Information Technology
Software for Allocating Resources in the Deep Space Network
TIGRAS 2.0 is a computer program designed to satisfy a need for improved means for analyzing the tracking demands of interplanetary space-flight missions upon the set of ground antenna resources of the Deep Space Network (DSN) and for allocating those resources. Written in Microsoft...
Briefs: Medical
Spore-Forming Bacteria That Resist Sterilization
A report presents a phenotypic and genotypic characterization of a bacterial species that has been found to be of the genus Bacillus and has been tentatively named B. odysseensis because it was isolated from surfaces of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft as part of continuing research on techniques for...
Briefs: Materials
Rod/Coil Block Copolyimides for Ion-Conducting Membranes
Rod/coil block copolyimides that exhibit high levels of ionic conduction can be made into diverse products, including dimensionally stable solid electrolyte membranes that function...
Briefs: Materials
Processable Polyimides Containing APB and Reactive End Caps
Imide copolymers that contain 1,3-bis (3- aminophenoxy) benzene (APB) and other diamines and dianhydrides and that are terminated with appropriate amounts of reactive end caps have been invented. The reactive end caps investigated thus far include 4-phenylethynyl phthalic anhydride...
Briefs: Materials
Liquid Coatings for Reducing Corrosion of Steel in Concrete
Inorganic coating materials are being developed to slow or stop corrosion of reinforcing steel members inside concrete structures. It is much simpler and easier to use these coating materials than it is to use conventional corrosion-inhibiting systems based on impressed electric...
Briefs: Materials
Less-Toxic Coatings for Inhibiting Corrosion of Aluminum
Two recently invented families of conversion- coating processes have been found to be effective in reducing or preventing corrosion of aluminum alloys. These processes offer less-toxic alternatives to prior conversion-coating processes that are highly effective but have fallen out of favor...
Briefs: Materials
Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Polymer/Clay Nanocomposites
A novel class of polymer/clay nanocomposites has been invented in an attempt to develop transparent, lightweight, durable materials for a variety of aerospace applications. As their name...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Manufacturing Process Management for Test
Test is critical to the board manufacturing process. Effective test ensures quality and customer satisfaction both for the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and the CEM (contract electronics...
Briefs: Software
Analyzing Aeroelasticity in Turbomachines
ASTROP2-LE is a computer program that predicts flutter and forced responses of blades, vanes, and other components of such turbomachines as fans, compressors, and turbines. ASTROP2-LE is based on the ASTROP2 program, developed previously for analysis of stability of turbomachinery components. In...
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