Background, Roadways are an important part of transportation infrastructure, serving as a backbone for the movement of people and goods. Despite increasing traffic volumes, the funding available for maintaining roadways, improving public transit services, and upgrading or replacing passive traffic control systems is not keeping up with usage. The lack of signalized intersections and active signage,…, Approach, Student working on detection system Figure 2. Two UTSA graduate students who worked on the system development. Our team looked at the problem of dangerous intersections on rural highways and thought there was a role for smart sensors to play in reducing the danger involved in negotiating these typically unlit intersections. We designed a smart sensor and sign system consisting of one sensor,…, Accomplishments, For a low-power system, the selection of sensors and power source are essential to the design. We initiated the design with two low-power sensors as candidates (radar and infrared) and the goal of running the system using thermal energy from the pavement. The UTSA team evaluated sensors and down-selected to the IR sensor, while the SwRI team ran a simulation of thermoelectric energy harvesting…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, Common to all solid planetary bodies is surface regolith, unconsolidated material typically comprised of dust and broken rock fragments. On Earth, the regolith contains high amounts of organic material and biological weathering, and is subjected to effective aeolian and fluvial processes that serve to round individual grains and sort sediments by size. Less well understood is the behavior of…, Approach, The objectives of this project were twofold: (1) to understand how grain size and shape affect material properties such as cohesion, friction angle, and porosity, as well as dynamic behavior such as angle of repose and (2) improve existing Institute modeling capabilities of complex geologic and biologic problems by including arbitrary shape particles and Bingham fluid flow behavior. Physical…, Accomplishments, Experimental results of spherical and irregular shaped dust-to-sand sized particles demonstrated that particle shape has a significant influence on several geomechanical properties such as porosity and angle of repose. This project also successfully replicated non-spherical particle behavior in microfluidic environments for potential drug delivery simulations. We developed different particle…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, Within the past few years SwRI has successfully entered new markets in applications involving high data rate (giga bits per second, or Gbps) signal processing and data management. New market opportunities center on the demand for sophisticated, high performance signal processing systems for small spacecraft. The levels of complexity and performance required by these new applications significantly…, Approach, The investigation explores the use of modern, high-speed digital to analog and analog to digital converters and the latest space-hardened field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These components are essential to many of the target applications. Recently developed converters provide extremely high sample rates (measured in billions of samples per second). Interfacing to these new converters…, Accomplishments, Two novel architectures passed through the modeling and analysis phase. The first is named SERDES CML to LVDS (SCL). The second is named after the high-speed interface protocol JESD204B. Limitations of the SCL architecture were characterized and the architecture is feasible. The robustness of the JESD204B architecture proved to be the dominate architecture. Analysis shows that meeting a…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, The focus of this disruptive internal research project is to evaluate the potential use of non-circular holes for diesel injector nozzles. The first phase of the program was focused on determining if diesel injector nozzles with an advanced design could be produced. In the second phase of the project, experiment of the fabricated nozzles was carried out with a constant-volume combustion chamber (…, Approach, High-speed imaging was used to measure spray penetration under the controlled ambient environment of a spray chamber. Spray profiles were then used as validation for developed models including a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation that used actual nozzle geometry as an input. Experimental Setup: CFD simulation and VOF-spray one-way coupling approach Figure 1: Experimental Setup…, Accomplishments, Spray profiles from spray experiment of different nozzle geometries Figure 2: Spray profiles from spray experiment of different nozzle geometries (left); Comparison between experimental and numerical results (right). A method to produce non-circular nozzle holes for diesel injectors was demonstrated. The spray penetration was characterized and compared with traditional nozzles with circular holes…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, Atom connectivity in ammonium titanyl oxalate Figure 1: Atom connectivity in ammonium titanyl oxalate (ATO); red oxygen atoms represent bridging Oxo groups and blue oxygen atoms represent oxalate ligands. Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) aftertreatment systems require the metering and dosing of a 32.5 weight percent urea-water solution (UWS) upstream of the SCR catalyst for abatement of…, Approach, Effect of ATO concentration Figure 2: Effect of ATO concentration in urea on the NH3:CO2 ratio deposit testing using the ECTO-Lab revealed a 65 percent decrease in deposit formation at 200° C. Deposit reduction could be further improved to 88 percent by adding an appropriate surfactant to the UWS. It is believed these two components have separate modes of action for deposit reduction. The…, Accomplishments, Deposit reduction from UWS injection at 200° C Figure 3: Deposit reduction from UWS injection at 200° C. The extent of HNCO hydrolysis from urea decomposition can be evaluated numerically by the resulting NH 3 :CO 2 ratio. The ideal ratio is two, and values larger than this indicate inefficient HNCO hydrolysis. Figure 2 displays the effect of ATO concentration in urea by analysis of the NH 3 :CO…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, The focus of this work is to maximize net fuel economy and greenhouse gas improvement by considering lean-burn operation with Dedicated-Exhaust Gas Recirculation (D-EGR™). D-EGR leverages in-cylinder fuel reforming to generate exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) that is high in H 2 and CO. The reformate-rich EGR enables the engine to operate with 25 percent or greater EGR, even while lean. The high…, Approach, GM engine and setup Figure 1: GM engine and setup. A GM 2.0 L LHU engine (Figure 1) is operated, configured for D-EGR operation, to achieve conditions for optimal fuel economy and the lowest engine-out emissions. Also, the engine-out gas stream composition is analyzed for the next phase of the project. In the next phase, the gas stream composition data from Phase 1 will be utilized to create a…, Accomplishments, We are in the process of completing Phase 1 of the project. The lean calibrations have been completed and we are conducting regeneration points on the GM engine. The engine has better efficiency when operated lean and the engine-out emissions are not significantly different from the baseline. There are low load operating points that provide minimal benefit to engine efficiency and, as expected,…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, In this project, we tested graphene foils in a space plasma instrument to increase their technology readiness level (TRL). Foils, until now made of amorphous carbon, are used for coincidence and time-of-flight (TOF) measurements. The interaction of particles with the foil results in multiple processes that either enable or negatively affect the measurement. For example, 1) the particle-induced…, Approach, We divided the project into three objectives: Perform environmental tests on graphene and carbon foils by themselves Compare the performance of graphene foils with carbon foils in an instrument with time-of-flight Perform environmental tests on graphene and carbon foils in an instrument, Accomplishments, We developed, in collaboration with Texas State University, a reliable method to transfer graphene foils onto fine nickel grids. The graphene foils consist of four stacked single layer graphenes reinforced using a combination of low and high molecular weight PMMA during the stacking and transfer processes. The PMMA is dissolved once the graphene has been transferred onto the grid. We…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, When octane ratings were first codified nearly 100 years ago, it represented engines, fuels, and operating conditions of the time. Since then, both the fuels and the engines in the market have changed significantly. Octane numbers have steadily increased and today many market fuels include high octane blend components, typically alcohols and ethers, to comply with renewable fuels legislation.…, Approach, This project attempted to reconcile knock in different engines and the underlying autoignition by studying fuels in both the CFR engine and the SwRI developed Single Cylinder Research Engine (SCRE), representing a modern direct injection, turbocharged SI engine. 13 different fuels were selected for this study, which included primary reference and toluene standardization fuels, as well as three…, Accomplishments, All test fuels were prepared and relevant properties determined, including laminar burning velocity. CFR engine tests were completed at standard knock intensity under both RON and MON test conditions, as well as with a stoichiometric mixture and under borderline knock and knock-free conditions. SCRE test points covered the full range of speeds and loads and included both knock-free and knocking…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, Engine manufactures continue to be challenged with increasingly stringent emissions regulations while simultaneously being driven to improve fuel efficiency and performance. To meet these challenging requirements, new engine and after treatment technologies are continually being considered that require engineers to make complex decisions about tradeoffs between emissions, fuel efficiency, and…, Approach, For multi-variable optimization, the approach investigated here involves creating empirical neural net models of the data and then exercising the models to perform the optimization. Because the models themselves are exercised in this approach, once the data set has been taken and the models have been trained, the optimization and calibration activities can occur without taking additional data or…, Accomplishments, A new process was investigated using EasyDoE software to develop a test plan (define DOEs), create empirical models of the test cell data, and exercise the empirical models/perform optimization. EasyDoE is a software that (as hoped) can deliver the multi-variable modeling/optimization capabilities that Division 03 has been lacking. By reducing the uncertainty of this process, SwRI should now be…
Type: IRD Synopsis
Background, Fuel and oil filters used to remove particulates from liquids are evaluated by OEM’s and filter manufacturers using standardized test protocols that specify simplified conditions that aid in laboratory repeatability and reproducibility. While this yields a test that simplifies laboratory requirements, the filter is evaluated with conditions that are far from the vehicle and machinery applications…, Approach, The overall objective of this program was to create a complete filter efficiency test standard that applies to heavy duty diesel applications. Diesel OEMs and filter manufacturers were consulted to quantify the system operating parameters including vibration environment and filter flow conditions. Next, structural dynamic models of the filter and mounting structure were built and verified using…, Accomplishments, Several parameters that are critical to filter efficiency performance were identified and implemented in the final test protocol. Among these parameters include the filter and mounting structure resonances within the frequency range of the vibration input, the rate and amplitude of flow change through the filter, the capacity of dust collected on the filter prior to vibration or cyclic flow input…
Type: IRD Synopsis
