Address
Mail Stop 200
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesDescription
Langley Research Center continues to forge
new frontiers in aviation and space research as it has since 1917,
when it was established as the nation's first civilian aeronautics
laboratory. Langley's mission and contributions to aerospace,
atmospheric sciences and technology commercialization are improving
the way the world lives. More than half of NASA Langley's research
is in aeronautics. Many of the facility's 3,300 civil service and
contract employees focus on improving today's military and civilian
aircraft, while designing tomorrow's jets. Not only does Langley
develop Airframe Systems, scientists also examine the layers of air
planes and spacecraft fly through in Atmospheric Sciences.
Researchers have expanded their studies into other atmospheres, the
kind spacecraft will find on distant planets. Next generation
spaceships will be able to survive unforgiving extraterrestrial
environments, because of work done at Langley in NASA's Center of
Excellence for Structures and Materials and in wind tunnels and
test facilities. Langley leads NASA initiatives in aviation safety,
quiet aircraft technology, small aircraft transportation and
aerospace vehicles system technology. It supports NASA space
programs with atmospheric research and technology testing and
development. Its research has a significant impact on the global
economy, making the skies safer, quieter and more efficient.
Mission
Solving the tough problems in air, space and earth science is
what Langley is known for. Researchers at Langley are focusing on
some of the biggest technical challenges of our time: global
climate change, access to space and revolutionizing airplanes and
the air transportation system.
Langley scientists study the atmosphere to improve life here on Earth and to better understand the conditions planes and spacecraft fly through. Langley engineers work on technologies to make civilian and military planers safer, quieter and more efficient, while designing tomorrow's supersonic and even hypersonic aircraft. Langley researchers analyze materials and structures to help spacecraft withstand unforgiving extraterrestrial environments.
Technology Disciplines
Displaying 1 - 10 of 772
Low Fidelity Space Systems Analysis Tools-Solar Cell/Fuel Cell/Battery Sizing Tool
Description:
This tool sizes solar power systems utilizing batteries, fuel cells and solar cells and calculates the mass, power and potential volume requirements of the system. It will provide a rough estimate of the sizes of the cells, the tank volumes and masses for the fuel cells and determining decay rates and BOL/EOL power generation demands.
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LAR-18740-1 |
| Patent Status | U.S. Release Only |
'Contact' in Space Leads to New Lenses
Description:
In 1993, Paragon Vision Sciences, Inc., participated in a research project with Langley Research Center to perfect a process for developing contact lenses. The project called for three experiments that would fly onboard the Space Shuttle over the course of three separate missions. By unleashing contact lens materials to the microgravity settings of space, scientists from NASA and Paragon hoped to better understand how polymers-large molecules that make up plastics-are formed. Paragon's HDSR (hyperpurified delivery system) contact lenses are based on the unique technological advancements derived from the NASA experiments. HDS lenses are considered gas permeable, and therefore do not contain water, are resistant from deposits, and are less likely than soft contact lenses to harbor bacteria. The rigidity of gas permeable contact lenses also makes them easier to handle than soft lenses, plus they retain their shape over time to provide crisper vision. The HDS line eliminated bad" silicones making the lenses extremely oxygen efficient. Paragon additionally leveraged what it learned from the Space Shuttle experiments to invent a contact lens made from HDS materials that non-surgically reshapes the cornea during sleep. ."
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LARC-SO-10 |
'NASA Invention of the Year' Controls Noise and Vibration
Description:
Developed at NASA's Langley Research Center, the Macro-Fiber Composite (MFC) is designed to control vibration, noise, and deflections in composite structural beams and panels. Smart Material Corporation specializes in the development of piezocomposite components, and licensed the MFC technology from Langley in 2002. To date, Smart Material Corporation has sold MFCs to over 120 customers, including such industry giants as Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, BMW, General Electric, and the tennis company, HEAD. The company estimates that its customers have filed at least 100 patents for their various unique uses of the technology. In addition, the company's product portfolio has grown to include piezoceramic fibers and fiber composites, piezoceramic actuators and sensors, and test equipment for these products. It also offers a compact, lightweight power system for MFC testing and validation. Consumer applications already on the market include piezoelectric systems as part of audio speakers, phonograph cartridges and microphones, and recreational products requiring vibration control, such as skis, snowboards, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and tennis racquets.
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LARC-SO-194 |
3-D Highway in the Sky
Description:
Aeronautics researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center teamed with Chelton Flight Systems and the FAA's Alaskan Capstone Project, a technology-focused safety program which seeks safety and efficiency gains in aviation by accelerating implementation of modern technology. The result of the collaboration is a 3-D display for pilots which provides clear vision regardless of the time of day or weather conditions. The system creates an artificial, computer-generated view of the surroundings from a series of databases and advanced sensory input, so it gives pilots topographical flight plans, as well as real-time feedback, about the area directly outside of the aircraft. This modern display panel has earned the name Synthetic Vision, and it is already being marketed and distributed by Chelton Flight Systems for use on small planes, light jets, and helicopters. The system is flying in hundreds of small planes all over the United States and abroad.
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LARC-SO-201 |
3D Printer Test Station
Description:
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a test station capable of in-situ testing of material deposition and layer adhesion in an extrusion additive manufacturing process. The technology addresses the problem of monitoring part quality during the 3D printing process. It includes methods that...
Abstract
The test station consists of an extrusion head and a print bed equipped with one or more load cells for measuring the forces exerted as material is deposited. The force data is combined with information on the motion of the print head and bed to determine the actual rate of material deposition and adhesion between layers of material.
Benefits
Enables monitoring of material deposition and adhesion in a 3D printer as parts are being fabricated Improves part quality and manufacturing reliability
-Improves part quality and manufacturing reliability
-Allows adjustments to be made during the printing process as part of a closed loop control system
3D Printer Test Station
Description:
The test station consists of an extrusion head and a print bed equipped with one or more load cells for measuring the forces exerted as material is deposited. The force data is combined with information on the motion of the print head and bed to determine the actual rate of material deposition and adhesion between layers of material.
Abstract
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a test station capable of in-situ testing of material deposition and layer adhesion in an extrusion additive manufacturing process. The technology addresses the problem of monitoring part quality during the 3D printing process. It includes methods that can be readily integrated into an extrusion apparatus to provide in-situ feedback for closed-loop processing in that apparatus. The novelty is that testing happens in situ as the component is being built. Testing during the building process allows users to adjust the print parameters to control the quality of the fabricated part.
Benefits
Enables monitoring of material deposition and adhesion in a 3D printer as parts are being fabricated
Improves part quality and manufacturing reliability
Sub Title:
In situ testing of material deposition and layer adhesion in a 3D printer
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LAR-TOPS-242 |
| Patent Issue Date | Jun 30, 2017 |
Lab Representative
P:
757.864.11783DGRAPE/AL v3: Three-Dimensional Grids About Anything By Poisson Equations
Description:
The new version (3.0) suite of the 3DGRAPE/AL software advances the state-of-the art in structured volume grid generation through the implementation of a new matching point block-to block boundary condition on adjacent faces of two blocks that no other volume grid generator has. This new version also has two preprocessors that enable rapid development of the input data to run 3DGRAPE/AL. Finally, the new 3DGRAPE/AL has both serial and parallel programming versions that enable the generation of volume grids nearly 5 times faster than the previous 3DGRAPE/AL code.
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LAR-17758-1 |
| Patent Status | U.S. Release Only |
A Boom in Boomerangs
Description:
Ted Bailey, a highly-ranked international boomerang designer and thrower, used information from a variety of NASA technical reports on aerodynamics and low-speed airfoils to design more competitive boomerangs. Because the boomerang is essentially an airfoil like an airplane wing, the technology transferred effectively and even contributed to the 1981 American victory over Australian throwers. In 1985, using four NASA reports, Bailey designed a new MTA (maximum time aloft) boomerang that broke the one-minute barrier, enabled throwers to throw and catch in less than three minutes and allowed competitors to complete the difficult Super Catch" - five throw/catch sequences after launching the original boom while it is still aloft. Bailey is now considering other boomerang applications."
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LARC-SO-175 |
A Boon for the Architect Engineer
Description:
Langley Research Center's need for an improved construction specification system led to an automated system called SPECSINTACT. A catalog of specifications, the system enables designers to retrieve relevant sections from computer storage and modify them as needed. SPECSINTACT has also been adopted by government agencies. The system is an integral part of the Construction Criteria Base (CCB), a single disc containing design and construction information for 10 government agencies including the American Institute of Architects' MASTERSPEC. CCB employs CD-ROM technologies and is available from the National Institute of Building Sciences. Users report substantial savings in time and productivity.
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LARC-SO-184 |
A Byzantine Fault-Tolerant
and Self-Stabilizing Protocol
Description:
A distributed system is defined to be self-stabilizing when it can come from an
arbitrary state and be in the presence of a bounded number of Byzantine faults, yet be
guaranteed to reach a legitimate state in a finite amount of time and remain there as
long as the number of faults are within a specific bound. (The legitimate state is a state
where all good clocks in the system are synchronized within a given precision bound.)
The self-stabilization problem is both event-driven and time-driven. Most attempts on
solving the problem to date have focused only on the event-driven aspect. The NASA
protocol presented here merges both the time- and event-driven aspects in order to
self-stabilize the system in a gradual yet timely manner. Furthermore, this protocol is
based on a continual vigilance of the state of the system to maintain and guarantee
its stabilized status. Finally, initialization and/or reintegration are regarded as inherent
parts of this self-stabilizing protocol, and are not treated as special cases. A simplified
model of the protocol has been model-checked and has proven to self-stabilize in the
presence of one permanent Byzantine faulty node with arbitrarily malicious behavior.
Abstract
NASA's Langley Research Center researchers have
developed and verified an approach to creating a self-stabilizing
and Byzantine fault-tolerant protocol for distributed clock
synchronization systems. Distributed computing systems
are finding increasing usage in applications where individual
nodes are operating independently, yet are linked into and
serving the needs of a larger, more complex system. Clock
synchronization is an example of a critical function for many
distributed systems, and thus, fault tolerance and self-stabilization of clock synchronization are of key importance.
Benefits
Self-stabilizes a distributed
system of nodes from an
arbitrary state
Sub Title:
for distributed clock synchronization systems
Details
| Internal Lab Reference ID | LAR-TOPS-31 |
| Patent Number | 7,792,015 |
| Patent Issue Date | May 06, 2015 |
Lab Representative
P:
757.864.1178Pages
Displaying 51 - 59 of 59
Semi-Anecho Electromagnetic Comp Test Complex/B1220
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Structural Acoustic Loads & Transmission Facility
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton
Region:
P: 7578643590E: r.j.silcox@nasa.govSecurity Clearance : Non Security LabSquare Footage: 0 Lab Reps:
Rich Silcox
The Structural Acoustic Loads and Transmission (SALT) facility at Langley Research Center consists of an anechoic chamber, a reverberation chamber, and a transmission loss (TL) window. The reverberant acoustic chamber can be used as a traditional acoustic test cell or as part of transmission loss suite; the adjacent anechoic test cell is used for transmission loss measurements. The acoustic chamber uses air as the acoustic noise media and can obtain an overall SPL of 154 db. The acoustic test cell has an access door that measures 10 high by 10.1 wide and the anechoic test room has an access door that measures 10 high and 9.5 wide. The link below describes the transmission loss features of the facility in detail. Technical Point of Contact: Rich Silcox, phone 757-864-3590 or e-mail: r.j.silcox@nasa.gov http://stab.larc.nasa.gov/Fac-SALT.html
Expertise
Capabilities: acoustic chamber acoustic test cell anechoic test chamber data reduction and data acquisition sound transmission loss test/anechoic
Structural Dynamics Research Lab
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Structures and Materials Lab
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Thermal Acoustic Fatigue Apparatus
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton
Region:
P: 757-864-3590E: r.j.silcox@nasa.govSecurity Clearance : Non Security LabSquare Footage: 0 Lab Reps:
Rich Silcox
The Thermal Acoustic Fatigue Apparatus (TAFA) is a progressive wave tube test facility that is used to test structures for dynamic response and sonic fatigue due to combined, high-intensity thermal acoustic environments. The chamber in its full capability configuration uses eight (8) Wyle WAS 3000 modulators. Prior to 1994, it was used to support development of the thermal protection system for the Space Shuttle and the National Aerospace Plane, and various generic hypersonic vehicle structures. Extensive modifications to the sound generation system and to the wave tube itself were made in 1994 and 1995 to improve the facilitys performance. Since these improvements, it has been used for sonic fatigue studies of the wing strake subcomponents on the High Speed Civil Transport. In 2000, enhancements were made to the acoustic control system to provide an automated means of shaping of a wide variety of spectrum shapes in a fast and efficient manner. As a result, acoustic control was improved in spectrum shaping ability, test section coherence, the addition of multiple inputs to the control, and the time required to attain control. Also, a new closed-loop temperature controller and thermocouple data acquisition system was developed to replace the previous system. These improvements make possible the generation of a wide variety of test spectra, including blast or transient loadings. The facility has a frequency range of 40 to 500 Hz and an OASPL range of 126 to 172 dB. A 360 kW quartz lamp heating system provides radiant heat with a peak heat flux of 54 W/cm2.
Expertise
Capabilities: acoustic chamber acoustic test cell high temperature test noise research test/acoustic model
Thermal Structures Lab
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Transonic Dynamics Tunnel
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Vibration Laboratory
Address:
NASA Langley Research Center
241
Hampton, VA 23681-2199
United StatesRegion:
P: 757-864-3848Security Clearance : Non Security Lab Pages
The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive
Research,or EPSCoR,establishes partnerships with
government, higher education and industry that are designed to
effect lasting improvements in a state's or region's research
infrastructure, R&D capacity and hence, its national R&D
competitiveness.
The EPSCoR program is directed at those jurisdictions that have not
in the past participated equably in competitive aerospace and
aerospace-related research activities. Twenty-four states, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam
currently participate.Fivefederal agencies conduct
EPSCoR programs, including NASA.
NASA EPSCoR Jurisdictions and their Directors
View
EPSCoR Directors by State/Jurisdiction
The goal of EPSCoR is to provide seed funding that will enable
jurisdictions to develop an academic research enterprise directed
toward long-term, self-sustaining, nationally-competitive
capabilities in aerospace and aerospace-related research.
