![](/ProductImages/0309/RD_SW_Information.jpg") Information from the Sky
The prime motivation for doing scientific research in space rather than on Earth is its unique microgravity environment, where researchers can study the unique behavior of organisms and the physics of fluids and materials. The Microgravity Analysis Software System (MASS) developed by NASA Glenn Research Center and ZIN Technologies, both of Cleveland, Ohio, characterizes the microgravity environment for such space-based science experiments.
The Principal Investigator Microgravity Service (PIMS) Project uses MASS technology to collect and analyze microgravity acceleration data, which it receives from the International Space Station. The real-time display and off-line analysis perform all of the data analysis, while the other components involved acquire, route, and archive data. Previous versions of microgravity analysis software were customized for each shuttle flight with an operation length of about 10 days; MASS was designed to collect and analyze data continuously for 10 years .
Beyond space, MASS may bring a better understanding to lowering vehicle exhaust emissions, increasing fire safety, and improving fuel economy for automobiles and aircraft.
www.grc.nasa.gov |
![](/ProductImages/0309/RD_SW_Fixing.jpg") Fixing Assembly Line Blues
The diaper production line at The Procter & Gamble Co. had the potential to go wrong in numerous places--and each time it did, the line had to be stopped, with other foul-ups potentially arising. The Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G), Cincinnati, Ohio, teamed up with Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory to create PowerFactoRE-A Suite of Reliability Engineering Tools for Optimizing the Manufacturing Process.
A team led by Arthur Koehler at P&G, and Harry Martz at Los Alamos designed PowerFactoRE to be applied across current and future manufacturing processes. It is a comprehensive approach to reducing operating costs and minimizing capital expenditures by enabling users to predict, prevent, and reduce reliability losses, the frequency of equipment failures, and the duration of the repair process. Based upon P&G’s new perspective on how failures compete to stop a manufacturing line, they developed complete protocols on how to optimize operational performance.
Other solutions address equipment reliability and quality improvement, but not comprehensive process optimization, or they do not include analytical tools capable of evaluating all the dynamics involved in an entire manufacturing operation.
www.pg.com |
| ![](/ProductImages/0309/RD_SW_Software.jpg") Software Offers 3-D Data Management
Users can sift through scores of data to discover trends or hidden information by using the Starlight Information Visualization System, created by a team at Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Richland, Wash. Starlight integrates structured, unstructured, spatial, and multimedia data, offering comparisons of information at multiple levels of abstraction. Users can characterize data, search for information, and visualize results in 3-D graphics.
Starlight is implemented as a series of intercommunicating services and applications programs, oriented around the processing and analysis of information in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. The Starlight System can convert non-XML data into an XML format, accommodating a wide range of information types and placing no preconditions on the structure or content of the XML informationa key element in integrating all of the information suited to a particular problem.
While other commercial products address individual aspects of complex problems in a “stovepipe fashion,” Starlight enables such problems to be addressed as a whole, letting users explore and interpret information using visual metaphors at high speeds.
Developed for the US intelligence community, it is now available for other applications, including business and competitive intelligence, strategic planning, fraud detection, epidemiology, bioinformatics, and law enforcement.
www.pnl.gov |
Software Analyzes Fractures and Safety
Design against fracture has traditionally been based on highly empirical or experience-based methods that can result in failure or inefficient design. Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, NASA Johnson Space Center, and Lockheed Martin Space Operations, both of Houston, Texas, have created NASGRO 4.0 Fracture Mechanics & Fatigue Crack Growth Analysis software. This suite of programs analyzes fatigue crack growth and fracture, performs structural life assessments, computes stresses, and processes and stores fatigue crack growth properties. It calculates the rate at which cracks grow in loaded structures, the length/load combination at which they will cause final structural failure, and the number of load cycles before failure occurs.
With a substantial material property database containing fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth data for 476 different materials, this software suite is the most accepted code for damage tolerance, fracture control, and fitness-for-service analysis. Though originally designed for space hardware, it can also analyze gas turbine engines, offshore structures, pressure vessels, and heavy machinery.
www.nasgro.swri.org |
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