Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Distortion”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 199 records · Page 11

Role of Computational Parameters on Predicting Self-Consistent Residual Stress and Distortion during Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

Production of three-dimensional metallic parts through integration of an articulated robot and gas metal arc welding, also known as wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), can produce large-scale components with moderate geometrical complexity. This technology is particularly appealing due to its high deposition rates, scalability, and cost-effective feedstock compared to other AM processes. Despite its advantages, WAAM adoption is hindered by challenges in ensuring geometric conformity without extensive distortion, defect-free structures, and consistent mechanical properties. Finite element analysis (FEA) is often used to address the challenge of geometrical conformity. As the size of parts increases, the best practices for mesh size and temporal resolution known in the literature become computationally unviable. This research examined the effects of mesh and time-step resolutions during transient FEA of a large-scale (248 layers) metallic part. The impact of computational parameters on the thermal history, displacement, and residual stress distributions were evaluated. The results showed that predicted distortion was consistent across resolutions, while time-step length significantly affected predicted thermal history, and mesh size influenced residual stress distributions. To investigate this relationship further, directionally biased meshes were considered and analyzed. The results indicated that increasing mesh resolution perpendicular to the welding path yielded stress predictions that aligned closely with higher-resolution models while offering substantial computational savings. In conclusion, the significances of this research are related to verification and validation of WAAM models for widespread industrial adoption and pragmatic guidelines for optimizing computation parameters for balancing computational efficiency and predictive accuracy of residual stress and distortion.

Solsbee, Brandon [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, T↗

Evaluation of range and distortion tolerance for high Mach number transonic fan stages. Task 2: Performance of a 1500-foot-per-second tip speed transonic fan stage with variable geometry inlet guide vanes and stator

A 0.5 hub/tip radius ratio compressor stage consisting of a 1500 ft/sec tip speed rotor, a variable camber inlet guide vane and a variable stagger stator was designed and tested with undistorted inlet flow, flow with tip radial distortion, and flow with 90 degrees, one-per-rev, circumferential distortion. At the design speed and design IGV and stator setting the design stage pressure ratio was achieved at a weight within 1% of the design flow. Analytical results on rotor tip shock structure, deviation angle and part-span shroud losses at different operating conditions are presented. The variable geometry blading enabled efficient operation with adequate stall margin at the design condition and at 70% speed. Closing the inlet guide vanes to 40 degrees changed the speed-versus-weight flow relationship along the stall line and thus provided the flexibility of operation at off-design conditions. Inlet flow distortion caused considerable losses in peak efficiency, efficiency on a constant throttle line through design pressure ratio at design speed, stall pressure ratio, and stall margin at the 0 degrees IGV setting and high rotative speeds. The use of the 40 degrees inlet guide vane setting enabled partial recovery of the stall margin over the standard constant throttle line.

Bilwakesh, K. R.↗

Distortion in the frequency demodulator using feedback.

The response of a frequency demodulator using feedback (FMFB) to a frequency modulated signal is analyzed. Canonical equations of operation are obtained. Harmonic distortion is calculated for the case of a sinusoidal modulating signal. Intermodulation distortion is calculated assuming a noise-like modulation. Design curves are presented. The special case of harmonic and intermodulation distortion in a discriminator is also presented. It is shown that the results obtained in this paper by treating the discriminator as a degenerate FMFB compare favorably with those obtained by other authors. However, the results presented here do not require digital computation.

Hoffman, E.↗

Installation caused flow distortion and its effect on noise from a fan designed for turbofan engines.

Use of a ground test stand to obtain acoustic data on a full-scale prototype fan designed for quiet subsonic-aircraft engines. The fan was installed in three different ways in the test stand. In two of the installations the fan was driven by a shaft in the inlet; in the third installation the fan was driven from the rear. These three installations, and the structures associated with them, resulted in various amounts of inlet flow distortion to the fan. The rear-drive installation had less inlet flow distortion than the two front drive installations. Differences in blade passage sound pressure levels of more than 10 dB were measured between the rear-drive and front-drive versions, with the rear-drive installation producing less noise. Perceived noise levels were computed and the influence of the distortion on these levels was determined.

Povinelli, F. P.↗

Effects of installation caused flow distortion on noise from a fan designed for turbofan engines

Far-field noise measurements were taken for three different installations of essentially the same fan. The installation with the most uniform inlet flow resulted in fan-blade-passage tone sound pressure levels more than 10 dB lower than the installation with more nonuniform inflow. Perceived noise levels were computed for the various installations and compared. Some measurements of inlet flow distortion were made and used in a blade-passage noise generation theory to predict the effects of distortion on noise. Good agreement was obtained between the prediction and the measured effect. Possible origins of the distortion were identified by observation of tuft action in the vicinity of the inlet.

Povinelli, F. P.↗

Instantaneous distortion investigation

The results obtained in an inlet-engine compatibility test run in the 10x10 SWT of the NASA-Lewis Research Center are reviewed. This program was run to measure the time-variant distortions produced in a supersonic inlet and to relate a unique distortion peak, occurring in an instant of time, to the origin of stall in a compressor. The major stumbling block in this type of effort is the determination of a proper increment of time over which to average pressures before computing distortions. It is reasonable to expect that the proper averaging time is related to the particular compressor in question. The most significant point reported is that the proper averaging time may not be solely dependent on a particular compressor, and, in fact, may vary with operating conditions, even for the same inlet-engine combination.

Calogeras, J. E.↗

The effects of inlet temperature and pressure distortion on turbojet performance

The effects on stability of steady-state, 180 degree extent circumferential distortions of inlet total temperature and pressure were experimentally determined for a turbojet engine. Results for both individual and combined temperature and pressure distortions are presented showing the losses incurred in stall pressure ratio and are compared with results predicted using a simplified parallel compressor model. The loss due to combined distortions was dependent upon the relative orientation between the low pressure and high temperature regions. Reasonable agreement was achieved between the predicted and observed loss in stall pressure ratio when based on a constant corrected speed relationship.

Braithwaite, W. M.↗

Correction of perceived first-order distortions in holography.

Consideration of the problem of distortion posed by a long-wavelength hologram as a three-dimensional display to be viewed by an observer who is included in the distortion problem. The effects of holographic distortion upon the observer's image perception are examined. The inclusion of the visual perception process into the description of holographic imagery necessarily complicates the analysis, but at the same time increases the degrees of freedom by which the image can be altered. It is shown that these additional degrees of freedom make it possible to overcome the problem of unequal longitudinal and lateral magnification.

Winter, D. C.↗

Experimental evaluation of a TF30-P-3 turbofan engine in an altitude facility: Effect of steady-state temperature distortion

The effects of circumferential distortion of the total temperature entering 25, 50, and 75 percent of the inlet circumferential annulus of a turbofan engine were determined. Complete compressor stall resulted from distortions of from 14 to 20 percent of the face averaged temperature. Increasing the temperature level in one sector resulted in that sector moving toward stall by decreasing the equivalent rotor speeds while the pressure ratio remained approximately constant. Stall originated as a rotating zone in the low-pressure compressor which resulted as a terminal stall in the high-pressure compressor. Decreasing the Reynolds number index to 0.25 from 0.5 reduced the required distortion for stall by 50 percent for the conditions investigated.

Braithwaite, W. M.↗

Distortion of the microwave blackbody background radiation implied by the baryon-symmetric cosmology of omnes and the galaxy formation theory of Stecker and Puget

Theories on the distortion of microwave black body spectrum are presented. Data suggest that continuous annihilation of matter-antimatter, during all stages of universe evolution cause distortion by thermal energy distribution at red shifts less than 10,000. Data also show distortions in the Rayleigh-Jeans spectrum are caused by energy depositions at red shifts between 10,000 and 1,000 while those in the Wien spectrum are due to energy deposition at lower red shifts after the cosmic gas cools to its atomic state and thermalization does not take place properly.

Stecker, F. W.↗

Summary of recent investigations of inlet flow distortion effect on engine stability

A review is presented of recent experimental results, analytical procedures and test techniques employed to evaluate the effects of inlet flow distortion on the stability characteristics of representative afterburning turbofan and turbojet compression systems. Circumferential distortions of pressure and temperature, separately and in combination are considered. Resulting engine sensitivity measurements are compared with predictions based on simplified parallel compressor models and with several distortion descriptor parameters.

Graber, E. J., Jr.↗

Analog computer implementation of four instantaneous distortion indices

Dynamic distortion data obtained from inlet engine compatibility test on a J85-GE-13 engine are used to establish the feasibility of using on-line generated indices as control signals. These data are analyzed over time increments of 1.3 seconds on an analog computer. The analog program of four instantaneous distortion indices and their results are presented. A modified approach in determining the extent of distortion is also presented.

Costakis, W. G.↗

The effect of inlet temperature and pressure distortion on turbojet performance

The effects on stability of steady-state, 180 degree extent circumferential distortions of inlet total temperature and pressure were experimentally determined for a turbojet engine. Results for both individual and combined temperature and pressure distortions are presented showing the losses incurred in stall pressure ratio and are compared with results predicted using a simplified parallel compressor model. The loss due to combined distortions was dependent upon the relative orientation between the low pressure and high temperature regions. Reasonable agreement was achieved between the predicted and observed loss in stall pressure ratio when based on a constant corrected speed relationship.

Braithwaite, W. M.↗

Summary of recent investigations of inlet flow distortion effects on engine stability

A review is presented of recent experimental results, analytical procedures and test techniques employed to evaluate the effects of inlet flow distortion on the stability characteristics of representative afterburning turbofan and turbojet compression systems. Circumferential distortions of pressure and temperature, separately and in combination, are considered. Resulting engine sensitivity measurements are compared with predictions based on simplified parallel compressor models and with several distortion descriptor parameters.

Graber, E. J., Jr.↗

Two-stage fan. 3: Data and performance with rotor tip casing treatment, uniform and distorted inlet flows

A two stage fan with a 1st-stage rotor design tip speed of 1450 ft/sec, a design pressure ratio of 2.8, and corrected flow of 184.2 lbm/sec was tested with axial skewed slots in the casings over the tips of both rotors. The variable stagger stators were set in the nominal positions. Casing treatment improved stall margin by nine percentage points at 70 percent speed but decreased stall margin, efficiency, and flow by small amounts at design speed. Treatment improved first stage performance at low speed only and decreased second stage performance at all operating conditions. Casing treatment did not affect the stall line with tip radially distorted flow but improved stall margin with circumferentially distorted flow. Casing treatment increased the attenuation for both types of inlet flow distortion.

Burger, G. D.↗

Modeling and analysis of the TF30-P-3 compressor system with inlet pressure distortion

Circumferential inlet distortion testing of a TF30-P-3 afterburning turbofan engine was conducted at NASA-Lewis Research Center. Pratt and Whitney Aircraft analyzed the data using its multiple segment parallel compressor model and classical compressor theory. Distortion attenuation analysis resulted in a detailed flow field calculation with good agreement between multiple segment model predictions and the test data. Sensitivity of the engine stall line to circumferential inlet distortion was calculated on the basis of parallel compressor theory to be more severe than indicated by the data. However, the calculated stall site location was in agreement with high response instrumentation measurements.

Mazzawy, R. S.↗

On Similarity Transformation and Geodetic Network Distortions Based on Doppler Satellite Observations

Models used in geodesy to transform two sets of coordinates are studied and distortions in geodetic networks are investigated. Commonly used transformation models are first reviewed and most of them are interpreted. Differences between various models are discussed. Pitfalls in partial solutions are then considered. It is shown that only as many chords and/or directional elements can be used in the computation as are needed to completely determine the size or shape of the polyhedron implied in the set of Cartesian coordinates. Each additional element causes the normal matrix to be singular provided that all correlations between the chords are used. A number of tables and maps indicating distortions in the NAD 27, Precise Traverse M-R '72, AUS, and SAD 69 geodetic datums are also included. The residuals of the coordinates are scanned for systematic patterns after transforming each geodetic system to the NWL9D Doppler system. Also, an attempt is made to show scale distortions in the NAD 27.

Leick, Alfred↗

The passage of a distorted velocity field through a cascade of airfoils

An analysis has been developed to predict the unsteady force and moment generated by the passage of a timewise periodic total pressure distortion through an arbitrary cascade of airfoils. The mathematical formulation of this analysis is based on the assumption that the magnitudes of the timewise fluctuations of the variables which describe the flow field are small compared to their time average values. This assumption permits the development of a linear unsteady perturbation analysis about a steady flow field. In addition to this linearization assumption the fluid medium is assumed to be incompressible and inviscid. The mathematical development begins by decomposing the velocity field surrounding an infinite cascade of airfoils into its irrotational and rotational components. The rotational component is associated with an upstream unsteady total pressure distortion and is defined in terms of the vorticity field associated with the distortion pattern. The irrotational component is further decomposed into a steady and unsteady part. A combined analytical and numerical procedure has been developed to solve the field equations which govern the rotational and irrotational velocity fields. Results of this analysis show a strong influence of mean loading on the unsteady force generated by the passage of a one dimensional gust through a cascade of compressor blades.

Adamczyk, J. J.↗