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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.

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At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2014

Application of Fault Management Theory to the Quantitative Selection of a Launch Vehicle Abort Trigger Suite

The theory of System Health Management (SHM) and of its operational subset Fault Management (FM) states that FM is implemented as a "meta" control loop, known as an FM Control Loop (FMCL). The FMCL detects that all or part of a system is now failed, or in the future will fail (that is, cannot be controlled within acceptable limits to achieve its objectives), and takes a control action (a response) to return the system to a controllable state. In terms of control theory, the effectiveness of each FMCL is estimated based on its ability to correctly estimate the system state, and on the speed of its response to the current or impending failure effects. This paper describes how this theory has been successfully applied on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Space Launch System (SLS) Program to quantitatively estimate the effectiveness of proposed abort triggers so as to select the most effective suite to protect the astronauts from catastrophic failure of the SLS. The premise behind this process is to be able to quantitatively provide the value versus risk trade‐off for any given abort trigger, allowing decision makers to make more informed decisions. All current and planned crewed launch vehicles have some form of vehicle health management system integrated with an emergency launch abort system to ensure crew safety. While the design can vary, the underlying principle is the same: detect imminent catastrophic vehicle failure, initiate launch abort, and extract the crew to safety. Abort triggers are the detection mechanisms that identify that a catastrophic launch vehicle failure is occurring or is imminent and cause the initiation of a notification to the crew vehicle that the escape system must be activated. While ensuring that the abort triggers provide this function, designers must also ensure that the abort triggers do not signal that a catastrophic failure is imminent when in fact the launch vehicle can successfully achieve orbit. That is, the abort triggers must have low false negative rates to be sure that real crew‐threatening failures are detected, and also low false positive rates to ensure that the crew does not abort from non‐crew‐threatening launch vehicle behaviors. The analysis process described in this paper is a compilation of over six years of lessons learned and refinements from experiences developing abort triggers for NASA's Constellation Program (Ares I Project) and the SLS Program, as well as the simultaneous development of SHM/FM theory. The paper will describe the abort analysis concepts and process, developed in conjunction with SLS Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) to define a common set of mission phase, failure scenario, and Loss of Mission Environment (LOME) combinations upon which the SLS Loss of Mission (LOM) Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) models are built. This abort analysis also requires strong coordination with the Multi‐Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and SLS Structures and Environments (STE) to formulate a series of abortability tables that encapsulate explosion dynamics over the ascent mission phase. The design and assessment of abort conditions and triggers to estimate their Loss of Crew (LOC) Benefits also requires in‐depth integration with other groups, including Avionics, Guidance, Navigation and Control(GN&C), the Crew Office, Mission Operations, and Ground Systems. The outputs of this analysis are a critical input to SLS S&MA's LOC PRA models. The process described here may well be the first full quantitative application of SHM/FM theory to the selection of a sensor suite for any aerospace system.

Lo, Yunnhon↗
NASA NTRS2013

Analysis of the Effect of Water Activity on Ice Formation Using a New Theory of Nucleation

In this work a new theory of nucleation is developed and used to investigate the effect of water activity on the formation of ice within super-cooled droplets. The new theory is based on a novel concept where the interface is assumed to be made of liquid molecules trapped by the solid matrix. Using this concept new expressions are developed for the critical ice germ size and the nucleation work, with explicit dependencies on temperature and water activity. However unlike previous approaches, the new theory does not depend on the interfacial tension between liquid and ice. Comparison against experimental results shows that the new theory is able to reproduce the observed effect of water activity on nucleation rate and freezing temperature. It allows for the first time a theoretical derivation of the constant shift in water activity between melting and nucleation. The new theory offers a consistent thermodynamic view of ice nucleation, simple enough to be applied in atmospheric models of cloud formation.

Water Activity↗
NASA NTRS1949

The theory of plasticity in the case of simple loading accompanied by strain-hardening

The author has previously shown that a deformation theory of plasticity is entirely adequate when the loading is simple; that is, when all the applied forces grow in proportion to a single parameter. The author now shows how a general plasticitytheory for any complex loading may be constructed by successively adding quantities of the nature of correction terms to the deformation theory. All of the theories of plasticity so far suggested for the complex loading condition are shown to be special cases of this general theory.

THEORIES - PLASTICITY↗
NASA NTRS1962

Linearized Theory of Wind-tunnel Jet-boundary Corrections and Ground Effect for VTOL-STOL Aircraft

A linearized theory is developed to obtain interference factors for wind tunnels and ground effect. The calculated results, presented in tabular form in NASA Technical Notes D-933, D-934, D-935, and D-936, indicate that the degree to which the wake is deflected downward has a primary effect on the magnitude of the interference. When the wake is undeflected the corrections are essentially the same as those of classical theory. When the wake is deflected severely downward, the corrections are primarily determined by the floor of the wind tunnel. Under these conditions, the corrections are, in general, much larger than those given by previously available results. Because of deformations at the lower boundary of the jet, the corrections for an open wind tunnel are uncertain. Testing at low speeds and high lift coefficients in open wind tunnels, therefore, is not recommended. Although the theory is developed expressly for single-element, vanishingly small models, methods, with sample calculations, are given for extending the results to multielement and finite span models. The theory is at least partially verified by available test data; however, complete verification would require a substantially more detailed experimental study.

V/STOL aircraft↗
NASA NTRS1972

Development of a theory of the spectral reflectance of minerals, part 3

Significant refinements were made in the theory of the diffuse reflectance of particulate media. The theory predicts the opposite trends of reflectance with particle size in regions of the spectrum in which the particles are semi-transparent and those in which they are opaque. Enhanced absorption caused by wave-optical effects of small surface asperities and edges was used to improve the theory. The same mechanism remedies the theory to account for the data in spectral regions of anomalous dispersion.

Aronson, J. R.↗
NASA NTRS1972

The mass-zero spin-two field and gravitational theory.

Demonstration that the conventional theory of the mass-zero spin-two field with sources introduces extraneous nonspin-two field components in source regions and fails to be covariant under the full or restricted conformal group. A modified theory is given, expressed in terms of the physical components of mass-zero spin-two field rather than in terms of 'potentials,' which has no extraneous components inside or outside sources, and which is covariant under the full conformal group. For a proper choice of source term, this modified theory has the correct Newtonian limit and automatically implies that a symmetric second-rank source tensor has zero divergence. It is shown that possibly a generally covariant form of the spin-two theory derived here can be constructed to agree with general relativity in all currently accessible experimental situations.

Coulter, C. A.↗
NASA NTRS1972

A new theory of gravity

A new relativistic theory of gravity is presented. This theory agrees with all experiments to date. It is a metric theory, it is Lagrangian-based, and it possesses a preferred frame with conformally-flat space slices. With an appropriate choice of certain adjustable functions and parameters, this theory possesses precisely the same post-Newtonian limit as general relativity.

Ni, W.↗
NASA NTRS1973

New aspects of subsonic aerodynamic noise theory

A theory of aerodynamic noise is presented which differs from Lighthill's theory primarily in the way in which convection of the noise sources is treated. The sound directivity pattern obtained from the present theory agrees better with jet-noise directivity data than does that obtained from Lighthill's theory. The results imply that the shear-noise contribution to jet noise is smaller than previously expected.

Goldstein, M. E.↗
NASA NTRS1972

An analysis of the Belinfante-Swihart theory of gravity

The Belinfante-Swihart (BS) theory is reformulated in a representation in which uncharged matter responds to gravity in the same way as in metric theories. The BS gravitationally modified Maxwell equations are also put into metric form to first order in the deviations of the physical metric from flat space, but not to second order; consequently the theory is nonmetric except in first order. Also shown is that the theory violates the high precision Eotvos-Dicke experiment, but cannot be ruled out by the gravitational precession of gyroscopes.

Lee, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Gravitation theory - Empirical status from solar system experiments.

Review of historical and recent experiments which speak in favor of a post-Newtonian relativistic gravitational theory. The topics include the foundational experiments, metric theories of gravity, experiments designed to differentiate among the metric theories, and tests of Machian concepts of gravity. It is shown that the metric field for any metric theory can be specified by a series of potential terms with several parameters. It is pointed out that empirical results available up to date yield values of the parameters which are consistent with the prediction of Einstein's general relativity.

Nordtvedt, K. L., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1973

A new theory of gravity.

A new relativistic theory of gravity is presented. This theory agrees with all experiments to date. It is a metric theory; it is Lagrangian-based; and it possesses a preferred frame with conformally flat space slices. With an appropriate choice of certain adjustable functions and parameters and of the cosmological model, this theory possesses precisely the same post-Newtonian limit as general relativity.

Ni, W.-T.↗
NASA NTRS1973

On the improper neglect of certain terms in random function theory

This paper presents some exact solutions of problems in random function theory for the purpose of testing the validity of an approximate method known variously in the many different fields of its application as first order smoothing theory, first order cumulant discard, quasilinear theory, or the adiabatic approximation. The hydromagnetic dynamo equations are used here, as particularly appropriate for such an investigation. The calculations show that in one case the exact and approximate solutions agree. In the other case the approximate solution is wrong. Hence, in the absence of a general criterion for validity, a result based on first order smoothing theory is a conjecture rather than a fact. This impacts strongly on much of the recent work on hydromagnetic dynamos.

Lerche, I.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Use of dynamic theory to describe experimental results from volume holography

The general applicability of dynamic theory to the description of the recording and readout characteristics of volume (thick) hologram gratings is indicated. In dynamic theory (as opposed to static theory), the volume nature of the thick holographic grating allows the interference of an incident light beam with its own diffracted beam inside the recording medium. This effect causes the continuous recording of another grating that alters the initial one, producing a resultant grating that is not uniform through the thickness of the recording material and a grating whose writing and reading characteristics may vary dramatically, depending on the recording material and the experimental conditions. A large number of diverse types of writing, reading, and angular-selectivity behavior have been reported. The dynamic theory of thick-hologram writing and reading is shown to predict qualitatively all of these various types of experimental behavior.

Magnusson, R.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Adequacy of classical inverse bremsstrahlung theory for low-temperature plasmas

The authors examine those plasma heating conditions under which a theory more accurate than the classical inverse bremsstrahlung theory should be used to predict absorption coefficients when laser energy is injected into the plasma. A correlation plot for measured absorption coefficients at three laser wavelengths versus those calculated by quantum mechanical theory yields a correlation coefficient for the least-squares fit of 0.994. A plot of the ratio of the quantum-mechanically corrected electron ion inverse bremsstrahlung absorption coefficient to that calculated by classical methods versus plasma temperature shows that at around 20 eV and above the differences between classical and quantum predictions are negligible, but significant errors could arise from application of classical theories to lower-temperature plasmas. Some recent experiments in the literature are shown to be worthy of reinterpretation in this light.

Billman, K. W.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Recent advances in shell theory

The results reviewed are divided into two categories: those that relate two-dimensional shell theory to three-dimensional elasticity theory and those concerned with shell theory per se. In the second category results for general elastic systems that carry over, by specialization or analogy, to shells and results that are unique to shell theory itself are considered.

Simmonds, J. G.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Pure field theories and MACSYMA algorithms

A pure field theory attempts to describe physical phenomena through singularity-free solutions of field equations resulting from an action principle. The physics goes into forming the action principle and interpreting specific results. Algorithms for the intervening mathematical steps are sketched. Vacuum general relativity is a pure field theory, serving as model and providing checks for generalizations. The fields of general relativity are the 10 components of a symmetric Riemannian metric tensor; those of the Einstein-Straus generalization are the 16 components of a nonsymmetric. Algebraic properties are exploited in top level MACSYMA commands toward performing some of the algorithms of that generalization. The light cone for the theory as left by Einstein and Straus is found and simplifications of that theory are discussed.

Ament, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Microwave backscattering theory and active remote sensing of the ocean surface

The status is reviewed of electromagnetic scattering theory relative to the interpretation of microwave remote sensing data acquired from spaceborne platforms over the ocean surface. Particular emphasis is given to the assumptions which are either implicit or explicit in the theory. The multiple scale scattering theory developed during this investigation is extended to non-Gaussian surface statistics. It is shown that the important statistic for the case is the probability density function of the small scale heights conditioned on the large scale slopes; this dependence may explain the anisotropic scattering measurements recently obtained with the AAFE Radscat. It is noted that present surface measurements are inadequate to verify or reject the existing scattering theories. Surface measurements are recommended for qualifying sensor data from radar altimeters and scatterometers. Additional scattering investigations are suggested for imaging type radars employing synthetically generated apertures.

Brown, G. S.↗