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At least 199 records · Page 11

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NASA NTRS1988

Martian mantle primary melts - An experimental study of iron-rich garnet lherzolite minimum melt composition

The minimum melt composition in equilibrium with an iron-rich garnet lherzolite assemblage is ascertained from a study of the liquidus relations of iron-rich basaltic compositions at 23 kb. The experimentally determined primary melt composition and its calculated sodium content reveal that Martian garnet lherzolite minimum melts are picritic alkali olivine basalts. Martian primary melts are found to be more picritic than terrestrial garnet lherzolite primary melts.

Bertka, Constance M.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Minimum dissipation rates in magnetohydrodynamics

Minimum dissipation rate states are explored for a current-carrying channel of magnetofluid, supported by a dc magnetic field and driven by an applied electric field. The minimization is carried out subject to the constraints of constant axial (toroidal) magnetic flux and constant time-averaged rate of supply of magnetic helicity. The solutions of the resulting Euler-Lagrange equations are sensitive to boundary conditions on the current density j. One set of boundary conditions on j leads to the same consequences as Taylor's 'minimum-energy' theory. A different set leads to significantly different consequences, including a departure from the 'force-free' magnetic profile and a toroidal component of current density that does not reverse at the wall when the toroidal magnetic field reverses.

Montgomery, David↗

NASA NTRS1989

The minimum drag of thin wings at supersonic speed according to Kogan's theory

In the theory of thin lifting surfaces the minimum drag consistent with a given total lift occurs when the downwash, averaged between forward and reversed motion of the wing, has the same value at all points of the wing planform. In Kogan's theory the conditions for minimum drag are determined on the forward sloping characteristic surface touching the trailing edge of the wing and it is shown that such a surface plays the role of the Trefftz plane familiar in subsonic wing theory. This paper shows how Kogan's theory may be applied to determine the drag of elliptic wings at supersonic speed. It appears that such wings have lower drag than the conventional 'delta' wing.

Jones, Robert T.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Minimum-fuel ascent to orbit using air-breathing propulsion

Single-stage vehicles using air-breathing propulsion hold promise for more economical delivery of payloads to orbit. The characterization of minimum-fuel trajectories over the range of possible engine and aerodynamic performance of such vehicles provides useful feedback to engine and vehicle designers and paves the way for the development of guidance logic. The minimum-fuel trajectory problem is formulated, propulsion system and aerodynamic models are presented, a numerical solution approach is described, and some preliminary results are discussed.

Van Buren, Mark A.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Minimum Weight Design of a Leaf Spring Tapered in Thickness and Width for the Hubble Space Telescope-Space Support Equipment

A linear elastic solution to the problem of minimum weight design of cantilever beams with variable width and depth is presented. The solution shown is for the specific application of the Hubble Space Telescope maintenance mission hardware. During these maintenance missions, delicate instruments must be isolated from the potentially damaging vibration environment of the space shuttle cargo bay during the ascent and descent phases. The leaf springs are designed to maintain the isolation system natural frequency at a level where load transmission to the instruments in a minimum. Nonlinear programming is used for the optimization process. The weight of the beams is the objective function with the deflection and allowable bending stress as the constraint equations. The design variables are the width and depth of the beams at both the free and the fixed ends.

Rodriguez, P. I.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Minimum weight design of helicopter rotor blades with frequency constraints

The minimum weight design of helicopter rotor blades subject to constraints on fundamental coupled flap-lag natural frequencies has been studied in this paper. A constraint has also been imposed on the minimum value of the blade autorotational inertia to ensure that the blade has sufficient inertia to autorotate in case of an engine failure. The program CAMRAD has been used for the blade modal analysis and the program CONMIN has been used for the optimization. In addition, a linear approximation analysis involving Taylor series expansion has been used to reduce the analysis effort. The procedure contains a sensitivity analysis which consists of analytical derivatives of the objective function and the autorotational inertia constraint and central finite difference derivatives of the frequency constraints. Optimum designs have been obtained for blades in vacuum with both rectangular and tapered box beam structures. Design variables include taper ratio, nonstructural segment weights and box beam dimensions. The paper shows that even when starting with an acceptable baseline design, a significant amount of weight reduction is possible while satisfying all the constraints for blades with rectangular and tapered box beams.

Chattopadhyay, Aditi↗

NASA NTRS1990

Solar wind and coronal structure near sunspot minimum - Pioneer and SMM observations from 1985-1987

Changes in solar wind speed and magnetic polarity observed at the Pioneer spacecraft are discussed here in terms of the changing magnetic geometry implied by SMM coronagraph observations over the period 1985-1987. The pattern of recurrent solar wind streams, the long-term average speed, and the sector polarity of the interplanetary magnetic field all changed in a manner suggesting both a temporal variation, and a changing dependence on heliographic latitude. Coronal observations during this epoch show a systematic variation in coronal structure and the magnetic structure imposed on the expanding solar wind. These observations suggest interpretation of the solar wind speed variations in terms of the familiar model where the speed increases with distance from a nearly flat interplanetary current sheet, and where this current sheet becomes aligned with the solar equatorial plane as sunspot minimum approaches, but deviates rapidly from that orientation after minimum.

Mihalov, J. D.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Mars ionopause during solar minimum - A lesson from Venus

The ion densities measured by the Viking landers (Hanson et al., 1977) do not show an abrupt falloff with height, giving the false impression that Mars has no ionopause. On the basis of knowledge gained from the solar wind interaction at Venus during solar minimum, it is demonstrated that the observed O2 profile above about 160 km on Mars is a distributed photodynamical ionosphere and can produce an ionopause at around 325 km, similar to that observed on Venus during solar minimum. It is concluded that the solar wind interacts directly with the Mars ionosphere, suggesting that the planet does not have an intrinsic magnetic field of any consequence.

Mahajan, K. K.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Solar minimum Lyman alpha sky background observations from Pioneer Venus orbiter ultraviolet spectrometer - Solar wind latitude variation

Measurements of interplanetary H I Lyman alpha over a large portion of the celestial sphere were made at the recent solar minimum by the Pioneer Venus orbiter ultraviolet spectrometer. These measurements were performed during a series of spacecraft maneuvers conducted to observe Halley's comet in early 1986. Analysis of these data using a model of the passage of interstellar wind hydrogen through the solar system shows that the rate of charge exchange with solar wind protons is 30 percent less over the solar poles than in the ecliptic. This result is in agreement with a similar experiment performed with Mariner 10 at the previous solar minimum.

Ajello, J. M.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Comparison of solution approaches for minimum-fuel, low-thrust, power-limited orbital transfers

An initial assessment of the feasibility of a function space gradient method for computing solutions to minimum-fuel power-limited transfers encompassing a wide range of thrust to weight ratios is conducted. Three transfers between coplanar ellipses are used as test cases. The gradient method performs best at the high end of the thrust to weight ratio range. At the lower end, there is reduced sensitivity of the fuel consumption to the control profiles. The minimum fuel consumption and the trajectory are computed quite accurately but the control profiles are in error. An approximate analytical solution, obtained by Edelbaum using the method of averaging, is discussed.

Mease, Kenneth D.↗

NASA NTRS1990

On the application of a frequency domain controller design methodology to non-minimum phase and unstable systems

A frequency-domain design methodology was developed for controller synthesis maximizing the allowable size of an unknown-but-bounded disturbance while satisfying prespecified control and output constraints. The design technique, which accounts for bandwidth limitations, is based on mapping time-domain constraints into the frequency domain. Application of this technique to non-minimum-phase and/or unstable systems is presented. A non-minimum-phase, unstable SIMO (single-input/multiple-output) system is examined, and the results are compared to those obtained by the set-theoretic (ST) approach. The comparison shows that this methodology can yield controllers that reject step disturbances larger than those obtained by the ST method.

Sobhani, Massoud↗

NASA NTRS1991

Evidence for a 250 second brightness oscillation at 1600 A in the solar temperature minimum region

A 330 s sequence of solar images at 1600 A, where the solar flux arises predominantly from the temperature minimum continuum, obtained from a sounding rocket flight, has been studied. The statistical distributions of the periods and amplitudes which result from fitting a sine wave to each individual 5 arcsec square box within a 350 x 350 arcsec quiet-sun field were obtained. Evidence is found for 250 s oscillations in the quiet-sun brightness temperature in about 10 arcsec coherent patches, with an average amplitude of 50 K. The amplitude corresponds to an energy flux of 180,000 ergs/sq cm/s for undamped, adiabatic, propagating sound waves, which is small compared to the heating requirement in the temperature minimum region.

Cook, J. W.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Solving constrained minimum-time robot problems using the sequential gradient restoration algorithm

Three constrained minimum-time control problems of a two-link manipulator are solved using the Sequential Gradient and Restoration Algorithm (SGRA). The inequality constraints considered are reduced via Valentine-type transformations to nondifferential path equality constraints. The SGRA is then used to solve these transformed problems with equality constraints. The results obtained indicate that at least one of the two controls is at its limits at any instant in time. The remaining control then adjusts itself so that none of the system constraints is violated. Hence, the minimum-time control is either a pure bang-bang control or a combined bang-bang/singular control.

Lee, Allan Y.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Measurement of cosmic-ray proton and helium spectra during the 1987 solar minimum

The differential cosmic-ray proton and helium spectra have been measured during the 1987 solar minimum using a balloon-borne superconducting magnetic spectrometer launched from Prince Albert, Canada. The changing geomagnetic cutoff along the balloon trajectory was observed in the low-energy proton data to be about 25 percent below the nominal calculated values. The absolute particle fluxes were approximately equal to the highest fluxes observed at the previous solar minimum in 1977. Above 10 GV the observed spectra are represented by a power law in rigidity with spectral indices of 2.74 + or - 0.02 for protons and 2.68 + or - 0.03 for helium. The measurements above 200 MeV per nucleon are consistent with rigidity power-law interstellar spectra modulated with the solar modulation parameter phi = 500 MV. The energy dependence of the proton-to-helium ratio is consistent with rigidity power-law injection spectra and rigidity-dependent propagation without reacceleration.

Seo, E. S.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Effects of anisotropic conduction and heat pipe interaction on minimum mass space radiators

Equations are formulated for the two dimensional, anisotropic conduction of heat in space radiator fins. The transverse temperature field was obtained by the integral method, and the axial field by numerical integration. A shape factor, defined for the axial boundary condition, simplifies the analysis and renders the results applicable to general heat pipe/conduction fin interface designs. The thermal results are summarized in terms of the fin efficiency, a radiation/axial conductance number, and a transverse conductance surface Biot number. These relations, together with those for mass distribution between fins and heat pipes, were used in predicting the minimum radiator mass for fixed thermal properties and fin efficiency. This mass is found to decrease monotonically with increasing fin conductivity. Sensitivities of the minimum mass designs to the problem parameters are determined.

Baker, Karl W.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Regular variability of the shape of the primary minimum of the orbital light curve of SS 433 with the phase of the precessional period

The regular variations of the shape of the primary minimum of the orbital 13.082-day light curve of SS 433 with the phase of the 162.5-day processional period were discovered by analysis of the photometrical databank. The regular variability of the shape of the primary minimum of the discovered light curve of SS 433 reflects displacement with the 26-day double orbital period of at least two hot bright spots on the surface of the processional accretional disk and their eclipse by a normal star. Other aspects of the investigation are further discussed.

Cherepashchuk, A. M.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Minimum-fuel, power-limited transfers between coplanar elliptical orbits

Two techniques of computing coplanar, minimum-fuel, power-limited transfers are presented, based on approximate solutions obtained by the averaging method. For the first technique, the average solution provides estimates of the initial adjoint variables, and the second provides approximations of the optimal controls in feedback form. The accuracy of the techniques for computing coplanar, minimum-fuel, power-limited transfers is evaluated for a number of initial and final orbits.

Mease, Kenneth D.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Solar irradiance measurements - Minimum through maximum solar activity

The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and the NOAA-9 spacecraft solar monitors were used to measure the total solar irradiance during the period October 1984 to December 1989. Decreasing trends in the irradiance measurements were observed as sunspot activity decreased to minimum levels in 1986; after 1986, increasing trends were observed as sunspot activity increased. The magnitude of the irradiance variability was found to be approximately 0.1 percent between sunspot minimum and maximum (late 1989). When compared with the 1984 to 1989 indices of solar magnetic activity, the irradiance trends appear to be in phase with the 11-year sunspot cycle. Both irradiance series yielded 1,365/sq Wm as the mean value of the solar irradiance, normalized to the mean earth/sun distance. The monitors are electrical substitution, active-cavity radiometers with estimated measurement precisions and accuracies of less than 0.02 and 0.2 percent, respectively.

Lee, R. B., III↗