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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 NTRS1989

Sound power spectrum and wave drag of a propeller in flight

Theory is presented for the sound power and sound power spectrum of a single rotation propeller in forward flight. Calculations are based on the linear wave equation with sources distributed over helicoidal surfaces to represent effects of blade thickness and steady loading. Sound power is distributed continuously over frequecy, as would be expected from Doppler effects, rather than in discrete harmonics. The theory is applied to study effects of sweep and Mach number in propfans. An acoustic efficiency is defined as the ratio of radiated sound power to shaft input power. This value is the linear estimate of the effect of wave drag due to the supersonic blade section speeds. It is shown that the acoustic efficiency is somewhat less than 1 percent for a well designed propfan.

Hanson, D. B.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Analysis of diurnal variation of SCu layer using 2 days of CLASS soundings on San Nicolas Island

Sixty-nine soundings were taken at San Nicolas Island during the FIRE marine stratocumulus experiment. The archived thermodynamic data at 5mb vertical resolution were reduced to 25mb vertical resolution by averaging. Ceilometer data showed the time variation of cloud-base. A subset of 20 soundings taken during a 2 day period of light winds were analyzed. The soundings are grouped into 6 hr. averages (with 5 soundings in each category) to examine the diurnal variation of the thermodynamic structure. Consistent with the solar heating during the daytime, cloud-base rises during the daytime hours and the cloud layer thins. The subcloud layer also becomes more stable, suggesting some uncoupling of the cloud layer from the surface.

Betts, Alan K.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Third-sound propagation in thick films of superfluid He-4

Atkins' (1959) basic theory of third sound in thick films of superfluid He-4 is extended here to include a heat source for exciting third sound. A one-dimensional model obeying periodic boundary conditions is developed which can represent a variety of experimentally important configurations. General solutions for the model equations are found which give a complete description of third-sound waves in terms of displacement of the film surface, superfluid velocity, and temperature change as functions of space and time. Algebraic expressions for quantities that occur in general formulas are found for special excitation signals. The structure of third sound is calculated for the first time and the results are found to be inconsistent with previous findings. A direct method for accurately measuring the vaporization coefficient is also presented.

Jackson, H. W.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Future hybrid infrared and microwave satellite sounding system - A theoretical analysis of its capability

The expected atmospheric sounding accuracy and the vertical resolution performance of the sounding system selected by NASA to fly aboard the Earth Observing System polar platform, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder combined with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, are evaluated under various weather conditions. The performance of the combined system is compared to that of current polar orbiting systems. The complementary nature of the IR component provides high vertical resolution, and the microwave information permits sounding through nonprecipitating clouds.

Huang, H.-L.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The use of polar-orbiting satellite sounding data to estimate rural maximum and minimum temperatures

Atmospheric sounding products from NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites were used to derive and test predictive equations of rural shelter-level maximum and minimum temperatures. Sounding data from both winter and summer months were combined with surface data from over 5300 cooperative weather stations in the continental United States to develop multiple linear regression equations. Separate equations were developed for both maximum and minimum temperature, using the three types of sounding retrievals (clear, partly cloudy, and cloudy). Clear retrieval models outperformed others, and maximum temperatures were more accurately predicted than minimums. Average standard deviations of observed rural shelter temperatures within sounding search areas were of similar magnitude to root-mean-square errors from satellite estimates for most clear and partly cloudy cases, but were significantly less for cloudy retrieval cases. Model validation for surrogate polar and tropical climatic regions showed success in application of the four clear retrieval models (maximum and minimum temperature, for both winter and summer). This indicates the potential adaptability of these models to estimates of rural shelter temperature in areas outside of the United States.

Johnson, Gregory L.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Numerical model for the weakly nonlinear propagation of sound through turbulence

When finite amplitude (or intense) sound, such as a sonic boom, propagates through a turbulent atmosphere, the propagation is strongly affected by the turbulence. The interaction between sound and turbulence has mostly been studied as a linear phenomenon, i.e., the nonlinear behavior of the intense sound has been neglected. It has been shown that turbulence has an effect on the perceived loudness of sonic booms, mainly by changing its peak pressure and rise time. Peak pressure and rise time are important factors that determine the loudness of the sonic boom when heard outdoors. However, the interaction between turbulence and nonlinear effects has mostly not been included in propagation studies of sonic booms. It is therefore important to investigate the influence of acoustical nonlinearity on the interaction of intense sound with turbulence.

Lipkens, Bart↗
NASA NTRS1994

The integrated sounding system: Description and preliminary observations from TOGA COARE

An Integrated Sounding System (ISS) that combines state-of-the-art remote and in situ sensors into a single transportable facility has been developed jointly by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Aeronomy Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA/AL). The instrumentation for each ISS includes a 915-MHz wind profiler, a Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS), an Omega-based NAVAID sounding system, and an enhanced surface meteorological station. The general philosophy behind the ISS is that the integration of various measurement systems overcomes each system's respective limitations while taking advantage of its positive attributes. The individual observing systems within the ISS provide high-level data products to a central workstation that manages and integrates these measurements. The ISS software package performs a wide range of functions: real-time data acquisition, database support, and graphical displays; data archival and communications; and operational and posttime analysis. The first deployment of the ISS consists of six sites in the western tropical Pacific--four land-based deployments and two ship-based deployments. The sites serve the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) of the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program and TOGA's enhanced atmospheric monitoring effort. Examples of ISS data taken during this deployment are shown in order to demonstrate the capabilities of this new sounding system and to demonstrate the performance of these in situ and remote sensing instruments in a moist tropical environment. In particular, a strong convective outflow with a pronounced impact of the atmospheric boundary layer and heat fluxes from the ocean surface was examined with a shipboard ISS. If these strong outflows commonly occur, they may prove to be an important component of the surface energy budget of the western tropical Pacific.

Parsons, David↗
NASA NTRS1994

Structure of supersonic jet flow and its radiated sound

The present paper explores the use of large-eddy simulations as a tool for predicting noise from first principles. A high-order numerical scheme is used to perform large-eddy simulations of a supersonic jet flow with emphasis on capturing the time-dependent flow structure representating the sound source. The wavelike nature of this structure under random inflow disturbances is demonstrated. This wavelike structure is then enhanced by taking the inflow disturbances to be purely harmonic. Application of Lighthill's theory to calculate the far-field noise, with the sound source obtained from the calculated time-dependent near field, is demonstrated. Alternative approaches to coupling the near-field sound source to the far-field sound are discussed.

Mankbadi, Reda R.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Comparison of New Methods for Assessing Community Response to High Energy Impulsive Sounds

The latest CHABA Working Group to have reviewed published information about the effects of high energy impulsive sounds (such as sonic booms) on communities has recommended abandonment of the dosage-response relationship identified by its predecessor in favor of two alternate prediction method. Both of the new assessment methods continue to rely on C-weighted measurements of impulsive sounds One of the two assessment methods retains the standard assumptions of the 'equal energy hypothesis' (the notion that annoyance is governed simply by the product of level, duration, and number noise events), and further assumes that the rate of growth of the prevalence of annoyance is proportional to the rate of growth of loudness with level. The other assessment method, however, assumes a level dependent (non-equal energy) summation of the C-weighted sound exposure levels of individual impulsive events. Since predictions of the second method are distribution-dependent, they are not readily represents graphically in the form of a single dosage-response function. The effects on annoyance predictions of variance in distributions of CSEL values of impulsive sounds are explored in this presentation.

Fidell, Sanford↗
NASA NTRS1993

Dynamic of Langmuir and Ion-Sound Waves in Type 3 Solar Radio Sources

The evolution of Langmuir and ion-sound waves in type 3 sources is investigated, incorporating linear growth, linear damping, and nonlinear electrostatic decay. Improved estimates are obtained for the wavenumber range of growing waves and the nonlinear coupling coefficient for the decay process. The resulting prediction for the electrostatic decay threshold is consistent with the observed high-field cutoff in the Langmuir field distribution. It is shown that the conditions in the solar wind do not allow a steady state to be attained; rather, bursty linear and nonlinear interactions take place, consistent with the highly inhomogeneous and impulsive waves actually observed. Nonlinear growth is found to be fast enough to saturate the growth of the parent Langmuir waves in the available interaction time. The resulting levels of product Langmuir and ion-sound waves are estimated theoretically and shown to be consistent with in situ ISEE 3 observations of type 3 events at 1 AU. Nonlinear interactions slave the growth and decay of product sound waves to that of the product Langmuir waves. The resulting probability distribution of ion-sound field strengths is predicted to have a flat tail extending to a high-field cutoff. This prediction is consistent with statistics derived here from ISEE 3 observations. Agreement is also found between the frequencies of the observed waves and predictions for the product S waves. The competing processes of nonlinear wave collapse and quasilinear relaxation are discussed, and it is concluded that neither is responsible for the saturation of Langmuir growth. When wave and beam inhomogeneities are accounted for, arguments from quasi-linear relaxation yield an upper bound on the Langmuir fields that is too high to be relevant. Nor are the criteria for direct wave collapse of the beam-driven waves met, consistent with earlier simulation results that imply that this process is not responsible for saturation of the beam instability. Indeed, even if the highest observed Langmuir fields are assumed to he part of a long-wavelength 'condensate' produced via electrostatic decay, they still fall short of the relevant requirements for wave collapse. The most stringent requirement for collapse is that collapsing wave packets not be disrupted by ambient density fluctuations in the solar wind. Fields of several mV m(exp -1) extending over several hundred km would be needed to satisfy this requirement; at 1 AU such fields are rare at best.

Robinson, P. A.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Time-Dependent Parabolic Finite Difference Formulation for Harmonic Sound Propagation in a Two-Dimensional Duct with Flow

An explicit finite difference real time iteration scheme is developed to study harmonic sound propagation in aircraft engine nacelles. To reduce storage requirements for future large 3D problems, the time dependent potential form of the acoustic wave equation is used. To insure that the finite difference scheme is both explicit and stable for a harmonic monochromatic sound field, a parabolic (in time) approximation is introduced to reduce the order of the governing equation. The analysis begins with a harmonic sound source radiating into a quiescent duct. This fully explicit iteration method then calculates stepwise in time to obtain the 'steady state' harmonic solutions of the acoustic field. For stability, applications of conventional impedance boundary conditions requires coupling to explicit hyperbolic difference equations at the boundary. The introduction of the time parameter eliminates the large matrix storage requirements normally associated with frequency domain solutions, and time marching attains the steady-state quickly enough to make the method favorable when compared to frequency domain methods. For validation, this transient-frequency domain method is applied to sound propagation in a 2D hard wall duct with plug flow.

Kreider, Kevin L.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Terrier-Black Brant Sounding Rocket Microacceleration Environment

On September 10, 1997 a Terrier-Black Brant Sounding Rocket was launched to support the Lewis Research Center DARTFire combustion experiment at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The sounding rocket also carried two microacceleration measurement systems to support the DARTFire experiment by measuring the microacceleration environment. The SAMS-FF system and a SAMS-type triaxial sensor head (TSH) were flown. The SAMS-FF system consisted of a variable frequency, digital output TSH and a roll rate sensor. Data from the two systems were analyzed and compared. Data will be presented from both systems in order to characterize the sounding rocket microacceleration environment. The data collected demonstrated that a sounding rocket is a viable vehicle for conducting space experiments that require a quiet, dedicated microacceleration environment.

Kacpura, Thomas↗
NASA NTRS1999

Numerical Speed of Sound and its Application to Schemes for all Speeds

The concept of "numerical speed of sound" is proposed in the construction of numerical flux. It is shown that this variable is responsible for the accurate resolution of' discontinuities, such as contacts and shocks. Moreover, this concept can he readily extended to deal with low speed and multiphase flows. As a results, the numerical dissipation for low speed flows is scaled with the local fluid speed, rather than the sound speed. Hence, the accuracy is enhanced the correct solution recovered, and the convergence rate improved. We also emphasize the role of mass flux and analyze the behavior of this flux. Study of mass flux is important because the numerical diffusivity introduced in it can be identified. In addition, it is the term common to all conservation equations. We show calculated results for a wide variety of flows to validate the effectiveness of using the numerical speed of sound concept in constructing the numerical flux. We especially aim at achieving these two goals: (1) improving accuracy and (2) gaining convergence rates for all speed ranges. We find that while the performance at high speed range is maintained, the flux now has the capability of performing well even with the low: speed flows. Thanks to the new numerical speed of sound, the convergence is even enhanced for the flows outside of the low speed range. To realize the usefulness of the proposed method in engineering problems, we have also performed calculations for complex 3D turbulent flows and the results are in excellent agreement with data.

Liou, Meng-Sing↗
NASA NTRS2000

GPS Sounding Rocket Development at NASA with Simultaneous Multi-Payload Tracking Application

An inverse differential GPS system has been developed for Sounding Rocket use which includes the flight unit and a ground station capable of extracting GPS data from sounding rocket telemetry, performing a real time differential solution and graphically displaying the rocket's path relative to a predicted trajectory plot. Accuracy has been proven to within less than 10 meters. Postprocessing has increased the precision to within 10 - 20 centimeters. The system has been successfully flown several times and delivered to the Sounding Program Office for routine field use. In addition to providing position, velocity and time GPS data has been used on sounding rockets for vehicle performance analysis, effecting a one hundred fold improvement in data time tagging, and steering an optical tracking device to intercept payloads launched from over the horizon. Precise velocity separation information and timing has been provided to multiple payload systems. Future plans include its use for Range Safety and enabling of interferometric techniques. The technology and software developed also has potential application to small satellite navigation and formation flying.

Bull, Barton↗
NASA NTRS2000

BOREAS AFM-03-NCAR Electra 1994 Aircraft Sounding Data

The Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) Airborne Fluxes and Meteorology (AFM)-3 team used the National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR) Electra aircraft to make sounding measurements to study the planetary boundary layer using in situ and remote-sensing measurements. Measurements were made of wind speed and direction, air pressure and temperature, potential temperature, dewpoint, mixing ratio of H, O, CO, concentration, and ozone concentration. Twenty-five research missions were flown over the Northern Study Area (NSA), Southern Study Area (SSA), and the transect during BOREAS Intensive Field Campaigns (IFCs) 1, 2, and 3 during 1994. All missions had from four to ten soundings through the top of the planetary boundary layer. This sounding data set contains all of the in situ vertical profiles through the boundary layer top that were made (with the exception of 'porpoise' maneuvers). Data were recorded in one-second time intervals. These data are stored in tabular ASCII files. The NCAR Electra 1994 aircraft sounding data are available from the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC). The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884).

Lenschow, Donald H.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Development and Testing of a High Level Axial Array Duct Sound Source for the NASA Flow Impedance Test Facility

In this report both a frequency domain method for creating high level harmonic excitation and a time domain inverse method for creating large pulses in a duct are developed. To create controllable, high level sound an axial array of six JBL-2485 compression drivers was used. The pressure downstream is considered as input voltages to the sources filtered by the natural dynamics of the sources and the duct. It is shown that this dynamic behavior can be compensated for by filtering the inputs such that both time delays and phase changes are taken into account. The methods developed maximize the sound output while (i) keeping within the power constraints of the sources and (ii) maintaining a suitable level of reproduction accuracy. Harmonic excitation pressure levels of over 155dB were created experimentally over a wide frequency range (1000-4000Hz). For pulse excitation there is a tradeoff between accuracy of reproduction and sound level achieved. However, the accurate reproduction of a pulse with a maximum pressure level over 6500Pa was achieved experimentally. It was also shown that the throat connecting the driver to the duct makes it difficult to inject sound just below the cut-on of each acoustic mode (pre cut-on loading effect).

Johnson, Marty E.↗
NASA NTRS1994

The Influence of Sound Cues on the Maintenance of Temporal Organization in the Sprague-Dawley Rat

Temporal organization is a fundamental property of living matter. From single cells to complex animals including man, most physiological systems undergo daily periodic changes in concert with environmental cues (e.g., light, temperature etc.). It is known that pulsed Environmental synchronizers, zeitgebers, (e.g. light) can modify rhythm parameters. Rhythm stability is a necessary requirement for most animal experiments. The extent to which sound can influence the circadian system of laboratory rats is poorly understood. This has implications to animal habitats in the novel environments of the Space-Laboratory or Space Station. A series of three white noise (88+/-0.82 db) zeitgeber experiments were conducted (n=6/experiment).The sound cue was introduced in the circadian free-running phase (DD-NQ) and in one additional case sound was added to the usual photoperiod (12L:12D) to determine masking effects. Circadian rhythm parameters of drinking frequency, feeding frequency, and gross locomotor activity were continuously monitored. Data analysis for these studies included macroscopic and microscopic methods. Raster plots to visually detect entrainment versus free-running period, were plotted for each animal, for all three parameters, during all sound perturbation tested. These data were processed through a series of detrending (robust locally weighted regression analyses) and complex demodulation analyses. In summary, these findings show that periodic "white" noise "influences" the rats circadian system but does not "entrain" the feeding, drinking or locomotor activity rhythms.

Winget, C. M.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Active Control of Turbulent Boundary Layer Induced Sound Radiation from Multiple Aircraft Panels

The objective of this work is to experimentally investigate active structural acoustic control of turbulent boundary layer (TBL) induced sound radiation from multiple panels on an aircraft sidewall. One possible approach for controlling sound radiation from multiple panels is a multi-input/multi-output scheme which considers dynamic coupling between the panels. Unfortunately, this is difficult for more than a few panels, and is impractical for a typical aircraft which contains several hundred such panels. An alternative is to implement a large number of independent control systems. Results from the current work demonstrate the feasibility of reducing broadband radiation from multiple panels utilizing a single-input/single-output (SISO) controller per bay, and is the first known demonstration of active control of TBL induced sound radiation on more than two bays simultaneously. The paper compares sound reduction for fully coupled control of six panels versus independent control on each panel. An online adaptive control scheme for independent control is also demonstrated. This scheme will adjust for slow time varying dynamic systems such as fuselage response changes due to aircraft pressurization, etc.

Gibbs, Gary P.↗