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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 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

Collective effects of temperature gradients and gravity on droplet coalescence

The interaction and coalescence of small spherical drops in dilute, homogeneous dispersions are considered theoretically under conditions, where drop motion results from gravity settling and thermocapillary migration acting simultaneously. A trajectory analysis is used to predict pairwise collision rates, and population dynamics equations are solved to predict the time evolution of the droplet size distribution. The rate of droplet collisions and growth may be reduced dramatically by antiparallel alignment of the gravitational and thermocapillary velocities. For such antiparallel alignment with the gravitational relative velocity exceeding the thermocapillary relative velocity for two widely separated drops, there is a 'collision-forbidden region' in parameter space. This occurs because the gravitational relative velocity decays more rapidly with decreasing separation distance between the drops than does the thermocapillary relative velocity, and so the resultant relative velocity along the line-of-centers from these two sources combined becomes zero at a finite separation and the drops are unable to collide. As a result, small drops which initially collide and coalesce due to thermocapillary motion will only grow until they reach a critical size for which the oppositely directed gravitational motion balances the thermocapillary motion.

Zhang, Xiaoguang↗
NASA NTRS1950

Direct method of design and stress analysis of rotating disks with temperature gradient

A method is presented for the determination of the contour of disks, typified by those of aircraft gas turbines, to incorporate arbitrary elastic-stress distributions resulting from either centrifugal or combined centrifugal and thermal effects. The specified stress may be radial, tangential, or any combination of the two. Use is made of the finite-difference approach in solving the stress equations, the amount of computation necessary in the evolution of a design being greatly reduced by the judicious selection of point stations by the aid of a design chart. Use of the charts and of a preselected schedule of point stations is also applied to the direct problem of finding the elastic and plastic stress distribution in disks of a given design, thereby effecting a great reduction in the amount of calculation. Illustrative examples are presented to show computational procedures in the determination of a new design and in analyzing an existing design for elastic stress and for stresses resulting from plastic flow.

Manson, S S↗
NASA NTRS1993

Near-surface temperature gradients and their effects on thermal-infrared emission spectra of particulate planetary surfaces

The infrared energy emitted from a planetary surface is generated within a finite depth determined by the material's absorption skin depth. This parameter varies significantly with wavelength in the infrared but has an average value of around 50 microns for most geologic materials. In solid rock, heat transfer is efficient enough so that this 50 micron zone of the near surface from which the radiation emanates will be more or less isothermal. In particulate materials, however, heat transfer is more complicated and occurs via a combination of mechanisms, including solid conduction within grains and across grain contacts, conduction through the interstitial gas, and thermal radiation within individual particles and across the void spaces in between grains. On planets with substantial atmospheres, the gas component dominates the heat transfer and tends to mitigate near-surface thermal gradients. However, on airless bodies, the gas component is absent and heat transfer occurs via solid conductions and radiation. If the particles are small relative to the average absorption skin depth, then the top 50-100 microns or so of the surface will be cooled by radiation to space allowing the creation of significant near-surface thermal gradients. In those regions of the spectrum where the absorption coefficient is low, the emission will come from the deeper, warmer parts of the medium, whereas in regions of high absorption, the emission will emanate from shallower, cooler parts of the medium. The resulting emission spectrum will show non-compositional features as a result of the thermal structure in the material. We have modeled the heat transfer in a particulate medium in order to determine the magnitude of near-surface thermal gradients for surfaces on airless bodies and on Mars. We use the calculated thermal structure to determine the effects it has on the infrared emission spectrum of the surface.

Henderson, B. G.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Numerical Analysis of Temperature Gradients and Interface Shape During Directional Solidification of Al and Al-Cu Alloy Under Microgravity Conditions

Numerical modeling was undertaken to analyze the influence of radial thermal gradient on solid/liquid (s/1) interface shape and convection patterns during solidification of pure Al and Al-4 wt% Cu alloy. The objective of the numerical task was to predict the influence of convective velocity on an insoluble particle near a s/l interface. These predictions would then be used to define the minimum gravity level (g) required to investigate the fundamental physics of interaction between a particle and a s/I interface. To satisfy this objective, steady state calculations were performed for different gravity levels and orientations with the gravity vector. ne furnace configuration used in this analysis is the proposed International Space Station Furnace, Quench Module Insert (QMI) 1. Results from a thermal model of the furnace core were used as initial boundary conditions for solidification modeling. General model of binary alloy solidification was based on the finite element code FIDAP. It was found that for the worst case orientation of 90 degrees with the gravity vector and a g level of 10(exp -4)g(sub o) (g(sub o) = 9.8 m/s(exp 2)) the dominant forces acting on the particle would be the fundamental drag and interfacial forces.

Bune, Andris V.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Transport coefficients for magnetic-field evolution in inviscid magnetohydrodynamics

The magnetized resistivity and electrothermal tensors when substituted into the induction equation lead to electrothermal magnetic field generation, resistive magnetic diffusion, and magnetic field advection due to resistivity gradients, temperature gradients and currents. Here, the advection terms driven by temperature gradient and current have cross-field components (perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the driving term) that depend on significantly modified versions of Braginskii’s transport coefficients. The improved fits to Braginskii’s coefficients given by Epperlein and Haines and Ji and Held give physically incorrect results for cross-field advection at small Hall parameters (product of cyclotron frequency and collision time). The errors in Epperlein and Haines’ fits are particularly severe, giving increasing advection velocities below a Hall parameter of one when they should decrease linearly to zero. Epperlein and Haines’ fits can also give erroneous advection terms due to variations in effective atomic number. The only serious error in Braginskii’s fits is an overestimate in advection due to perpendicular resistivity. New fits for the cross-field advection terms are obtained from a direct numerical solution of the Fokker-Planck equation and Ji and Held’s higher order expansion approach that are continuous functions of the effective atomic number.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Unification of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics and the mode-resolved phonon Boltzmann equation for thermal transport simulations

Nano-size confinement induces many intriguing non-Fourier heat conduction phenomena, such as nonlinear temperature gradients, temperature jumps near the contacts, and size-dependent thermal conductivity. Over the past decades, these effects have been studied and interpreted by nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) and phonon Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) simulations separately, but no theory that unifies these two methods has ever been established. In this work, we unify these methods using a quantitative mode-level comparison and demonstrate that they are equivalent for various thermostats. We show that different thermostats result in different non-Fourier thermal transport characteristics due to the different mode-level phonon excitations inside the thermostats, which explains the different size-dependent thermal conductivities calculated using different reservoirs, even though they give the same bulk thermal conductivity. Specifically, the Langevin thermostat behaves like a thermalizing boundary in phonon BTE and provides mode-level thermal-equilibrium phonon outlets, while the Nose-Hoover chain thermostat and velocity rescaling method behave like biased reservoirs, which provide a spatially uniform heat generation and mode-level nonequilibrium phonon outlets. These findings explain why different experimental measurement methods can yield different size-dependent thermal conductivity. They also indicate that the thermal conductivity of materials can be tuned for various applications by specifically designing thermostats. Finally, the unification of NEMD and phonon BTE will largely facilitate the study of thermal transport in complex systems in the future by, e.g., replacing computationally unaffordable first-principles NEMD simulations with computationally less expensive spectral BTE simulations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
NASA NTRS1988

Convection in the vertical Bridgman-Stockbarger technique

The influence of operating parameters on convection in the Bridgman-Stockbarger technique was studied with a transparent furnace and melt. Convection was nearly nonexistent near the interface in the vertically stabilized configuration (temperature increasing with height). With the addition of a short booster heater between the main heater and the cooler, a destabilizing temperature gradient (temperature decreasing with height) was produced in the melt near the interface, and significant convection was produced throughout the entire melt. Convective velocities increased and flow symmetry improved as power to the booster heater was increased.

Neugebauer, Gregory T.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Pyrolytic graphite gauge for measuring heat flux

A gauge for measuring heat flux, especially heat flux encountered in a high temperature environment, is provided. The gauge includes at least one thermocouple and an anisotropic pyrolytic graphite body that covers at least part of, and optionally encases the thermocouple. Heat flux is incident on the anisotropic pyrolytic graphite body by arranging the gauge so that the gauge surface on which convective and radiative fluxes are incident is perpendicular to the basal planes of the pyrolytic graphite. The conductivity of the pyrolytic graphite permits energy, transferred into the pyrolytic graphite body in the form of heat flux on the incident (or facing) surface, to be quickly distributed through the entire pyrolytic graphite body, resulting in small substantially instantaneous temperature gradients. Temperature changes to the body can thereby be measured by the thermocouple, and reduced to quantify the heat flux incident to the body.

Bunker, Robert C.↗
DOE OSTI2018

Self-similar solutions for multi-species plasma mixing by gradient driven transport

We report that multi-species transport of plasma ions across an initial interface between DT and CH is shown to exhibit self-similar species density profiles under 1D isobaric conditions. Results using transport theory from recent studies and using a Maxwell–Stephan multi-species approximation are found to be in good agreement for the self-similar mix profiles of the four ions under isothermal and isobaric conditions. The individual ion species mass flux and molar flux profile results through the mixing layer are examined using transport theory. The sum over species mass flux is confirmed to be zero as required, and the sum over species molar flux is related to a local velocity divergence needed to maintain pressure equilibrium during the transport process. The light ion species mass fluxes are dominated by the diagonal coefficients of the diffusion transport matrix, while for the heaviest ion species (C in this case), the ion flux with only the diagonal term is reduced by about a factor two from that using the full diffusion matrix, implying the heavy species moves more by frictional collisions with the lighter species than by its own gradient force. Temperature gradient forces were examined by comparing profile results with and without imposing constant temperature gradients chosen to be of realistic magnitude for ICF experimental conditions at a fuel-capsule interface (10 μm scale length or greater). The temperature gradients clearly modify the relative concentrations of the ions, for example near the fuel center, however the mixing across the fuel-capsule interface appears to be minimally influenced by the temperature gradient forces within the expected compression and burn time. Finally, discussion considers the application of the self-similar profiles to specific conditions in ICF.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Experimental system for studying temperature gradient-driven fracture of oxide nuclear fuel out of reactor

Temperature gradients in ceramic light water reactor (LWR) uranium dioxide (UO 2 ) nuclear fuel pellets generate thermal stresses that cause fractures in the fuel beginning early in the life of fresh fuel. The combination of heating due to fission and forced convective cooling on the exterior of LWR fuel rods generates a temperature profile that is difficult to replicate outside the reactor environment. In the present study, a state-of-the-art experimental set-up using electrical heating to replicate fission heating was built and surrogate fuel materials such as ceria (CeO 2 ) were used to validate the system. Cracking experiments were conducted on these surrogates by inducing reactivity-initiated-accident (RIA) like temperature gradients in the pellets via induction and direct resistance heating. Induction heating was done using copper coils and molybdenum susceptors which heated the surrogates to a threshold temperature that is sufficiently high for the fuel material to conduct current. Thereafter, direct resistance heating was used by a D.C. power supply to introduce volumetric heating to replicate LWR operating conditions analogous to fission heating. The pellets were held against nickel electrodes and mounted on a boron nitride test-stand. All the tests were carried out in a stainless-steel vacuum chamber. Simultaneous real-time dual imaging of the surrogate pellet surface has been implemented using an optical and infrared camera system which will be mounted along axial and perpendicular directions to the pellet surface respectively. A beam-splitter was used to split the incoming radiation from the sample into two halves. While one of the beams is transmitted from the splitter through a bandpass filter to obtain optical images, the other beam is reflected from the splitter to the thermal camera to capture full field temperature gradients of the as fabricated pellet surface during crack initiation and propagation. In the current series of tests, a 2-color pyrometer was used for recording and comparing the surface and centerline temperatures of the surrogate pellets in lieu of the thermal camera. A LabVIEW data acquisition system has been set up for collecting useful data during experiments.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Impact of Lateral Mixing in the Ocean on El Nino in a Suite of Fully Coupled Climate Models

Abstract We examine the dependence of the amplitude of the El Nino‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the mixing coefficient parameterizing the lateral mixing of tracers (A Redi ) The value of this coefficient is very uncertain, ranging in Earth System Models between a few hundred and a few thousand m 2 s −1 , with some observational estimates showing even higher values. A suite of simulations is made with two spatially varying distributions of A Redi derived from satellite observations as well as four simulations where a spatially constant A Redi is varied over a factor of 6. Surprisingly, larger values of A Redi result in stronger ENSO variability despite the higher mixing coefficients producing more efficient lateral diffusive damping of anomalies. This is because lateral mixing also warms the cold tongue, increasing vertical temperature gradients and decreasing horizontal temperature gradients. Larger vertical temperature gradients make sea surface temperatures more responsive to atmospheric forcing, while smaller horizontal temperature gradients shift the location of convection and make the atmosphere more responsive to sea surface temperature anomalies. The last effect holds across simulations as well as within individual simulations and thus also helps to explain interdecadal variability in ENSO amplitude. By contrast, a previously proposed anticorrelation between the amplitude interannual and annual variability does not hold across simulations, although it does hold within simulations. The propagation of thermocline depth anomalies is relatively insensitive to the value of A Redi . Properly specifying the lateral mixing along the equator (including distinguishing the impacts of subgridscale turbulence and tropical instability waves) appears essential to simulating ENSO.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1977

Surface tension induced convection in encapsulated liquid metals in a microgravity environment. Experiment MA-041

The experiment was designed to detect possible convection caused by a steplike compositional variation in a liquid metal in a microgravity environment. Wetting and nonwetting ampoules were used to try to determine the extent of the stirring effects if they were present. Since stirring effects can be caused by temperature gradients, the temperature gradients were minimized. Steplike compositional variation was created by pressure bonding a lead-0.05 atom percent gold alloy to pure lead. Two diffusion temperatures (923 K and 723 K) were used; if no stirring effects were present, it was hoped that the liquid diffusion parameters for gold in lead could be obtained. Two identifical experimental arrangements were used to compare the transport mechanisms of gold in liquid lead in unit gravity and microgravity environments.

Reed, R. E.↗
DOE OSTI2018

Overview of the Wendelstein 7-X phase contrast imaging diagnostic

A phase contrast imaging (PCI) diagnostic has been developed for the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. This diagnostic, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, is a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Plasmaphysics, MIT, and SUNY Cortland. The primary motivation for the development of the PCI diagnostic is measurement of turbulent fluctuations, such as the ion temperature gradient, electron temperature gradient, and the trapped electron mode instabilities. Understanding how the magnetic geometry and other externally controllable parameters, such as the fueling method and heating scheme, modify the amplitude and spectrum of turbulence is important for finding operational scenarios that can lead to improved performance at fusion-relevant temperatures and densities. The PCI system is also sensitive to coherent fluctuations, as may arise from Alfvén eigenmodes or other MHD activity, for example. The PCI method creates an image of line-integrated variations in the index of refraction. For a plasma, the image created is proportional to the line-integral of electron density fluctuations. Here, this paper provides an overview of some key features of the hardware and the optical system and presents two examples of recent measurements from the W7-X OP1.2a experimental campaign.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗