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At least 235 records · Page 13

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NASA NTRS1985

Speckle interferometry of asteroids. I - 433 Eros

Analytical expressions are derived for the semimajor and semiminor axes and orientation angle of the ellipse projected by a triaxial asteroid, and the results are applied speckle-interferometry observations of the 433 Eros asteroid. The expressions were calculated as functions of the dimensions and pole of the body and of the asterocentric position of the earth and the sun. On the basis of the analytical expressions, the dimensions of 433 Eros are obtained. The light curve from December 18, 1981 is compared to the dimensions to obtain a geometric albedo of 0.156 (+ or - 0.010). A series of two-dimensional power spectra and autocorrelation functions for 433 Eros show that it is spinning in space.

Drummond, J. D.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Two-dimensional modelling of compressive failure in delaminated laminates

An analytical model is developed to assess the compressive strength criticality of near-surface interlaminar defects in laminated composites. The delaminated region is elliptic in shape, separating a thick isotropic plate from a thin orthotropic layer whose material axes coincide with the ellipse axes. The growth conditions and growth behavior of this defect are studied by breaking the overall problem into an elastic stability problem and a fracture problem. Post-buckling solution for the elliptic section is obtained using the Rayleigh-Ritz method while an energy balance criterion based on a self-similar disbond growth governs the fracture. The parameters controlling the growth or arrest of the delamination damage are identified as the fracture energy, disbond depth and elastic properties of the materials from both sides of the delaminating interface. By varying the degree of material anisotropy relative to the loading axis a range in growth behavior was found including stable or unstable crack growth parallel to or normal to the loading axis.

Chai, H.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Numerical simulation of vortical flow over an elliptical-body missile at high angles of attack

Numerical solutions to the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are given for the flow about an elliptical body missile (3:1 ellipse) at a Mach number of 2.5 and a unit Reynolds number of 6.56 x 10 to the 6th/m. At high angles of attack, the flow is dominated by large-scale free vortices which occur in the lee-side flow field due to crossflow boundary-layer separation. Emphasis is focused on the accurate prediction of the lee-side vortical flow. Solutions are presented for both symmetric and asymmetric (body rolled 45 deg) configurations at 10 deg and 20 deg angle of attack. The computed results are compared with experimental surface pressure coefficients and vapor-screen photographs. Excellent agreement is obtained in all cases.

Newsome, R. N.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Structural deformation of the Leoville chondrite

A petrofabric study of the Leoville chondrite was performed in order to gain an understanding of its deformation process. Strain values were determined from the chondrules' axial ratios or by the all-object-separation method, and the compaction required to deform Leoville chondrules was calculated from the decrease of radius in the circle-to-ellipse transformation. Structural and strain studies indicate the following order of events experienced by Leoville: (1) formation as an accretionary breccia, (2) compaction and development of foliation, (3) fracturing, possibly due to impact on earth, and (4) terrestrial weathering. Similarities between the axial ratios of chondrules (1.9-2.0) and of the whole meteorite (2.0) indicate either that Leoville deformed homogeneously or that it deformed as a framework of touching chondrules. This amount of strain corresponds to approximately 33 percent uniaxial shortening, assuming constant volume, and is likely to have been caused by compaction due to overburden from progressive accretion on the chondrite body. Diffusional flow is believed to be the mechanism by which olivines in these chondrules deformed.

Cain, P. M.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Generation of spiral bevel gears with zero kinematical errors and computer aided simulation of their meshing and contact

There is proposed a method for generation of Gleason's spiral bevel gears which provides the following properties of meshing and contact: (1) the contact normal keeps its original direction within the neighborhood of the main contact point; (2) the contact ellipse moves along the gear tooth surface; and (3) the kinematical errors caused by Gleason's method of cutting are almost zero. Computer programs for the simulation of meshing and bearing contact are developed.

Litvin, F. L.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Random scattering approach to gravitational microlensing

Small random deflections of a narrow beam of radiation due to gravitational scattering by stars randomly distributed within the deflector plane are considered. Using a Fouriere transform method, the probability of scattering is obtained as a function of scattering angle for an arbitrary number of stars with an arbitrary distribution of masses. The probability density, expressed in proper units, depends on one parameter only: the effective number of stars. At small scattering angles the density is a Gaussian, and at large angles it falls off as the scattering angle to the minus fourth power. The probability distribution for scatterings is simply related to the angular distribution of the surface brightness of a macroimage, averaged over many microimages. The isophotes are ellipses, with the ratio of the major axis to the minor axis, determined by the dimensionless surface mass density and the shear of the lensing system. The number of stars that has to be included in the modeling of microlensing is proportional to the amplification due to the macrolens, and to the square of the dimensionless surface mass density.

Katz, N.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Lewis inverse design code (LINDES): Users manual

The method of complex characteristics and hodograph transformation for the design of shockless airfoils was introduced by Bauer, Garabedian, and Korn and has been extended by the author to design subcritical and supercritical cascades with high solidities and large inlet angles. This new capability was achieved by introducing a new conformal mapping of the hodograph domain onto an ellipse and expanding the solution in terms of Chebyshev polynomials. A new computer code, the NASA Lewis inverse design code, was developed based on this idea. This new design code is an efficient method for the design of airfoils in cascade. In particular, the design of subcritical cascades of airfoils is a very fast, robust, and versatile process. The inverse design code can be made to interact with a turbulent boundary layer calculation to obtain airfoils with no separated flows at the design condition. This report is intended to serve as a users manual for this design code. Material previously reported by the author is included here for completeness and quick access to the user. The manual contains a description of the method followed by a discussion of the design procedure and examples. The input parameters necessary to run the code are then described and their default values given. Output listings corresponding to six different blade shapes designed with the code are given, as well as the necessary input data to reproduce the computer runs. The examples have been chosen to show that a wide range of applications can be covered with the code, ranging from supercritical propeller sections to wind tunnel turning vanes that can operate with a large inlet flow angle range.

Sanz, Jose M.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Verification of performance results for a low-speed 15 percent elliptical circulation control airfoil

Low-speed wind tunnel tests performed by the Naval Ship Research and Development Center (NSRDC) on a circulation control airfoil model was repeated by the Joint Institute for Aerodynamics and Acoustics in an attempt to reproduce the performance results. The model used was a 15% ellipse with interchangeable trailing edges. Surface pressure measurements were taken to obtain lift and pitching moment coefficients as functions of jet blowing momentum, and the momentum deficit in the wake was measured and used to calculate the drag coefficient. The effects of spanwise slot height variation and of leading edge blowing on performance were also investigated. The performance results showed that of the three slot heights tested, a slot height/chord ratio of 0.0022 produced the most lift coefficient for a given blowing rate. Lift obtained in the current test ranged from 2 to 35% lower than the NSRDC test. However, the two data sets compared reasonably well considering wind tunnel and wall blowing scheme differences. The spanwise lift distribution showed less change in lift due to a variation in slot height than expected. The leading edge blowing results demonstrated that although lift initially decreased, a positive lift increment was possible at higher leading edge blowing rates.

Rodman, L. C.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Shapes of small satellites

The accurate measurement of limb coordinates on small satellite is the major technique for evaluating their sizes and shapes in the absence of good stereoscopic image coverage. The shapes of satellites may be clues to their internal structure if they are relaxed into ellipsoids. The distinction between irregular and ellipsoidal satellites can now be made quantitatively with the availability of many accurate limb profiles of satellites. The residuals from these fit ellipses provide a convenient and quantitative measure of the topography on the satellites. Departures from gravitational (and tidal) equipotentials would be greater, but on the average this is a good measure of the relaxed or nonrelaxed nature of the shape of the objects. The limb topography is also related to specific forms on the objects, and a systematic survey of these forms on small and larger objects is underway.

Thomas, P.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Design of anisotropic plates for improved damage tolerance

An analytical study is presented showing the effects of the notch tip geometry on the location and direction of crack growth from an existing notch in a unidirectional fibrous composite modeled as a homogeneous, anisotropic, elastic material. Anisotropic elasticity and the normal stress ratio theory are used to study crack growth from elliptical notches in unidirectional composites. Sharp cracks, circular holes, and ellipses are studied under far-field tension and shear loading. The capabilities of a previously developed design code was upgraded to handle more generalized plate geometries and laminates under a more generalized loading and boundary conditions. Discussion of the developments of the design code is presented.

Guerdal, Zafer↗

NASA NTRS1986

Structure of the Uranian rings. II - Ring orbits and widths

A square-well model was used to calculate the midtimes, widths and optical depths at visible and IR wavelengths of the nine Uranian rings based on 13 occultation measurements from 1977-1983. Many of the measurement campaigns contained data from repeated crossings. An improved kinematical model is developed for the ring system, noting that the gamma and delta rings were confirmed to depart from Keplerian ellipses. Upper limits are calculated for the sizes of shepherd satellites of various potential densities. The ring width determinations demonstrate the existence of significant width perturbations in the rings, which all displayed particle shadowing.

French, R. G.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Orbit determination accuracy assessment for an asteroid flyby - A Galileo case study

The Galileo spacecraft may be targeted for a close flyby of an asteroid on its way to an encounter with Jupiter. An orbit determination accuracy analysis was carried out for the case of the asteroid 29 Amphitrite based on the use of radio metric and optical data types. Prior to encounter, the uncertainty in the asteroid's position, based on astrometric observations from earth, amounts to several hundred kilometers. This ephemeris uncertainty constitutes the dominant error in the determination of the spacecraft orbit with respect to Amphitrite. It is shown that the spacecraft-asteroid relative position can be improved by imaging asteroid-star pairs with the Galileo charge-coupled device (CCD) camera, enabling an accurate flyby of the asteroid. The main benefit of optical navigation is to enable the instrument pointing updates necessary for closeup viewing of the asteroid. A discussion of the evolution of the target error ellipse parameters as a function of data coverage and various combinations of radiometric and optical data types is also presented.

Kechichian, Jean A.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Statistics of equivalent width data and new oscillator strengths for Si II, Fe II, and Mn II

Equivalent width data from Copernicus and IUE appear to have an exponential, rather than a Gaussian distribution of errors. This is probably because there is one dominant source of error: the assignment of the background continuum shape. The maximum likelihood method of parameter estimation is presented for the case of exponential statistics, in enough generality for application to many problems. The method is applied to global fitting of Si II, Fe II, and Mn II oscillator strengths and interstellar gas parameters along many lines of sight. The new values agree in general with previous determinations but are usually much more tightly constrained. Finally, it is shown that care must be taken in deriving acceptable regions of parameter space because the probability contours are not generally ellipses whose axes are parallel to the coordinate axes.

Van Buren, Dave↗

NASA NTRS1987

New main reflector, subreflector and dual chamber concepts for compact range applications

A compact range is a facility used for the measurement of antenna radiation and target scattering problems. Most presently available parabolic reflectors do not produce ideal uniform plane waves in the target zone. Design improvements are suggested to reduce the amplitude taper, ripple and cross polarization errors. The ripple caused by diffractions from the reflector edges can be reduced by adding blended rolled edges and shaping the edge contour. Since the reflected edge continues smoothly from the parabola onto the rolled surface, rather than being abruptly terminated, the discontinuity in the reflected field is reduced which results in weaker diffracted fields. This is done by blending the rolled edges from the parabola into an ellipse. An algorithm which enables one to design optimum blended rolled edges was developed that is based on an analysis of the continuity of the surface radius of curvature and its derivatives across the junction. Futhermore, a concave edge contour results in a divergent diffracted ray pattern and hence less stray energy in the target zone. Design equations for three-dimensional reflectors are given. Various examples were analyzed using a new physical optics method which eliminates the effects of the false scattering centers on the incident shadow boundaries. A Gregorian subreflector system, in which both the subreflector and feed axes are tilted, results in a substantial reduction in the amplitude taper and cross polarization errors. A dual chamber configuration is proposed to eliminate the effects of diffraction from the subreflector and spillover from the feed. A computationally efficient technique, based on ray tracing and aperture integration, was developed to analyze the scattering from a lossy dielectric slab with a wedge termination.

Pistorius, C. W. I.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Pressure distributions and oil-flow patterns for a swept circulation-control wing

Pressure distributions and photographs of oil flow patterns are presented for a circulation control wing. The model was an aspect ratio four semispan wing mounted on the side wall of the NASA Ames Transonic Wind Tunnel. The airfoil was a 20 percent thick ellipse, modified with circular leading and trailing edges of 4 percent radius, and had a 25.4 cm constant chord. This configuration does not represent a specific wing design, but is generic. A full span, tangetial, rearward blowing, circulation control slot was incorporated ahead of the trailing edge on the upper surface. The wing was tested at Mach numbers from 0.3 to 0.75 at sweep angle of 0 to 45 deg with internal to external pressure ratios of 1.0 to 3.0. Lift and pitching momemt coefficients were obtained from measured pressure distributions at five span stations. When the conventional corrections resulting from sweep angle are applied to the lift and moment of circulation control sections, no additional corrections are necessary to account for changes in blowing efficiency. This is demonstrated for an aft sweep angle of 45 deg. An empirical technique for estimating the downwash distribution of a swept wing was validated.

Keener, Earl R.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Semantic based man-machine interface for real-time communication

A flight expert system (FLES) was developed to assist pilots in monitoring, diagnosing and recovering from in-flight faults. To provide a communications interface between the flight crew and FLES, a natural language interface (NALI) was implemented. Input to NALI is processed by three processors: (1) the semantics parser; (2) the knowledge retriever; and (3) the response generator. First the semantic parser extracts meaningful words and phrases to generate an internal representation of the query. At this point, the semantic parser has the ability to map different input forms related to the same concept into the same internal representation. Then the knowledge retriever analyzes and stores the context of the query to aid in resolving ellipses and pronoun references. At the end of this process, a sequence of retrievel functions is created as a first step in generating the proper response. Finally, the response generator generates the natural language response to the query. The architecture of NALI was designed to process both temporal and nontemporal queries. The architecture and implementation of NALI are described.

Ali, M.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Effect of initial flaw shape on crack extension in orthotropic composite materials

An analytical study is presented showing the effects of the notch tip geometry on the location and direction of crack growth from an existing notch in a unidirectional fibrous composite modelled as a homogeneous, anisotropic, elastic material. Anisotropic elasticity and the normal stress ratio theory are used to study crack growth from elliptical notches in unidirectional composites. Sharp cracks, circular holes, and ellipses are studied under far-field tension and shear loading. Limited comparisons are made showing good correlation with experimental results.

Gurdal, Z.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Eccentric features in Saturn's outer C ring

The present search for possible eccentric and inclined features in the outer C ring of Saturn measured all sharp-edged feature radii in Voyager C ring data. The Maxwell ringlet and two other narrow ringlets, 1.470R(s) and 1.495R(s) are found to be eccentric; the latter is best fitted by a model describing a freely precessing Keplerian ellipse, while the former is not conclusively fitted by either a resonant forcing or a free precession model. These two eccentric ringlets are compared with the Titan and Maxwell ringlets.

Porco, Carolyn C.↗