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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 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

An experimental study of wall adaptation and interference assessment using Cauchy integral formula

This paper summarizes the results of an experimental study of combined wall adaptation and residual interference assessment using the Cauchy integral formula. The experiments were conducted on a supercritical airfoil model in the Langley 0.3-m Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel solid flexible wall test section. The ratio of model chord to test section height was about 0.7. The method worked satisfactorily in reducing the blockage interference and demonstrated the primary requirement for correcting for the blockage effects at high model incidences to correctly determine high lift characteristics. The studies show that the method has potential for reducing the residual interference to considerably low levels. However, corrections to blockage and upwash velocities gradients may still be required for the final adapted wall shapes.

Murthy, A. V.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Preparations for Tomographic Background-Oriented Schlieren Measurements in the 11-by 11-Foot Transonic Wind Tunnel

Efforts from a collaboration involving NASA’s Langley, Glenn, and Ames Research Centers to construct and test a tomographic background-oriented schlieren system in preparation for testing at the Ames 11-by 11-foot Transonic Wind Tunnel are discussed. To prepare for the test and to evaluate the probability of success, a mock-up of the tunnel test section was constructed at Langley. Schematics and renderings of the tunnel were used to place eight gigabit Ethernet CMOS cameras circumferentially around approximately 180° of the mock-up. Camera modules designed in-house were used to provide on-axis lighting to get maximum intensity return from the retroreflective backgrounds. A data acquisition system was designed to control the eight cameras and light sources with an acquisition rate of 4 Hz. A novel method for creation of the speckled background was developed for the test, enabling simple application and removal of the material on the tunnel walls. A tea light candle and a heat gun with two different nozzle shape attachments were used to provide an index of refraction gradient field to assess the quality of the 2D and tomographic results from the system. The heat gun was again used as an initial test article after the camera system had been set up at the Ames tunnel, giving similar results to those seen at the mock-up, and indicating a high probability of success for the testing campaign.

Joshua M. Weisberger↗
NASA NTRS1979

Bubble behavior during solidification in low gravity

The trapping and behavior of gas bubbles were studied during low-gravity solidification of carbon tetrabromide, a transparent metal-model material. The experiment was performed during a NASA-sponsored sounding rocket flight and involved gradient freeze solidification of a gas-saturated melt. Gas bubbles were evolved at the solid-liquid interface during the low-gravity interval. No large-scale thermal migration of bubbles, bubble pushing by the solid-liquid interface, or bubble detachment from the interface were observed during the low-gravity experiment. A unique bubble motion-fluid flow event occurred in one specimen: a large bubble moved downward and caused some circulation of the melt. The gas bubbles that were trapped by the solid in commercial-purity material formed voids that had a cylindrical shape, in contrast to the spherical shape that had been observed in a prior low-gravity experiment. These shapes were not influenced by the gravity level (0.0001 g-0 vs g-0), but were dependent upon the initial temperature gradient. In higher purity material, however, the shape of the voids changed from cylindrical in 1g to spherical in low gravity.

Papazian, J. M.↗
DOE OSTI2016

An adjoint method for a high-order discretization of deforming domain conservation laws for optimization of flow problems

We report the fully discrete adjoint equations and the corresponding adjoint method are derived for a globally high-order accurate discretization of conservation laws on parametrized, deforming domains. The conservation law on the deforming domain is transformed into one on a fixed reference domain by the introduction of a time-dependent mapping that encapsulates the domain deformation and parametrization, resulting in an Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian form of the governing equations. A high-order discontinuous Galerkin method is used to discretize the transformed equation in space and a high-order diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta scheme is used for the temporal discretization. Quantities of interest that take the form of space–time integrals are discretized in a solver-consistent manner. The corresponding fully discrete adjoint method is used to compute exact gradients of quantities of interest along the manifold of solutions of the fully discrete conservation law. These quantities of interest and their gradients are used in the context of gradient-based PDE-constrained optimization. The adjoint method is used to solve two optimal shape and control problems governed by the isentropic, compressible Navier–Stokes equations. The first optimization problem seeks the energetically optimal trajectory of a 2D airfoil given a required initial and final spatial position. The optimization solver, driven by gradients computed via the adjoint method, reduced the total energy required to complete the specified mission nearly an order of magnitude. The second optimization problem seeks the energetically optimal flapping motion and time-morphed geometry of a 2D airfoil given an equality constraint on the x-directed impulse generated on the airfoil. The optimization solver satisfied the impulse constraint to greater than 8 digits of accuracy and reduced the required energy between a factor of 2 and 10, depending on the value of the impulse constraint, as compared to the nominal configuration.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Multiwavelength study of the star formation in the S237 H ii region

We present a detailed multiwavelength study of observations from X-ray, near-infrared, and centimeter wavelengths to probe the star formation processes in the S237 region. Multiwavelength images trace an almost sphere-like shell morphology of the region, which is filled with the 0.5–2 keV X-ray emission. The region contains two distinct environments—a bell-shaped cavity-like structure containing the peak of 1.4 GHz emission at center, and elongated filamentary features without any radio detection at edges of the sphere-like shell—where Herschel clumps are detected. Using the 1.4 GHz continuum and {sup 12}CO line data, the S237 region is found to be excited by a radio spectral type of B0.5V star and is associated with an expanding H ii region. The photoionized gas appears to be responsible for the origin of the bell-shaped structure. The majority of molecular gas is distributed toward a massive Herschel clump (M{sub clump} ∼ 260 M{sub ⊙}), which contains the filamentary features and has a noticeable velocity gradient. The photometric analysis traces the clusters of young stellar objects (YSOs) mainly toward the bell-shaped structure and the filamentary features. Considering the lower dynamical age of the H ii region (i.e., 0.2–0.8 Myr), these clusters are unlikely to be formed by the expansion of the H ii region. Our results also show the existence of a cluster of YSOs and a massive clump at the intersection of filamentary features, indicating that the collisions of these features may have triggered cluster formation, similar to those found in the Serpens South region.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Optical shaping of gas targets for laser–plasma ion sources

In this paper, we report on the experimental demonstration of a technique to generate steep density gradients in gas-jet targets of interest to laser–plasma ion acceleration. By using an intentional low-energy prepulse, we generated a hydrodynamic blast wave in the gas to shape the target prior to the arrival of an intense CO $_{2}$ ( ${\it\lambda}\approx 10~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$ ) drive pulse. This technique has been recently shown to facilitate the generation of ion beams by shockwave acceleration (Tresca et al. , Phys. Rev. Lett. , vol. 115 (9), 2015, 094802). Here, we discuss and introduce a model to understand the generation of these blast waves and discuss in depth the experimental realisation of the technique, supported by hydrodynamics simulations. With appropriate prepulse energy and timing, this blast wave can generate steepened density gradients as short as $l\approx 20~{\rm\mu}\text{m}$ ( $1/e$ ), opening up new possibilities for laser–plasma studies with near-critical gaseous targets.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Shape optimization under uncertainty for rotor blades of horizontal axis wind turbines

We present a computational framework for the shape optimization of a Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) rotor blade under uncertainty. Our framework integrates aerodynamic simulations based on the blade element method which utilizes reduced order models of the blade structure and wind load with design sensitivity analysis and nonlinear programming. The wind velocity is modeled as a stochastic process to account for variations in time and space. An additional stochastic process accounts for uncertainties in the structural material properties. The uncertainty propagation is based on a non-intrusive polynomial chaos expansion that allows accurate estimation of stochastic performance metrics such as generated power and structural compliance. Sensitivities of cost and constraint functions with respect to shape parameters namely twist angles are computed with an efficient scheme to enable gradient based optimization. To demonstrate the effect of uncertainty, designs obtained from optimization under uncertainty are compared to those obtained from deterministic optimization.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Thermodynamic potential and phase diagram for multiferroic bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3 )

Here, we construct a Landau–Ginzburg thermodynamic potential, and the corresponding phase diagram for pristine and slightly doped bismuth ferrite, a ferroelectric antiferromagnet at room temperature. The potential is developed based on new X-ray and neutron diffraction experiments complementing available data. We demonstrate that a strong biquadratic antiferrodistortive-type coupling is the key to a quantitative description of Bi 1–x La x FeO 3 multiferroic phase diagram including the temperature stability of the antiferromagnetic, ferroelectric, and antiferrodistortive phases, as well as for the prediction of novel intermediate structural phases. Furthermore, we show that “rotomagnetic” antiferrodistortive–antiferromagnetic coupling is very important to describe the ferroelectric polarization and antiferrodistortive tilt behavior in the R3c phase of BiFeO 3 . The Landau–Ginzburg thermodynamic potential is able to describe the sequence of serial and trigger-type phase transitions, the temperature-dependent behavior of the order parameters, and the corresponding susceptibilities to external stimuli. It can also be employed to predict the corresponding ferroelectric and antiferrodistortive properties of Bi 1–x La x FeO 3 thin films and nanoparticles by incorporating the gradient and surface energy terms that are strongly dependent on the shape, size, and preparation method.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Prospects for H-mode inhibition in negative triangularity tokamak reactor plasmas

Instability to high toroidal mode number ($\textit{n}$) ballooning modes has been proposed as the primary gradient-limiting mechanism for tokamak equilibria with negative triangularity (NT) (δ) shaping, preventing access to strong H-mode regimes when δ is sufficiently negative. To understand how this mechanism extrapolates to reactor conditions, we model the infinite-$\textit{n}$ ballooning stability as a function of internal profiles and equilibrium shape using a combination of the CHEASE and BALOO codes. While the critical δ required for avoiding 2nd stability to high-$\textit{n}$ modes is observed to depend in a complicated way on various shaping parameters, including the equilibrium inverse aspect ratio, elongation and squareness, equilibria with NT are robustly prohibited from accessing the 2nd stability region, offering the prediction that NT reactors should maintain L-mode-like operation. In order to access high-$\textit{n}$ 2nd stability, the local shear over the entire bad curvature region must be sufficiently negative to overcome curvature destabilization on the low field side. Finally, scalings of the ballooning-limited pedestal height are provided as a function of plasma parameters to aid future scenario design.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1972

Pressure-gradient effects on hypersonic turbulent skin friction and boundary-layer profiles.

Local skin friction, total-temperature profiles, and pitot-pressure profiles were measured on the wall of a Mach-7.4 wind tunnel. The wall to adiabatic wall temperature ratio was varied from 0.3 to 0.5. Boundary-layer characteristics were compared with those predicted by a finite-difference method. Local skin friction was predicted to within 15%. Pressure-gradient effects on the temperature and Mach number distributions and the shape factor (displacement thickness/momentum thickness) were underpredicted, but the velocity distributions were closely predicted.

Hopkins, E. J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Documentation of Two- and Three-Dimensional Hypersonic Shock Wave/Turbulent Boundary Layer Interaction Flows

Experimental data for a series of two- and three-dimensional shock wave/turbulent boundary layer interaction flows at Mach 7 are presented. Test bodies, composed of simple geometric shapes, were designed to generate flows with varying degrees of pressure gradient, boundary-layer separation, and turning angle. The data include surface-pressure and heat-transfer distributions as well as limited mean-flow-field surveys in both the undisturbed and the interaction regimes. The data are presented in a convenient form for use in validating existing or future computational models of these generic hypersonic flows.

Kussoy, Marvin I.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Navier-Stokes analysis and experimental data comparison of compressible flow within ducts

Many aircraft employ ducts with centerline curvature or changing cross-sectional shape to join the engine with inlet and exhaust components. S-ducts convey air to the engine compressor from the intake and often decelerate the flow to achieve an acceptable Mach number at the engine compressor by increasing the cross-sectional area downstream. Circular-to-rectangular transition ducts are used on aircraft with rectangular exhaust nozzles to connect the engine and nozzle. To achieve maximum engine performance, the ducts should minimize flow total pressure loss and total pressure distortion at the duct exit. Changes in the curvature of the duct centerline or the duct cross-sectional shape give rise to streamline curvature which causes cross stream pressure gradients. Secondary flows can be caused by deflection of the transverse vorticity component of the boundary layer. This vortex tilting results in counter-rotating vortices. Additionally, the adverse streamwise pressure gradient caused by increasing cross-sectional area can lead to flow separation. Vortex pairs have been observed in the exit planes of both duct types. These vortices are due to secondary flows induced by pressure gradients resulting from streamline curvature. Regions of low total pressure are produced when the vortices convect boundary layer fluid into the main flow. The purpose of the present study is to predict the measured flow field in a diffusing S-duct and a circular-to-rectangular transition duct with a full Navier-Stokes computer program, PARC3D, and to compare the numerical predictions with new detailed experimental measurements. The work was undertaken to extend previous studies and to provide additional CFD validation data needed to help model flows with strong secondary flow and boundary layer separation. The S-duct computation extends the study of Smith et al, and Harloff et al, which concluded that the computation might be improved by using a finer grid and more advanced turbulence models. The present study compares results for both the Baldwin-Lomas and k-epsilon turbulence models and is conducted with a refined grid. For the transition duct, two inlet conditions were considered, the first with straight flow and the second with swirling flow. The first case permits examination of the effects of the geometric transition on the flow field, while the second case includes the rotational flow effect characteristic of a gas turbine engine.

Harloff, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Noise and Dynamical Pattern Selection in Solidification

The overall goal of this project was to understand in more detail how a pattern-forming system can adjust its spacing. "Pattern-forming systems," in this context, are nonequilibrium contina whose state is determined by experimentally adjustable control parameter. Below some critical value of the control system then has available to it a range of linearly stable, spatially periodic steady states, each characterized by a spacing which can lie anywhere within some band of values. These systems like directional solidification, where the solidification front is planar when the ratio of growth velocity to thermal gradient is below its critical value, but takes on a cellular shape above critical. They also include systems without interfaces, such as Benard convection, where it is the fluid velocity field which changes from zero to something spatially periodic as the control parameter is increased through its critical value. The basic question to be addressed was that of how the system chooses one of its myriad possible spacings when the control parameter is above critical, and in particular the role of noise in the selection process. Previous work on explosive crystallization had suggested that one spacing in the range should be preferred, in the sense that weak noise should eventually drive the system to that spacing. That work had also suggested a heuristic argument for identifying the preferred spacing. The project had three main objectives: to understand in more detail how a pattern-forming system can adjust its spacing; to investigate how noise drives a system to its preferred spacing; and to extend the heuristic argument for a preferred spacing in explosive crystallization to other pattern-forming systems.

Kurtze, Douglas A.↗
NASA NTRS1961

Boundary-Layer Transition on a Group of Blunt Nose Shapes at a Mach Number of 2.20

An investigation has been made to study boundary-layer transition on six axisymmetrical blunt bodies of revolution. Model shapes were selected with respect to the degree of favorable pressure gradient over the model surface. Tests were conducted at a Mach number of 2.20 and over a range of free-stream Reynolds number per foot of about 1.4 x 10(exp 6) to 6.5 x 10(exp 6). The tests were made at an angle of attack of 0 deg. with zero heat transfer. For the hemisphere, the flow remained essentially laminar over the model surface length for the entire pressure range of the tests. For a strong favorable pressure gradient followed by any weak favorable, neutral, or adverse gradient, the tendency was for transition to occur at or immediately behind the shoulder. A single strip of three-dimensional roughness in the region of strong favorable pressure gradient did not fix transition on the models at the roughness location except at the maximum test pressures, whereas a second roughness strip added in a region of neutral or adverse pressure gradient did fix transition. Experimental pressure coefficients agreed closely with modified Newtonian theory except in the shoulder region.

Jackson, Mary W.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Solidification and grain formation in alloys: a 2D application of the grand-potential-based phase-field approach

Solidification is a significant step in the forming of crystalline structures during various manufacturing and material processing techniques. Solidification characteristics and the microstructures formed during the process dictate the properties and performance of the materials. Hence, understanding how the process conditions relate to various microstructure formations is paramount. In this work, a grand-potential-based multi-phase, multi-component, multi-order-parameter phase-field model is used to demonstrate the solidification of alloys in 2D. This model has several key advantages over other multi-phase models such as it decouples the bulk energy from the interfacial energy, removes the constraints for the phase concentration variable, and prevents spurious third-phase formation at the two phase interfaces. Here, the model is implemented in a finite-element-based phase-field modeling code. The role of various modeling parameters in governing the solidification rate and the shape of the solidified structure is evaluated. It is demonstrated that the process conditions such as temperature gradient, thermal diffusion, cooling rate, etc, influence the solidification characteristics by altering the level of undercooling. Furthermore, the capability of the model to capture directional solidification and polycrystalline structure formation exhibiting various grain shapes is illustrated. In both these cases, the process conditions have been related to the growth rate and associated shape of the dendritic structure. As a result, this work serves as a stepping stone towards resolving the larger problem of understanding the process–structure–property–performance correlation in solidified materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

NMR diffusion-encoding with axial symmetry and variable anisotropy: Distinguishing between prolate and oblate microscopic diffusion tensors with unknown orientation distribution

We introduce a nuclear magnetic resonance method for quantifying the shape of axially symmetric microscopic diffusion tensors in terms of a new diffusion anisotropy metric, D{sub Δ}, which has unique values for oblate, spherical, and prolate tensor shapes. The pulse sequence includes a series of equal-amplitude magnetic field gradient pulse pairs, the directions of which are tailored to give an axially symmetric diffusion-encoding tensor b with variable anisotropy b{sub Δ}. Averaging of data acquired for a range of orientations of the symmetry axis of the tensor b renders the method insensitive to the orientation distribution function of the microscopic diffusion tensors. Proof-of-principle experiments are performed on water in polydomain lyotropic liquid crystals with geometries that give rise to microscopic diffusion tensors with oblate, spherical, and prolate shapes. The method could be useful for characterizing the geometry of fluid-filled compartments in porous solids, soft matter, and biological tissues.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS2001

Isolating Curvature Effects in Computing Wall-Bounded Turbulent Flows

The flow over the zero-pressure-gradient So-Mellor convex curved wall is simulated using the Navier-Stokes equations. An inviscid effective outer wall shape, undocumented in the experiment, is obtained by using an adjoint optimization method with the desired pressure distribution on the inner wall as the cost function. Using this wall shape with a Navier-Stokes method, the abilities of various turbulence models to simulate the effects of curvature without the complicating factor of streamwise pressure gradient can be evaluated. The one-equation Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model overpredicts eddy viscosity, and its boundary layer profiles are too full. A curvature-corrected version of this model improves results, which are sensitive to the choice of a particular constant. An explicit algebraic stress model does a reasonable job predicting this flow field. However, results can be slightly improved by modifying the assumption on anisotropy equilibrium in the model's derivation. The resulting curvature-corrected explicit algebraic stress model possesses no heuristic functions or additional constants. It lowers slightly the computed skin friction coefficient and the turbulent stress levels for this case (in better agreement with experiment), but the effect on computed velocity profiles is very small.

Rumsey, Christopher L.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Alfvén eigenmode stability and critical gradient energetic particle transport using the Trapped-Gyro-Landau-Fluid model

The Trapped-Gyro-Landau-Fluid (TGLF) transport model is a physically realistic and comprehensive theory based on a local quasilinear transport model fitted to linear and nonlinear GYRO gyrokinetic simulations [Staebler et al., Phys. Plasmas 14, 55909 (2007)]. This work presents the first use of the TGLF model to treat low-n Alfvén eigenmode (AE) stability and energetic particle (EP) transport. TGLF accurately recovers the local GYRO toroidicity-induced AE (TAE) and energetic particle mode (EPM) linear growth and frequency rates for a fusion alpha case. With a very high grid resolution, TGLF can quickly find the critical EP pressure gradient profile for stiff EP transport based on an AE linear threshold given the background thermal plasma profiles in DIII-D. The TGLF critical gradient profile using the recipe γ AE =0, that is the linear AE growth rate without additional driving rates from the background plasma gradients, matches the more expensive linear GYRO results with a single worst toroidal mode number n. TGLF can easily find the minimum critical gradient profile with testing multiple ns. From a database of runs using a newly developed TGLFEP code, a rough but insightful parametric “power law” scaling for critical EP beta is demonstrated. An important toroidal stabilization condition on the EP pressure gradient p EP /L$EP\atop{p}$ drive is isolated: R/L$EP\atop{p}$ > C R ~ 3, where L$EP\atop{p}$ is the EP pressure gradient length and R is the tokamak major radius. This paper also demonstrates that relaxation of the fixed slowing down EP profile shape approximation often used to find the critical EP density profile has little effect on the resulting EP transport. The single EP species critical gradient model is generalized to handle two EP species.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗