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Observations of the 283-s X-ray pulsations from 3U 0900-40 (Vela X-1) over a 36-day interval have led to a determination of the orbital elements for the X-ray star. These elements yield an X-ray mass function of about 18.5 solar masses and, when combined with the results of optical studies of the companion star HD 77581, give a probable lower limit of 1.4 solar masses to the mass of the X-ray star.
A quadratic form in the mean velocity for the turbulent shear stress is presented. It is expressed as the product of two velocity differences whose roots are the maximum velocity in the flow and a cutoff velocity below which the turbulent shear stress vanishes. Application to pipe and channel flows yields the centerline velocity as a function of pressure gradient, as well as the velocity profile. The flat plate, boundary-layer problem is solved by a system of integral equations to obtain friction coefficient, displacement thickness, and momentum-loss thickness. Comparisons are made with experiment.
A semiempirical model photosphere is constructed for the K5 III star Alpha Tau. The technique employed is based on measurements of the central fluxes in a series of lines in multiplets. Observations of four multiplets having a range in excitation potential yield the excitation temperature as a function of the optical depth in a reference line. If the temperature structure of an assumed starting model is changed to force agreement between the observed and predicted line source functions under the assumption that excitation and electron kinetic temperatures are equal, the final semiempirical model is cooler by 150 K in the outer layers and warmer by 150 K in deeper layers than the theoretical model with the parameters adopted for Alpha Tau.
Unsteady aerodynamic modeling techniques are developed and applied to the study of active control of elastic vehicles. The problem of active control of a supercritical flutter mode poses a definite design goal stability, and is treated in detail. The transfer functions relating the arbitrary airfoil motions to the airloads are derived from the Laplace transforms of the linearized airload expressions for incompressible two dimensional flow. The transfer function relating the motions to the circulatory part of these loads is recognized as the Theodorsen function extended to complex values of reduced frequency, and is termed the generalized Theodorsen function. Inversion of the Laplace transforms yields exact transient airloads and airfoil motions. Exact root loci of aeroelastic modes are calculated, providing quantitative information regarding subcritical and supercritical flutter conditions.
The conceptual design of a dual-amplifier constant-temperature hot-wire anemometer is described. This hot-wire anemometer consists of three basic independent modules: a Wheatstone bridge in which the hot wire is one of its arms, an error-correction amplifier, and a voltage-controlled current source. The last two modules constitute the feedback network of this hot-wire anemometer. Thus the output voltage across the wire is a true function of the instantaneous changes in the wire resistance induced by the cooling effect of the flow. The dual-amplifier is capable of reaching relatively high frequency response through adequate selection of its active elements. Suitable gain of the error-correction amplifier and proper choice of the transfer function of the current source has yielded a frequency bandwidth up to 200 kHz.
The heating rates and ion temperatures of the Martian thermosphere resulting from the thermalization of the energetic O2(+) ions produced by the reactions of the solar ionization products CO2(+) and O(+) with neutral particles are calculated and the effects of small magnetic fields on the ion thermal balance are investigated. The energy transfer and transport of energetic ions is modelled by solving the continuity equation for the ions over a series of finite energy cells yielding the equilibrium densities as a function of energy and altitude. Particles which are able to proceed upwards without collisions are dealt with separately from the continuity equation. It is shown that the thermalization of the energetic O2(+) ions can greatly increase ion temperatures above 200 km compared to those calculated for only ambient electron heating. Current solar wind interaction models predict that small horizontal magnetic fields act to restrict the ion thermal conductivity and to increase upper altitude ion temperatures. The combined effects of these processes provide a partial agreement with measurements made by Viking 1.
A description of instruments used for astrometric observations are examined with special emphasis on the Fine Guidance Systems of the space telescope. The telescope consists of a 2.4 meter diameter primary and a secondary figured to the Ritchey-Chretien design that yields a f/24 focal plane. The function of the FGS is to keep the total guidance jitter within the ST requirement of + or - 0.0007 rms, and to maximize the probability of finding suitable guide stars with the available 210 arcmin. Attention is given to the focal plane arrangement and to the ray paths and output images from the Koester's prisms. Some projected scientific uses of the space telescope are given as well as beneficial areas of close cooperation between the space telescope and the ESA.
In response to the premature failure of Rb lamps used in Rb atomic clocks onboard NAVSTAR GPS satellites experimental and theoretical investigations into their failure mechanism were initiated. The primary goal of these studies is the development of an accelerated life test for future GPS lamps. The primary failure mechanism was identified as consumption of the lamp's Rb charge via direct interaction between Rb and the lamp's glass surface. The most effective parameters to accelerate the interaction between the Rb and the glass are felt to be RF excitation power and lamp temperature. Differential scanning calorimetry is used to monitor the consumption of Rb within a lamp as a function of operation time. This technique yielded base line Rb consumption data for GPS lamps operating under normal conditions.
The quantum yields of formation of NO, O2, and NO2 loss are measured for NO2 vapor at low pressures (0.13-0.30 torr) irradiated at 334-405 nm wavelengths and temperature in the range 273-370 K in order to study the primary quantum efficiencies of NO2 photodecomposition. The temperature and wavelength dependences of the primary quantum efficiencies are examined. It is observed that the primary quantum efficiencies increase rapidly from near zero at 424 nm to near unity for excitation at wavelengths less than 394 nm. The theory of Pitts et al. (1964) that the energy deficiency for photodissociation of NO2 excited at wavelengths greater than 397.9 nm is due to the rotational and vibrational energy of the NO2 molecules is confirmed by the data. Values for the primary quantum yields of NO2 photodecomposition as a function of wavelength are presented.
The absorption, emission, and photodissociation yield spectra of C2N2 were measured in the 220 and 210 nm region near the 4(0)1 and 1(0)1 4(0)1 bands of the A 1 sigma + from the X 1 sigma + system. The emission spectrum showed very few lines which appeared in the absorption spectrum. Moreover, the emission had 660 ns lifetime and, at 210 nm a very large electronic emission quenching rate. Laser induced fluorescence was used to measure the relative yield of CN radicals as a function of photolysis wavelength. This spectrum seemed to follow the absorption spectrum below the dissociation threshold. Energy in the CN fragments appeared to be statistically distributed.
A generalized beam theory for arbitrary open section laminated composite beams subjected to generalized beam loading is developed using a strength of materials approach. At present, the theory is limited to statistically determinate beams. Solution of the general system of equations yields strain and curvature distributions as functions of the axial coordinate x and the contour coordinate s. Average stresses on a given cross section or ply stresses in a local coordinate system are determined using these distributions. Data obtained for thin-walled open section composite beams reveal that elastic coupling occurs among curvatures, shearing strains, and axial strain, depending on the laminate stiffness parameters. Laminate ply layup does not affect the location of the shear center in the thin-wall approximation, but may have a significant impact for thicker walled open sections. The average axial stress distribution is found to be distinctly different from the isotropic distribution, but the average shear stress distribution is the same as that in the isotropic case.
This report is devoted to the study of two-dimensional steady motion of a compressible fluid. It is shown that the complete flow pattern around a closed obstacle cannot be obtained by the method of Chaplygin. In order to overcome this difficulty, a formula for the stream-function of a two-dimensional subsonic flow is derived. The formula involves an arbitrary function of a complex variable and yields all possible subsonic flow patterns of certain types. Conditions are given so that the flow pattern in the physical plane will represent a flow around a closed curve. The formula obtained can be employed for the approximate determination of a subsonic flow around an obstacle. The method can be extended to partially supersonic flows.
In this paper we propose a generalized methodology for the design of cost-effective massively-parallel VLSI Functional Units. This methodology is based on a technique of generating and reducing a massive bit-array on the mask-programmable PAcube VLSI array. This methodology unifies (maintains identical data flow and control) the execution of complex arithmetic functions on PAcube arrays. It is highly regular, expandable and uniform with respect to problem-size and wordlength, thereby reducing the communication complexity. The memory-functional unit interface is regular and expandable. Using this technique functional units of dedicated processors can be mask-programmed on the naked PAcube arrays, reducing the turn-around time. The production cost of such dedicated processors can be drastically reduced since the naked PAcube arrays can be mass-produced. Analysis of the the performance of functional units designed by our method yields promising results.
As part of this program, we successfully completed the construction of the world's largest CCD camera, an 8192 x 8192 CCD mosaic. The system employs 8 2K x 4K 3-edge buttable CCDs arranged in a 2 x 4 chip mosaic. The focal plane has small gaps (less than 1 mm) between mosaic elements and measures over 120 mm x 120 mm. The initial set of frontside illuminated CCDs were developed with Loral-Fairchild in a custom foundry run. The initial lots yielded of order 20 to 25 functional devices, of which we selected the best eight for inclusion for the camera. We have designed a custom 3-edge-buttable package that ensures the CCD dies are mounted flat to plus or minus 10 microns over the entire area of the mosaic. The mosaic camera system consists of eight separate readout signal chains controlled by two independent DSP microcontrollers. These are in turn interfaced to a Sun Sparc-10 workstation through two high speed fiber optic interfaces. The system saw first-light on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in March 1995. First-light on the University of Hawaii 2.2-M Telescope on Mauna Kea was in July 1995. Both runs were quite successful. A sample of some of the early science from the first light run is reported in the publication, 'Observations of Weak Lensing in Clusters with an 8192 x 8192 CCD Mosaic Camera'.
Six additives were synthesized and evaluated as boundary lubrication enhancers for perfluoropolyethers. These additives included a phosphonate, a thiophosphonate, a beta-diketone, a benzothiazole, an amide and a sulfite. These additives were evaluated in a vacuum four-ball apparatus, at a one weight percent concentration in a perfluoropolyether based on hexafluoropropene oxide. Tests were performed in vacuum (less than 5.0 x 10(exp 6) Torr), at room temperature (approx. 23 C), at an initial Hertzian stress of 3.5 GPa (200N load), and a sliding velocity of 28.8 mm/sec (100 rpm). Infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopies were used to analyze the 440 C specimens after testing. Wear rates for each formulation were determined from the slope of wear volume as a function of sliding distance. All additives yielded reductions in mean wear rates of at least 55 percent, with the exception of the benzothiazole which had no effect. Two of the additives, an amide and a sulfite, reduced the mean wear rate by at least 80 percent. IR and Raman analysis indicated the severity of wear can be correlated to the amount of surface fluorinated polymeric acid species (R(sub f)COOH) and amorphous carbon, in and around the wear scar.
The radio occultation technique has been used to characterize planetary atmospheres since the 1960's spanning atmospheric pressures from 16 microbars to several bars. In 1988, the use of GPS signals to make occultation observations of Earth's atmosphere was realized by Tom Yunck and Gunnar Lindal at JPL. In the GPS to low-Earth-orbiter limb- viewing occultation geometry, Fresnel diffraction yield a unique combination of high vertical resolution of 100 m to 1 km at long wavelengths (approx. 20 cm) insensitive to particulate scattering which allows routine limb sounding from the lower mesosphere through the troposphere. A single orbiting GPS/GLONASS receiver can observe - 1000 to 1400 daily occultations providing as many daily, high vertical resolution soundings as the present global radiosonde network, but with far more evenly distributed, global coverage. The occultations yield profiles of refractivity as a function of height. In the cold, dry conditions of the upper troposphere and above (T less than 240 K), profiles of density, pressure (geopotential), and temperature can be derived. Given additional temperature information, water vapor can be derived in the midddle and lower troposphere with a unique combination of vertical resolution, global distribution and insensitivity to clouds and precipitation to an accuracy of approx. 0.2 g/kg. At low latitudes, moisture profiles will be accurate to 1-5% within the convective boundary layer and better than 20% below 6 to 7 km. Accuracies of climatological averages should be approx. 0. 1 g/kg limited by the biases in the temperature estimates. To use refractivity to constrain water vapor, knowledge of temperature is required. The simplest approach is to use the temperature field from an analysis such as the 6 hour ECMWF global analysis interpolated to the locations of each occultation. A better approach is to combine the temperature and moisture fields from such an analysis with the occultation refractivity in a weighting scheme based on the errors in each data field. A ID variational combinational approach has been developed at the UKMO. We win present results from both approaches from GPS/MET data taken in June and July 1995 and compare them with the ECMWF global 6 hour moisture analyses which are derived largely from TOVS and radiosonde data. Overall, the atmosphere below the 500 mb level appears somewhat drier in general than the ECNIWF humidity field. A 2-D (latitude vs. height) climatological snapshot derived from a 2-week span of GPS/MET data will be compared to the humidity climatology of Peixoto and Oort derived from radiosonde data from 1963-1973. Differences between the GPS results and Peixoto and Oort may be the signature of a climate trend over the past 30 years.
A non-compactly supported cubic radial basis function implementation of the MLPG method for beam problems is presented. The evaluation of the derivatives of the shape functions obtained from the radial basis function interpolation is much simpler than the evaluation of the moving least squares shape function derivatives. The radial basis MLPG yields results as accurate or better than those obtained by the conventional MLPG method for problems with discontinuous and other complex loading conditions.
The present report concerns a method of computing the velocity and pressure distributions on bodies of revolution in axially symmetrical flow in the subsonic range. The differential equation for the velocity potential Phi of a compressible fluid motion is linearized tn the conventional manner, and then put in the form Delta(Phi) = 0 by affine transformation. The quantity Phi represents the velocity potential of a fictitious incompressible flow, for which a constant superposition of sources by sections is secured by a method patterned after von Karman which must comply with the boundary condition delta(phi)/delta(n) = 0 at the originally specified contour. This requirement yields for the "pseudo-stream function" psi a differential equation which must be fulfilled for as many points on the contour as source lengths are assumed. In this manner, the problem of defining the still unknown source intensities is reduced to the solution of an inhomogeneous equation system. The pressure distribution is then determined with the aid of Bernoulli's equation and adiabatic equation of state. Lastly, the pressure distributions in compressible and incompressible medium are compared on a model problem.