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At least 343 records · Page 19

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NASA NTRS2016

Laser-Induced Fluorescence Measurements of Energetic Ions in a 100-A LaB6 Hollow Cathode

Increasingly long-duration space missions require a better understanding of the failure mechanisms of hollow cathodes to enable prediction of lifetime. Energetic ions have been measured in the plume of hollow cathodes but the energies are higher than can be explained classically. One of the mechanisms that appears to be contributing to the ion heating is ion acoustic turbulence (IAT), which has been investigated with plasma probes recently at JPL. In this work the ion velocity distribution has been measured using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) at several high-current operating conditions on the centerline of a 100 A class hollow cathode at JPL. A retarding potential analyzer was (RPA) was used to measure the ion energy profile in the far plume and a Langmuir probe was used to measure electron temperature and plasma potential fluctuations. RPA energies are shown to correlate with the values measured by LIF. The ion temperature is shown to increase with distance downstream of the cathode. A parametric study of the ion heating as a function of discharge current and cathode flow rate was performed. It was found that for increasing current the ion temperature evolution did not vary even though the wave IAT wave energy increased. The effect of flow rate was more pronounced, with higher values reducing both ion temperature and wave energy linearly. These results indicate that IAT is at least partially responsible for energetic ion production in the hollow cathode plume.

Dodson, Christopher A.↗

NASA NTRS1971

Development and initial operating characteristics of the 20 megawatt linear plasma accelerator facility

A 20-megawatt linear plasma accelerator facility, a steady flow, Faraday-type plasma accelerator facility for high velocity aerodynamic testing, was constructed, developed, and brought to an operational status. The accelerator has a 63.5-mm-square and 0.5-meter-long channel and utilizes nitrogen-seeded with 2 % mole fraction of cesium vapor. Modification of the original accelerator design characteristics and the improvements necessary to make the arc heater a suitable plasma source are described. The measured accelerator electrode current distribution and the electrode-wall potential distributions are given. The computed and the measured values are in good agreement. Measured pitot pressure indicates that an accelerator exit velocity of 9.2 km/sec, is obtained with 30 of the 36 electrode pairs powered and corresponds to a velocity increase to about 2 1/4 times the computed entrance velocity. The computed stagnation enthalpy at the accelerator exit is 92 MJ/kg, and the mass density corresponds to an altitude of about 58 km. The 92 MJ/kg stagnation enthalpy corresponds to a kinetic energy content at low temperature equivalent to a velocity of 13.6 km/sec.

Carter, A. F.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Nonlinear Green's function method for unsteady transonic flows

Advantages to employing Green's function in describing unsteady three-dimensional transonic flows are explored. The development of the function for application to linear subsonic and supersonic unsteady aerodynamics is reviewed. It is shown that unique solutions are possible for external flows, with all functional expressions being defined in Prandtl-Glauert space. The development of methods of using the Green's function for transonic flows is traced, noting the necessity of including the effects of significant nonlinear terms. The steady-state problem is considered to demonstrate the shock-capturing ability of the method and the usefulness of the function in the incompressible, subsonic, transonic, and supersonic areas of potential unsteady three-dimensional flows around complex configurations. Computational time is asserted to be an order of magnitude less than with finite difference methods.

Tseng, K.↗

NASA NTRS1994

A PV view of the zonal mean distribution of temperature and wind in the extratropical troposphere

The dependence of the temperature and wind distribution of the zonal mean flow in the extratropical troposphere on the gradient of pontential vorticity along isentropes is examined. The extratropics here refer to the region outside the Hadley circulation. Of particular interest is whether the distribution of temperature and wind corresponding to a constant potential vorticity (PV) along isentropes resembles the observed, and the implications of PV homogenization along isentropes for the role of the tropics. With the assumption that PV is homogenized along isentropes, it is found that the temperature distribution in the extratropical troposphere may be determined by a linear, first-order partial differential equation. When the observed surface temperature distribution and tropical lapse rate are used as the boundary conditions, the solution of the equation is close to the observed temperature distribution except in the upper troposphere adjacent to the Hadley circulation, where the troposphere with no PV gradient is considerably colder. Consequently, the jet is also stronger. It is also found that the meridional distribution of the balanced zonal wind is very sensitive to the meridional distribution of the tropopause temperature. The result may suggest that the requirement of the global momentum balance has no practical role in determining the extratropical temperature distribution. The authors further investigated the sensitivity of the extratropical troposphere with constant PV along isentropes to changes in conditions at the tropical boundary (the edge of the Hadley circulation). It is found that the temperature and wind distributions in the extratropical troposphere are sensitive to the vertical distribution of PV at the tropical boundary. With a surface distribution of temperature that decreases linearly with latitude, the jet maximum occurs at the tropical boundary and moves with it. The overall pattern of wind distribution is not sensitive to the change of the position of the tropical boundary. Finally, the temperature and wind distributions of an extratropical troposphere with a finite PV gradient are calculated. It is found that the larger the isentropic PV gradient, the warmer the troposphere and the weaker the jet.

Sun, De-Zheng↗

NASA NTRS1982

Density measurement in air with saturable absorbing seed gas

Approaches which have the potential to make density measurements in a compressible flow, where one or more laser beams are used as probes, were investigated. Saturation in sulfur hexafluoride iodine and a crossed beam technique where one beam acts as a saturating beam and the other is at low intensity and acts as a probe beam are considered. It is shown that a balance between an increase in fluorescence intensity with increasing pressure from line broadening and the normal decrease in intensity with increasing pressure from quenching can be used to develop a linear relation between fluorescence intensity and number density and lead to a new density measurement scheme. The method is used to obtain a density image of the cross section of an iodine seeded underexpanded supersonic jet of nitrogen, by illuminating the cross section by a sheet of laser light.

Baganoff, D.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Relaxation and approximate factorization methods for the unsteady full potential equation

The unsteady form of the full potential equation is solved in conservation form, using implicit methods based on approximate factorization and relaxation schemes. A local time linearization for density is introduced to enable solution to the equation in terms of phi, the velocity potential. A novel flux-biasing technique is applied to generate proper forms of the artificial viscosity, to treat hyperbolic regions with shocks and sonic lines present. The wake is properly modeled by accounting not only for jumps in phi, but also for jumps in higher derivatives of phi obtained from requirements of density continuity. The far field is modeled using the Riemann invariants to simulate nonreflecting boundary conditions. Results are presented for flows over airfoils, cylinders, and spheres. Comparisons are made with available Euler and full potential results.

Shankar, V.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Study of the Mutual Interaction Between a Wing Wake and an Encountering Airplane

In an effort to increase airport productivity, several wind-tunnel and flight-test programs are currently underway to determine safe reductions in separation standards between aircraft. These programs are designed to study numerous concepts from the characteristics and detection of wake vortices to the wake-vortex encounter phenomenon. As part of this latter effort, computational tools are being developed and utilized as a means of modeling and verifying wake-vortex hazard encounters. The objective of this study is to assess the ability of PMARC, a low-order potential-flow panel method, to predict the forces and moments imposed on a following business-jet configuration by a vortex interaction. Other issues addressed include the investigation of several wake models and their ability to predict wake shape and trajectory, the validity of the velocity field imposed on the following configuration, modeling techniques and the effect of the high-lift system and the empennage. Comparisons with wind-tunnel data reveal that PMARC predicts the characteristics for the clean wing-body following configuration fairly well. Non-linear effects produced by the addition of the high-lift system and empennage, however, are not so well predicted.

Walden, A. B.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Numerical Investigation of Ion Transport in the MOMA Ion Mass Spectrometer

The Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) is a miniature ion trap mass spectrometer designed for the upcoming ExoMars Rover mission. The spectrometer uses laser desorption to ionize a Martian soil sample within an instrument internal clean zone maintained at ambient Martian pressure. A high-speed aperture valve transiently opens to allow ionized constituents, along with the ambient gas, to enter a vacuum cavity containing a linear ion trap mass spectrometer. The ambient clean zone and the vacuum cavity are connected via a few centimeter long aperture valve ion guide tube. In this paper, we present results from a recently completed numerical investigation of ion transport from the ion source across the ion guide. Specifically, we focus on collisional coupling between ions and the neutral molecules flowing into the vacuum cavity. The simulation domain contains the ambient region, and we consider the variation in ion conductance with ambient pressure. We also analyze the impact of a fixed potential bias applied to the aperture valve. Simulations are performed with a two-dimensional axisymmetric PIC / DSMC code Starfish. Numerical results are compared to experimental data.

Breida, Lubos↗

NASA NTRS1975

A finite element analysis of the exact nonlinear formulation of a lifting surface in steady incompressible flow, with the evaluation of the correct wake geometry

The problem of steady incompressible flow for lifting surfaces is considered. An integral equation is solved relating the values of the potential discontinuity on the lifting surface and its wake to the values of the normal derivative of the potential which are known from the boundary conditions. The lifting surface and the wake are divided into small quadrilateral surface elements. The values of the potential discontinuity and the normal derivative of the potential are assumed to be constant within each lifting surface element and equal to their values at the centroids of the lifting surface elements. This yields a set of linear algebraic equations. An iteration procedure is used to obtain the wake geometry: the velocities at the corner points of the wake elements are calculated and the wake streamlines are aligned to be parallel to the velocity vector. The procedure is repeated until convergence is attained.

Suciu, E. O.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Requirements for optimization of electrodes and electrolyte for the iron/chromium Redox flow cell

Improved catalyzation techniques that included a pretreatment of carbon substrate and provided normalized carbon surface for uniform gold deposition were developed. This permits efficient use of different batches of carbon felt materials which initially vary significantly in their physical and surface chemical properties, as well as their electrochemical behavior. Further modification of gold impregnation technique gave the best performing electrodes. In addition to the linear sweep voltammetry, cyclic voltammetry was used to determine the effects of different activation procedures on the Cr(3)/Cr(2) Redox and H2 evolution reactions. The roles of carbon, gold and lead in the overall Redox cycle are identified. The behavior of the electrodes at both normal battery operating potentials and more extreme potentials is discussed preparing efficient and stable electrodes for the energy storage battery is implicated.

Jalan, V.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Transient growth of damped baroclinic waves

A solution of the linear initial value problem for the model of Eady with the inclusion of Ekman damping is presented. This model exhibits large transient growth of perturbations for synoptic cyclone spatial scales and a realistic value of the vertical turbulent viscosity coefficient despite the fact that all normal modes are exponentially decaying. Similar results are found for the model of Charney, implying that exponential instability cannot, in general, serve to explain the occurrence of cyclone scale disturbances in midlatiudes. Rather these are seen to arise additionally and perhaps predominantly from the release of mean flow potential energy by favorably configured initial perturbations. The Petterssen criterion for midlatitude cyclogenesis results naturally from this development as does its extension to the formation of subtropical monsoon depressions. Implications for the maintenance of midlatitude temperature gradients are discussed.

Farrell, B.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Charging in the ac Conductance of a Double Barrier Resonant Tunneling Structure

There have been many studies of the linear response ac conductance of a double barrier resonant tunneling structure (DBRTS), both at zero and finite dc biases. While these studies are important, they fail to self consistently include the effect of the time dependent charge density in the well. In this paper, we calculate the ac conductance at both zero and finite do biases by including the effect of the time dependent charge density in the well in a self consistent manner. The charge density in the well contributes to both the flow of displacement currents in the contacts and the time dependent potential in the well. We find that including these effects can make a significant difference to the ac conductance and the total ac current is not equal to the simple average of the non-selfconsistently calculated conduction currents in the two contacts. This is illustrated by comparing the results obtained with and without the effect of the time dependent charge density included correctly. Some possible experimental scenarios to observe these effects are suggested.

Anantram, M. P.↗

NASA NTRS1996

An optimized index of human cardiovascular adaptation to simulated weightlessness

Prolonged exposure to weightlessness is known to produce a variety of cardiovascular changes, some of which may influence the astronaut's performance during a mission. In order to find a reliable indicator of cardiovascular adaptation to weightlessness, we analyzed data from nine male subjects after a 24-hour period of normal activity and after a period of simulated weightlessness produced by two hours in a launch position followed by 20 hours of 6 degrees head-down tilt plus pharmacologically induced diuresis (furosemide). Heart rate, arterial pressure, thoracic fluid index, and radial flow were analyzed. Autoregressive spectral estimation and decomposition were used to obtain the spectral components of each variable from the subjects in the supine position during pre- and post-simulated weightlessness. We found a significant decrease in heart rate power and an increase in thoracic fluid index power in the high frequency region (0.2-0.45 Hz) and significant increases in radial flow and arterial pressure powers in the low frequency region (<0.2 Hz) in response to simulated weightlessness. However, due to the variability among subjects, any single variable appeared limited as a dependable index of cardiovascular adaptation to weightlessness. The backward elimination algorithm was then used to select the best discriminatory features from these spectral components. Fisher's linear discriminant and Bayes' quadratic discriminant were used to combine the selected features to obtain an optimal index of adaptation to simulated weightlessness. Results showed that both techniques provided improved discriminant performance over any single variable and thus have the potential for use as an index to track adaptation and prescribe countermeasures to the effects of weightlessness.

NASA Discipline Number 14-10↗

NASA NTRS1992

Non-local sub-characteristic zones of influence in unsteady interactive boundary-layers

The properties of incompressible, unsteady, interactive, boundary layers are examined for a model hypersonic boundary layer and internal flow past humps or, equivalently, external flow past short-scaled humps. Using a linear high frequency analysis, it is shown that the domains of dependence within the viscous sublayer may be a strong function of position within the sublayer and may be strongly influenced by the pressure displacement interaction, or the prescribed displacement condition. Detailed calculations are presented for the hypersonic boundary layer. This effect is found to carry over directly to the fully viscous problem as well as the nonlinear problem. In the fully viscous problem, the non-local character of the domains of dependence manifests itself in the sub-characteristics. Potential implications of the domain of dependence structure on finite difference computations of unsteady boundary layers are briefly discussed.

Rothmayer, A. P.↗

NASA NTRS1997

On Approximate Factorization Schemes for Solving the Full Potential Equation

An approximate factorization scheme based on the AF2 algorithm is presented for solving the three-dimensional full potential equation for the transonic flow about isolated wings. Two spatial discretization variations are presented, one using a hybrid first-order/second-order-accurate scheme and the second using a fully second-order-accurate scheme. The present algorithm utilizes a C-H grid topology to map the flow field about the wing. One version of the AF2 iteration scheme is used on the upper wing surface and another slightly modified version is used on the lower surface. These two algorithm variations are then connected at the wing leading edge using a local iteration technique. The resulting scheme has improved linear stability characteristics and improved time-like damping characteristics relative to previous implementations of the AF2 algorithm. The presentation is highlighted with a grid refinement study and a number of numerical results.

Holst, Terry L.↗

NASA NTRS1973

A Finite-Element Formulation for Subsonic Flows Around Complex Configurations

The problem of potential steady subsonic flow around complex configurations is considered. This problem requires the solution of an integral equation relating the values of the potential on the surface of the body to the values of the normal derivative, which is known from the boundary conditions. The surface of the body is divided into small (hyperboloidal quadrilateral) surface elements, which are described in terms of the Cartesian components of the four corner points. The values of the potential (and its normal derivative) within each element is assumed to be constant and equal to its value at the centroid of the element. This yields a set of linear algebraic equations. The coefficients of the equation are given by source and doublet integrals over the surface elements. Closed form evaluations of the integrals are presented.

Morino, L.↗

NASA NTRS1974

A finite element formulation for supersonic flows around complex configurations

The problem of small perturbation potential supersonic flow around complex configurations is considered. This problem requires the solution of an integral equation relating the values of the potential on the surface of the body to the values of the normal derivative, which is known from the small perturbation boundary conditions. The surface of the body is divided into small (hyperboloidal quadrilateral) surface elements which are described in terms of the Cartesian components of the four corner points. The values of the potential (and its normal derivative) within each element are assumed to be constant and equal to its value at the centroid of the element. This yields a set of linear algebraic equations whose coefficients are given by source and doublet integrals over the surface elements. Closed form evaluations of the integrals are presented.

Morino, L.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Stirling System Modeling for Space Nuclear Power Systems

A dynamic model of a high-power Stirling convertor has been developed for space nuclear power systems modeling. The model is based on the Component Test Power Convertor (CTPC), a 12.5-kWe free-piston Stirling convertor. The model includes the fluid heat source, the Stirling convertor, output power and heat rejection. The Stirling convertor model includes the Stirling cycle thermodynamics, heat flow, mechanical mass-spring damper systems, and the linear alternator. The model was validated against test data. Both nonlinear and linear versions of the model were developed. The linear version algebraically couples two separate linear dynamic models; one model of the Stirling cycle and one model of the thermal system, through the pressure factors. Future possible uses of the Stirling system dynamic model are discussed. A pair of commercially available 1-kWe Stirling convertors is being purchased by NASA Glenn Research Center. The specifications of those convertors may eventually be incorporated into the dynamic model and analysis compared to the convertor test data. Subsequent potential testing could include integrating the convertors into a pumped liquid metal hot-end interface. This test would provide more data for comparison to the dynamic model analysis.

Lewandowski, Edward J.↗