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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 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2001

Helioseismic Holography and a Study of the Process of Magnetic Flux Disappearance in Canceling Bipoles

Project 1: We have developed and applied a technique of helioseismic holography along the lines of originally set out in our proposal. The result of the application of this diagnostic technique to solar activity and the quiet Sun has produced a number of important discoveries: (1) acoustic moats surrounding sunspots; (2) acoustic glories surround large active regions; (3) acoustic condensations beneath active regions; and (4) temporally-resolve acoustic images of a solar flare. These results have been published in a series of papers in the Astrophysical Journal. We think that helioseismic holography is now established as the most powerful and discriminating diagnostic in local helioseismology. Project 2: We conducted a collaborative observational program to define the physical character and magnetic geometry of canceling magnetic bipoles aimed at determining if the cancellation process is the result of submergence of magnetic fields. This assessment is based on ground-based observations combining photospheric and chromospheric magnetograms from NSO/KP, BBSO, and SOHO-MDI, and EUV and X-ray images from SOHO EIT/CDS, Yohkoh/SXT, and TRACE. Our study involves the analysis of data taken during three observing campaigns to define the height structure of canceling bipoles inferred from magnetic field and intensity images, and how this varies with time. We find that some canceling bipoles can be explained by the submerge of their magnetic flux. A paper on the results of this analysis will be presented at an upcoming scientific meeting and be written up for publication.

Lindsey, Charles↗
NASA NTRS2004

Large-scale Atmospheric Transport Processes

Continuing earlier work, we continued an investigation of the seasonal behavior of the edges of the stratospheric surf zone. These edges form a barrier between the rapidly mixed surf zone and the relatively isolated tropics. In collaboration with Dr Lynn Sparling at GSFC, we used a statistical analysis of HALOE and CLAES trace gas data from UARS to identify and locate these edges during each UARS observing period. We found that the edges on both sides of the equator are present all year (a fact that is important for conceptual models of stratospheric transport), though that on the summer side of the equator is much less sharp than the winter edge. The edges migrate seasonally into the summer hemisphere. Their location also shows influence of the QBO, together with the SAO at higher altitudes. Comparisons with effective diffusivities, and the edge locations, suggest that the edge is sustained by surf zone entrainment during winter, but by the residual circulation during summer.

Plumb, R. Alan↗
NASA NTRS1975

Extinct superheavy element in the Allende meteorite

Radiochemical neutron activation analysis of seven Allende samples for 26 trace elements were conducted. In addition, Cr and Fe were studied with the aid of instrumental neutron activation analysis. The investigation had the objective to identify the extinct superheavy element which was present in meteorites and decayed to Xe isotopes by spontaneous fission. The superheavy element was found to reside mainly in a rare mineral (probably a Fe, Ni, Cr, Al-sulfide), comprising only 0.04% of the meteorite. It is pointed out that of the nine volatile superheavy elements 111 to 119, only 115, 114, and 113 are expected to condense as sulfides in the temperature interval between 400 and 500 K corresponding to mineral formation conditions in the solar nebula.

Anders, E.↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer for the Huygens Probe

Titan is unique in the solar system, the only moon that has a dense atmosphere. The major constituents of the atmosphere, nitrogen and methane, are continuously broken apart by a combination of solar UV, impinging electrons from Saturn s magnetosphere, and a steady flux of cosmic rays. The resulting molecular fragments recombine and form a variety of new species, many of which were detected for the first time by Voyager1 . The ubiquitous, surface- hiding aerosol blanket manifests the existence of still more complex compounds. In addition to hydrocarbons and nitriles, the atmosphere is known to contain CO, CO2 and externally delivered H2O. The Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) on the Huygens Probe will measure the chemical composition of the atmosphere of Titan from 170 Km altitude (approximately 1hPa) to the surface (approximately 1500hPa) and determine the isotope ratios of the major constituents. The GCMS will also analyze gas samples from the Aerosol Collector Pyrolyser (ACP) and may be able to obtain compositional information of several surface materials. The GCMS consists of a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QP) with a secondary electron multiplier ion detector, a three-column gas chromatograph (GC) and an elaborate gas sampling system. The gas sampling system will provide atmospheric samples to the QP for nearly continuous analysis during the Probe descent and batch samples at several altitudes for GC analysis. It also contains a chemical scrubber for noble gas analysis and an enrichment cell for trace constituent enhancement. In addition to the sampling of the atmosphere periodic gas samples, derived from the pyrolysis of aerosols, will be transferred from the ACP to the GCMS for direct QP and full GCMS analysis. The QP can analyze molecular masses from 2 to 141Dalton. The nominal detection threshold is at a mixing ratio of 10E-8. Data rate is 885 bits/sec. The mass of the instrument is 17.3 kg and the energy required for operation during the descent is 110 Watt-hours.

Niemann, H. B.↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer for the Huygens Probe

Titan is unique in the solar system, the only moon that has a dense atmosphere. The major constituents of the atmosphere, nitrogen and methane, are continuously broken apart by a combination of solar UV, impinging electrons from Saturn's magnetosphere, and a steady flow of cosmic rays. The resulting molecular fragments recombine and form a variety of new species, many of which were detected for the first time by Voyager 1. The ubiquitous, surface-hiding aerosol blanket manifests the existence of still more complex compounds. In addition to hydrocarbons and nitriles, the atmosphere is known to contain CO, CO2 and externally delivered H2O. The Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) on the Huygens Probe will measure the chemical composition of the atmosphere of Titan from 170 km altitude (approximately lhPa) to the surface (approximately 1500hPa) and determine the isotope ratios of the major constituents. The GCMS will also analyze gas samples from the Aerosol Collector Pyrolyser (ACP) and may be able to obtain compositional information of several surface materials. The GCMS consists of a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QP) with a secondary electron multiplier ion detector, a three-column gas chromatograph (GC) and an elaborate gas sampling system. The gas sampling system will provide atmospheric samples to the QP for nearly continuous analysis during the Probe descent and batch samples at several altitudes for GC analysis. It also contains a chemical scrubber for noble gas analysis and an enrichment cell for trace constituent enhancement. In addition to the sampling of the atmosphere periodic gas samples, derived from the pyrolysis of aerosols, will be transferred from the ACP to the GCMS for direct QP and full GCMS analysis. The QP can analyze molecular masses from 2 to 14lDalton. The nominal detection threshold is at a mixing ratio of 10E-8. Data rate is 885 bits/sec. The mass of the instrument is 17.3 kg and the energy required for operation during the descent is 110 Watt-hours.

Niemann, H. B.↗
NASA NTRS1993

A study of the accuracy of neutrally buoyant bubbles used as flow tracers in air

Research has been performed to determine the accuracy of neutrally buoyant and near neutrally buoyant bubbles used as flow tracers in air. Theoretical, computational, and experimental results are presented to evaluate the dynamics of bubble trajectories and factors affecting their ability to trace flow-field streamlines. The equation of motion for a single bubble was obtained and evaluated using a computational scheme to determine the factors which affect a bubble's trajectory. A two-dimensional experiment was also conducted to experimentally determine bubble trajectories in the stagnation region of NACA 0012 airfoil at 0 deg angle of attack using a commercially available helium bubble generation system. Physical properties of the experimental bubble trajectories were estimated using the computational scheme. These properties included the density ratio and diameter of the individual bubbles. the helium bubble system was then used to visualize and document the flow field about a 30 deg swept semispan wing with simulated glaze ice. Results were compared to Navier-Stokes calculations and surface oil flow visualization. The theoretical and computational analysis have shown that neutrally buoyant bubbles will trace even the most complex flow patterns. Experimental analysis revealed that the use of bubbles to trace flow patterns should be limited to qualitative measurements unless care is taken to ensure neutral buoyancy. This is due to the difficulty in the production of neutrally buoyant bubbles.

Kerho, Michael F.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Pseudo-wavelet analysis of turbulence patterns in three vegetation layers

Ramp patterns in scalar traces such as temperature are the signature of coherent structures. A pseudo-wavelet analysis technique was developed in which ideal saw-tooth patterns of varying size were used as basis functions and fitted to temperature and velocity data. Data recorded from three very different vegetation stands were examined in this study. It was found that the most probable structure duration for the forest canopy was in the range 35-40 s, for the orchard canopy it was 20-25 s and for the maize it was 15-20 s. When expressed in non-dimensional form, the structure duration probability distribution for the maize canopy was about a decade larger than for the forest canopy, with the orchard canopy intermediate. The mean eddy duration versus wind shear relation falls on a narrow band for all three canopies, indicating that wind shear at the canopy top is the determining factor for the scale of the coherent eddies. The inverse of duration and intermittency of coherent structures exhibits a tendency of independence from wind shear at higher wind shear values. Coherent structures transport heat in a more efficient way than do smaller scale, less coherent motions. In all the canopies, the heat flux fractions associated with coherent structures are at least 10% higher than the corresponding time fraction.

Qiu, Jie↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Location, location: deciphering the significance of in-situ hydrogen analyses of Martian meteorite phases

Understanding how inner planets acquired their volatiles such as hydrogen (H) is fundamental to constrain models of solar system formation [e.g. 1]. One avenue of estimating the H content and isotopic characteristics of differentiated planets is to analyze the samples we have from them as meteorites. Ideally, the H content and isotopic characteristic of the mantle sources of these igneous rocks should give insight into the volatile origin of each planetary body. The mantle H signatures can be estimated from that of the parent melt, which in turn may be derived from that of the first crystallized phases. However, we will illustrate the processes that can modify the H content and D/H ratios of pyroxene, olivine and feldspar in selected Martian meteorites relative to those of their mantle sources, with two key protocols for SIMS analysis. The first key is to put each analysis in textural context ("location, location"). In particular, of prime importance is whether an analysis is done at the center or the edge of a mineral grain, close or far from a shock disturbed area, and in a mineral crystallized at the beginning or late in the differentiation sequence. Accompanying the H analyses done by SIMS with major and trace element data at the same analysis locations allows to constrain the history of crystallization, cooling, alteration and shock of the meteorite. For example, volcanic degassing can be evidenced by decreasing water contents and increasing D/H ratios from core to edge of nakhlite pyroxenes [2]. Traverses of H analyses in pyroxene and maskelynite in shergottite LAR 06319 provide examples of H contents and D/H ratios modified during degassing following shock [3]. The second key is to assess if the area analyzed by SIMS has shock generated damage of the mineral structure, as will be shown in pyroxene and olivine from shergottite RBT 04262. Olivine in shergottites have too high water contents to be explained with an igneous origin and their D/H ratios are more consistent with terrestrial alteration, as observed before [4]. A review of all these processes shows how careful one has to be prior to using H measurements in meteorites to infer the origin and amount of water in differentiated planetary interiors.

A.H. Peslier↗
NASA NTRS2012

Ion Current Density Study of the NASA-300M and NASA-457Mv2 Hall Thrusters

NASA Glenn Research Center is developing a Hall thruster in the 15-50 kW range to support future NASA missions. As a part of the process, the performance and plume characteristics of the NASA-300M, a 20-kW Hall thruster, and the NASA-457Mv2, a 50-kW Hall thruster, were evaluated. The collected data will be used to improve the fidelity of the JPL modeling tool, Hall2De, which will then be used to aid the design of the 15-50 kW Hall thruster. This paper gives a detailed overview of the Faraday probe portion of the plume characterization study. The Faraday probe in this study is a near-field probe swept radially at many axial locations downstream of the thruster exit plane. Threshold-based integration limits with threshold values of 1/e, 1/e(sup 2), and 1/e(sup 3) times the local peak current density are tried for the purpose of ion current integration and divergence angle calculation. The NASA-300M is operated at 7 conditions and the NASA-457Mv2 at 14 conditions. These conditions span discharge voltages of 200 to 500 V and discharge power of 10 to 50 kW. The ion current density profiles of the near-field plume originating from the discharge channel are discovered to strongly resemble Gaussian distributions. A novel analysis approach involving a form of ray tracing is used to determine an effective point of origin for the near-field plume. In the process of performing this analysis, definitive evidence is discovered that showed the near-field plume is bending towards the thruster centerline.

Huang, Wensheng↗
NASA NTRS2012

Ion Current Density Study of the NASA-300M and NASA-457Mv2 Hall Thrusters

NASA Glenn Research Center is developing a Hall thruster in the 15-50 kW range to support future NASA missions. As a part of the process, the performance and plume characteristics of the NASA-300M, a 20-kW Hall thruster, and the NASA-457Mv2, a 50-kW Hall thruster, were evaluated. The collected data will be used to improve the fidelity of the JPL modeling tool, Hall2De, which will then be used to aid the design of the 15-50 kW Hall thruster. This paper gives a detailed overview of the Faraday probe portion of the plume characterization study. The Faraday probe in this study is a near-field probe swept radially at many axial locations downstream of the thruster exit plane. Threshold-based integration limits with threshold values of 1/e, 1/e2, and 1/e3 times the local peak current density are tried for the purpose of ion current integration and divergence angle calculation. The NASA-300M is operated at 7 conditions and the NASA-457Mv2 at 14 conditions. These conditions span discharge voltages of 200 to 500 V and discharge power of 10 to 50 kW. The ion current density profiles of the near-field plume originating from the discharge channel are discovered to strongly resemble Gaussian distributions. A novel analysis approach involving a form of ray tracing is used to determine an effective point of origin for the near-field plume. In the process of performing this analysis, definitive evidence is discovered that showed the near-field plume is bending towards the thruster centerline.

Huang, Wensheng↗
DOE OSTI2024

Refining HPCToolkit for application performance analysis at exascale

As part of the US Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP), Rice University has been refining its HPCToolkit performance tools to better support measurement and analysis of applications executing on exascale supercomputers. To efficiently collect performance measurements of GPU-accelerated applications, HPCToolkit employs novel non-blocking data structures to communicate performance measurements between tool threads and application threads. To attribute performance information in detail to source lines, loop nests, and inlined call chains, HPCToolkit performs parallel analysis of large CPU and GPU binaries involved in the execution of an exascale application to rapidly recover mappings between machine instructions and source code. To analyze terabytes of performance measurements gathered during executions at exascale, HPCToolkit employs distributed-memory parallelism, multithreading, sparse data structures, and out-of-core streaming analysis algorithms. To support interactive exploration of profiles up to terabytes in size, HPCToolkit’s hpcviewer graphical user interface uses out-of-core methods to visualize performance data. The result of these efforts is that HPCToolkit now supports collection, analysis, and presentation of profiles and traces of GPU-accelerated applications at exascale. These improvements have enabled HPCToolkit to efficiently measure, analyze and explore terabytes of performance data for executions using as many as 64K MPI ranks and 64K GPU tiles on ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer. HPCToolkit’s support for measurement and analysis of GPU-accelerated applications has been employed to study a collection of open-science applications developed as part of ECP. This paper reports on these experiences, which provided insight into opportunities for tuning applications, strengths and weaknesses of HPCToolkit itself, as well as unexpected behaviors in executions at exascale.

Adhianto, Laksono↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Bayesian approach to time-domain photonic Doppler velocimetry analysis

Photonic Doppler velocimetry (PDV) is an established technique for measuring the velocities of fast-moving surfaces in high-energy-density experiments. In the standard approach to PDV analysis, the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) is used to generate a spectrogram from which the velocity history of the target is inferred. The user chooses the form, duration, and separation of the window function. Here, in this study, we present a Bayesian approach to infer the velocity directly from the PDV oscilloscope trace, without using the spectrogram for analysis. This is clearly a difficult inference problem due to the highly periodic nature of the data, but we find that with carefully chosen prior distributions for the model parameters, we can accurately recover the injected velocity from synthetic data. We validate this method using PDV data collected at the STAR two-stage light gas gun at Sandia National Laboratories, recovering shock-front velocities in quartz that are consistent with those inferred using the STFT-based approach and are interpolated across regions of low signal-to-noise data. Although this method does not rely on the same user choices as the STFT, we caution that it can be prone to misspecification if the chosen model is not sufficient to capture the velocity behavior. Analysis using posterior predictive checks can be used to establish whether a better model is required, although more complex models come with additional computational cost, often taking more than several hours to converge when sampling the Bayesian posterior. We, therefore, recommend it be viewed as a complementary method to that of the STFT-based approach.

Allison, James R. [First Light Fusion Ltd., Yarnto↗
NASA NTRS1993

Application of ray tracing in radiation heat transfer

This collection of presentation figures displays the capabilities of ray tracing for radiation propagation calculations as compared to an analytical approach. The goal is to introduce the terminology and solution process used in ray tracing, and provide insight into radiation heat transfer principles and analysis tools. A thermal analysis working environment is introduced that solves demanding radiation heat transfer problems based on ray tracing. This information may serve as a reference for designing and building ones own analysis environment.

Baumeister, Joseph F.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Symmetrization of Strong Hydrogen Bond under High Pressure in Bihydroxide-Ion-Containing NaCu 2 (SO 4 ) 2 ·H 3 O 2 Revealed by Experimental Charge Density, Single-Crystal Electron Diffraction, and Neutron Diffraction Studies

In minerals and inorganic compounds, strong hydrogen bonding can lead to the formation of complex ionic species such as the H 3 O 2 – bihydroxide anion and Zundel cation H 5 O 2 + . We studied [NaCu 2 (SO 4 ) 2 ·H 3 O 2 ] natrochalcite, which contains bihydroxide anions and undergoes hydrogen bond symmetrization at the lowest pressure reported so far among inorganic compounds. Hydrogen bond symmetrization leads to changes in the bulk modulus, seismic wave velocities, and proton mobility and plays a primary role in high-temperature superconductivity, but its characteristics are not well understood due to a lack of systematic studies and limitations of experimental methods sensitive to this subtle change. In this work, we applied experimental charge density analysis based on in situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction data, along with the single-crystal neutron and electron diffraction experiments, to probe the behavior of hydrogen atoms during the hydrogen bond symmetrization process under high-pressure conditions. On the way to the symmetrical H-bonding, natrochalcite undergoes a series of complex redistributions of electron density, which we trace with multipole refinement and detailed analysis of changes in the Laplacian of electron density values. Additionally, we deconvoluted the equation of state (volume of the unit cell vs pressure relation) into the atomic equation of states describing dependencies of atomic charges or volumes vs pressure.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS2004

Using Block-local Atomicity to Detect Stale-value Concurrency Errors

Data races do not cover all kinds of concurrency errors. This paper presents a data-flow-based technique to find stale-value errors, which are not found by low-level and high-level data race algorithms. Stale values denote copies of shared data where the copy is no longer synchronized. The algorithm to detect such values works as a consistency check that does not require any assumptions or annotations of the program. It has been implemented as a static analysis in JNuke. The analysis is sound and requires only a single execution trace if implemented as a run-time checking algorithm. Being based on an analysis of Java bytecode, it encompasses the full program semantics, including arbitrarily complex expressions. Related techniques are more complex and more prone to over-reporting.

Artho, Cyrille↗
NASA NTRS1981

Some aspects of analytical chemistry as applied to water quality assurance techniques for reclaimed water: The potential use of X-ray fluorescence spectrometry for automated on-line fast real-time simultaneous multi-component analysis of inorganic pollutants in reclaimed water

The potential use of isotopically excited energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry for automated on line fast real time (5 to 15 minutes) simultaneous multicomponent (up to 20) trace (1 to 10 parts per billion) analysis of inorganic pollutants in reclaimed water was examined. Three anionic elements (chromium 6, arsenic and selenium) were studied. The inherent lack of sensitivity of XRF spectrometry for these elements mandates use of a preconcentration technique and various methods were examined, including: several direct and indirect evaporation methods; ion exchange membranes; selective and nonselective precipitation; and complexation processes. It is shown tha XRF spectrometry itself is well suited for automated on line quality assurance, and can provide a nondestructive (and thus sample storage and repeat analysis capabilities) and particularly convenient analytical method. Further, the use of an isotopically excited energy dispersive unit (50 mCi Cd-109 source) coupled with a suitable preconcentration process can provide sufficient sensitivity to achieve the current mandated minimum levels of detection without the need for high power X-ray generating tubes.

Ling, A. C.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Syringe filtration methods for examining dissolved and colloidal trace element distributions in remote field locations

It is well-established that sampling and sample processing can easily introduce contamination into dissolved trace element samples if precautions are not taken. However, work in remote locations sometimes precludes bringing bulky clean lab equipment into the field and likewise may make timely transport of samples to the lab for processing impossible. Straightforward syringe filtration methods are described here for collecting small quantities (15 mL) of 0.45- and 0.02-microm filtered river water in an uncontaminated manner. These filtration methods take advantage of recent advances in analytical capabilities that require only small amounts of waterfor analysis of a suite of dissolved trace elements. Filter clogging and solute rejection artifacts appear to be minimal, although some adsorption of metals and organics does affect the first approximately 10 mL of water passing through the filters. Overall the methods are clean, easy to use, and provide reproducible representations of the dissolved and colloidal fractions of trace elements in river waters. Furthermore, sample processing materials can be prepared well in advance in a clean lab and transported cleanly and compactly to the field. Application of these methods is illustrated with data from remote locations in the Rocky Mountains and along the Yukon River. Evidence from field flow fractionation suggests that the 0.02-microm filters may provide a practical cutoff to distinguish metals associated with small inorganic and organic complexes from those associated with silicate and oxide colloids.

Colloids/analysis↗