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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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NASA NTRS1978

Monte Carlo simulation of the classical two-dimensional one component plasma

Monte Carlo simulation, lattice dynamics in the harmonic approximation, and solution of the hypernetted chain equation were used to study the classical two-dimensional one component plasma. The system consists of a single species of charged particles immersed in a uniform neutralizing background. The particles interact via a l/r potential, where r is the two dimensional separation. Equations of state were calculated for both the liquid and solid phases. Results of calculation of the thermodynamic functions and one and two particle correlation functions are presented.

Gann, R. C.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Calculating the Motion and Direction of Flux Transfer Events with Cluster

For many years now, the interactions of the solar wind plasma with the Earth's magnetosphere has been one of the most important problems for Space Physics. It is very important that we understand these processes because the high-energy particles and also the solar wind energy that cross the magneto sphere could be responsible for serious damage to our technological systems. The solar wind is inherently a dynamic medium, and the particles interaction with the Earth's magnetosphere can be steady or unsteady. Unsteady interaction include transient processes like bursty magnetic reconnection. Flux Transfer Events (FTEs) are magnetopause signatures that usually occur during transient times of reconnection. They exhibit bipolar signatures in the normal component of the magnetic field. We use multi-point timing analysis to determine the orientation and motion of ux transfer events (FTEs) detected by the four Cluster spacecraft on the high-latitude dayside and flank magnetopause during 2002 and 2003. During these years, the distances between the Cluster spacecraft were greater than 1000 km, providing the tetrahedral configuration needed to select events and determine velocities. Each velocity and location will be examined in detail and compared to the velocities and locations determined by the predictions of the component and antiparallel reconnection models for event formation, orientation, motion, and acceleration for a wide range of spacecraft locations and solar wind conditions.

Collado-Vega, Y. M.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Advanced Multi-Phase Flow CFD Model Development for Solid Rocket Motor Flowfield Analysis

It is known that the simulations of solid rocket motor internal flow field with AL-based propellants require complex multi-phase turbulent flow model. The objective of this study is to develop an advanced particulate multi-phase flow model which includes the effects of particle dynamics, chemical reaction and hot gas flow turbulence. The inclusion of particle agglomeration, particle/gas reaction and mass transfer, particle collision, coalescence and breakup mechanisms in modeling the particle dynamics will allow the proposed model to realistically simulate the flowfield inside a solid rocket motor. The Finite Difference Navier-Stokes numerical code FDNS is used to simulate the steady-state multi-phase particulate flow field for a 3-zone 2-D axisymmetric ASRM model and a 6-zone 3-D ASRM model at launch conditions. The 2-D model includes aft-end cavity and submerged nozzle. The 3-D model represents the whole ASRM geometry, including additional grain port area in the gas cavity and two inhibitors. FDNS is a pressure based finite difference Navier-Stokes flow solver with time-accurate adaptive second-order upwind schemes, standard and extended k-epsilon models with compressibility corrections, multi zone body-fitted formulations, and turbulence particle interaction model. Eulerian/Lagrangian multi-phase solution method is applied for multi-zone mesh. To simulate the chemical reaction, penalty function corrected efficient finite-rate chemistry integration method is used in FDNS. For the AL particle combustion rate, the Hermsen correlation is employed. To simulate the turbulent dispersion of particles, the Gaussian probability distribution with standard deviation equal to (2k/3)(exp 1/2) is used for the random turbulent velocity components. The computational results reveal that the flow field near the juncture of aft-end cavity and the submerged nozzle is very complex. The effects of the turbulent particles affect the flow field significantly and provide better prediction of the ASRM performance. The multi-phase flow analysis using the FDNS code in the present research can be used as a design tool for solid rocket motor applications.

Liaw, Paul↗

NASA NTRS1964

Aharonov-bohm paradox.

Aharonov-bohm paradox involving charge particle interaction with stationary current distribution showing that vector potential term in canonical momenta expression represents electromagnetic field momentum

QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS↗

NASA NTRS2001

Titan Orbiter Aerorover Mission

We propose a combined Titan orbiter and Titan Aerorover mission with an emphasis on both in situ and remote sensing measurements of Titan's surface, atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetospheric interaction. The biological aspect of the Titan environment will be emphasized by the mission (i.e., search for organic materials which may include simple organics to 'amono' analogues of amino acids and possibly more complex, lightening detection and infrared, ultraviolet, and charged particle interactions with Titan's surface and atmosphere). An international mission is assumed to control costs. NASA will provide the orbiter, launch vehicle, DSN coverage and operations, while international partners will provide the Aerorover and up to 30% of the cost for the scientific instruments through collaborative efforts. To further reduce costs we propose a single PI for orbiter science instruments and a single PI for Aerorover science instruments. This approach will provide single command/data and power interface between spacecraft and orbiter instruments that will have redundant central DPU and power converter for their instruments. A similar approach could be used for the Aerorover. The mission profile will be constructed to minimize conflicts between Aerorover science, orbiter radar science, orbiter radio science, orbiter imaging science, and orbiter fields and particles (FP) science. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Sittler Jr., E. C.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Flowing plasma rearrangement in the presence of static perturbing fields

Charged particles interacting with electromagnetic waves have a portion of their energy tied up in wave-driven oscillations. When these waves are localized to the exhaust of linear magnetic confinement systems, this ponderomotive effect can be utilized to enhance particle confinement. The same effect can be derived for particles moving via an E×B drift into a region of a static perturbation to the electromagnetic fields which has a large wave vector component in the direction of the motion. In this work, we use a simplified slab model to self-consistently solve for the electromagnetic fields within the fluid flowing plasma of a static flute-like (k∥=0) perturbation and evaluate the resulting ponderomotive potential. We find that two types of perturbations can exist within the flowing plasma, which are an O wave and an X wave in the frame moving with the fluid. In the case of tenuous plasma, these perturbations are magnetostatic or electrostatic multipole-analog perpendicular to the guiding magnetic field in the lab frame, respectfully. For denser plasmas, the O wave-like perturbation is screened at the electron skin depth scale, and the X wave-like perturbation is a combination of a similar perpendicular electric perturbation and parallel magnetic perturbation. The ponderomotive potential generated in the X wave-like case is gyrofrequency-dependent and can be used as either potential barriers or potential wells, depending on the direction of the flow velocity.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

NASA NTRS1979

Plasma waves near Venus - Initial observations

The Pioneer Venus electric field detector was used to observe significant effects of the interaction of the solar wind with the ionosphere of Venus all along the orbiter trajectory. Information on sharp and diffuse shock structures and on plasma oscillations emitted by suprathermal electrons beyond the bow shock is considered, and wave particle interaction phenomena important near the boundary of the dayside ionosphere are noted.

Scarf, F. L.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Pentium Pro inside: A treecode at 430 Gigaflops on ASCI Red - 1

As an entry for the 1997 Gordon Bell performance prize, we present results from two methods of solving the gravitational N-body problem on the Intel Teraflops system at Sandia National Laboratory (ASCI Red). The first method, an O(N2) algorithm, obtained 635 Gigaflops for a 1 million particle problem on 6800 Pentium Pro processors. The second solution method, a tree-code which scales as O(N log N), sustained 170 Gigaflops over a continuous 9.4 hour period on 4096 processors, integrating the motion of 322 million mutually interacting particles in a cosmology simulation, while saving over 100 Gigabytes of raw data. Additionally, the tree-code sustained 430 Gigaflops on 6800 processors for the first 5 time-steps of that simulation. This tree-code solution is approximately 105 times more efficient than the O(N2) algorithm for this problem. As an entry for the 1997 Gordon Bell price/performance prize, we present two calculations from the disciplines of astrophysics and fluid dynamics. The simulations were performed on two 16 Pentium Pro processor Beowulf-class computers (Loki and Hyglac) constructed entirely from commodity personal computer technology, at a cost of roughly $50k each in September, 1996. The price of an equivalent system in August 1997 is less than $30. At Los Alamos, Loki performed a gravitational tree-code N-body simulation of galaxy formation using 9.75 million particles, which sustained an average of 879 Mflops over a ten day period, and produced roughly 10 Gbytes of raw data.

Warren, M. S.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Modeling the Gas Dynamics Environment in a Subscale Solid Rocket Test Motor

Subscale test motors are often used for the evaluation of solid rocket motor component materials such as internal insulation. These motors are useful for characterizing insulation performance behavior, screening insulation material candidates and obtaining material thermal and ablative property design data. One of the primary challenges associated with using subscale motors however, is the uncertainty involved when extrapolating the results to full-scale motor conditions. These uncertainties are related to differences in such phenomena as turbulent flow behavior and boundary layer development, propellant particle interactions with the wall, insulation off-gas mixing and thermochemical reactions with the bulk flow, radiation levels, material response to the local environment, and other anomalous flow conditions. In addition to the need for better understanding of physical mechanisms, there is also a need to better understand how to best simulate these phenomena using numerical modeling approaches such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD). To better understand and model interactions between major phenomena in a subscale test motor, a numerical study of the internal flow environment of a representative motor was performed. Simulation of the environment included not only gas dynamics, but two-phase flow modeling of entrained alumina particles like those found in an aluminized propellant, and offgassing from wall surfaces similar to an ablating insulation material. This work represents a starting point for establishing the internal environment of a subscale test motor using comprehensive modeling techniques, and lays the groundwork for improving the understanding of the applicability of subscale test data to full-scale motors. It was found that grid resolution, and inclusion of phenomena in addition to gas dynamics, such as two-phase and multi-component gas composition are all important factors that can effect the overall flow field predictions.

Eaton, Andrew M.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

What Processes are Defining the Ionospheric Conductivity and its Variability During Geomagnetic Disturbances?

Modeling of electrodynamic coupling between the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and upper atmosphere (MIA) depends on accurate specification of ionospheric conductance produced by auroral precipitation of high-energy electrons and ions. The precipitation of energetic electrons into the ionosphere is the result of a three-step process that relies on the proper selections of the simulation tools for the ionospheric conductivity studies, while observation can only measure the results of the three steps. In the region of diffuse aurora, the first step is the initiation of electron precipitation into both magnetically conjugate foot points from the Earth’s magnetosphere via wave-particle interactions. The second step is the multiple atmospheric backscatters (or reflections) of electrons at the two magnetic conjugate points, which produces secondary superthermal electron fluxes. The third step is namely the self-consistent electric and magnetic fields that influence magnetospheric particle transport and re-distribute precipitating electrons and ions through the ionospheric electrodynamics. These steps are especially important for revealing electron precipitation dynamics that carry most of the energy in the aurora, resulting also from ion precipitation production and the formation of ionospheric conductance during geomagnetic disturbances. We demonstrate all above results based on SuperThermal Electron Transport (STET), Superthermal Proton, Electron and Atomic Hydrogen tRansport in the Ionosphere and Thermosphere (SPEAH-RIT), and Comprehensive Inner Magnetosphere and Ionospere (CIMI) codes developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

George V. Khazanov↗

NASA NTRS1974

The earth's magnetosphere

A qualitative description of the general magnetospheric configuration is given, with emphasis on some of the physical processes governing the magnetosphere that are the main targets of current research. The magnetosphere behaves like a huge 'bag' of plasma and radiation that swells and contracts under the influence of the solar wind. The electric field, the magnetospheric plasma, the magnetospheric substorm, and the radiation belt and wave particle interactions are discussed. During the past 15 years, the study of the earth's magnetosphere man's immediate plasma and radiation environment - has undergone a successful stage of discovery and exploration. Investigators have obtained a morphological description of the magnetospheric field, the particle population embedded in it, and its interface with the solar wind, and have identified and are beginning to understand many of the physical processes involved. Quite generally, the magnetosphere reveals itself as a region where it is possible to observe some of the fundamental plasma processes at work that are known to occur elsewhere in the universe.

Roederer, J. G.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Monodisperse Single-Material Granular Tribocharging Modeling and Experimental Validation

Charge transfer between insulating grains has been a topic of interest for many years as this phenomenon is extremely important to many areas in industry. Of particular interest to NASA is the behavior of electrically insulative dust grains such as those found on the lunar surface. Whether poured from a scoop during sample collection activities, agitated inside a drum via mining robots, or fluidized by a gas plume, particle-particle interactions between similar granular materials will be widespread on the Moon. Designers hope to have a predictive model for how dust grains are charged, transported, and deposited on flight systems to better understand issues electrostatics may cause in future missions. While difference in work function is often seen as a driver for charge transfer between two materials, this is an incomplete representation for insulative particles. Other asymmetries in the system can also lead to charge being transferred: one such being the difference between static vs dynamic particles. Experiments performed under vacuum in the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory (ESPL) clearly show that particles having more contacts with other particles tend to charge positively and particles having fewer contacts tend to charge negatively, despite being made from the same material. During these experiments, monodisperse (population of single diameter) spherical particles were held in a reservoir which was then elevated at one end to slope into a Faraday cup used to measure bulk charge of the grains. Care was taken to limit the number of spheres bouncing out of the cup, to isolate the beads from the container itself so that only grain-to-grain interactions occurred, and to assure neutrality of the beads before the experiment began. A discrete element method (DEM) modeling package already incorporating many granular mechanics interactions was augmented to include the electrostatic behaviors seen in experiments. The model can reproduce the experimental results above by tracking the number of contacts between pairs of individual grains and applying a charge transfer condition related to this contact parameter. The experimental results as well as their incorporation into the improved modeling suite will be discussed. Future work includes adding additional asymmetries into the experiments/model such as polydisperse populations of spherical particles and irregularly shaped grains.

granular↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Monodisperse Single-Material Granular Tribocharging Modeling and Experimental Validation

electrostatics↗

NASA NTRS1981

Insights into the gas dynamics in galaxies via a particle model

Techniques of rarefied gas dynamics are applied to the astrophysical problem of gas flow in disk galaxies. Historically, studies of the interstellar gas dynamics in spiral galaxies have assumed the medium could be regarded as both isothermal and continuous. However, it now appears that the gaseous interstellar medium may be better idealized as a rarefied gas or discrete system of interacting particles. Principal evidence for this is that the galaxies themselves exhibit a degree of disorder and raggedness that is characteristic of a rarefied gaseous system with a Knudsen number of approximately 0.02-0.2. In this paper a particle model for gas flow in a spiral galaxy is developed and some implications of the results are discussed. The results are compared to an analytical inviscid calculation to gain further physical insight.

Levinson, F. H.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Gas-Grain Simulation Facility (GGSF). Volume 2: Conceptual design definition

This document is Volume 2 of the Final Report for the Phase A Study of the Gas-Grain Simulation Facility (GGSF), and presents the GGSF Conceptual Design. It is a follow-on to the Volume 1 Facility Definition Study, NASA report CR 177606. The development of a conceptual design for a Space Station Freedom (SSF) facility that will be used for investigating particle interactions in varying environments, including various gas mixtures, pressures, and temperatures is delineated. It's not possible to study these experiments on earth due to the long reaction times associated with this type of phenomena, hence the need for extended periods of microgravity. The particle types will vary in composition (solids and liquids), sizes (from submicrons to centimeters), and concentrations (from single particles to 10(exp 10) per cubic centimeter). The results of the experiments pursued in the GGSF will benefit a variety of scientific inquiries. These investigations span such diverse topics as the formation of planets and planetary rings, cloud and haze processes in planetary atmospheres, the composition and structure of astrophysical objects, and the viability of airborne microbes (e.g., in a manned spacecraft).

Zamel, James M.↗

NASA NTRS1968

Data Acquisition and Prompt Analysis System for High Altitude Balloon Experiments

An inexpensive and simple data acquisition system has been developed for balloon borne experiments and has been tested with a gamma ray detector in a balloon flight launched from Palestine, Texas. The detector used for the test consisted of an NaI(T1) scintillation crystal encased in a 1/8 in. plastic scintillator-charged particle shield. The combination was viewed by a single photomultiplier and charged particle gating was accomplished by a conventional phoswich discriminator. The pulse height analysis of the NaI events, not associated with prompt charged particle interactions, is accomplished by converting to a time spectrum using an airborne height to time converter. A range of pulse widths from 5 microseconds to 250 microseconds corresponds to energy losses in NaI from 100 to 1000 keV. The time spectrum information, along with charged particle events and barometric pressure, is fed to a mixer which modulates a 252.4 Mc FM transmitter. The original scintillator spectrum is recovered on the ground utilizing conversion circuitry at the receiver video output and a 128 channel commercial pulse height analyzer. The charged particle events of standard time width are stored with the spectrum at a fixed channel position and are therefore represented by a sharp line riding on the lower part of the NaI energy loss spectrum. An energy loss greater than 1000 keV is presented by the maximum pulse width of the converter and stored in the last analyzer channel. Barometric pressure data is transmitted by low frequency modulation of the sme FM carrier. In flight operation, the receiver video output can be recorded on a wide band tape recorder and simultaneously analyzed by the 128 channel analyzer, or the telemetered data can be analyzed later. The flight system features high pulse resolution, essentially instantaneous time response, high data rate, and flexibility; and is of modest cost. A detailed description of the system and operating performance is discussed.

Sarkady, A. A.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Long-term evolution of a planetesimal swarm in the vicinity of a protoplanet

Many models of planet formation involve scenarios in which one or a few large protoplanets interact with a swarm of much smaller planetesimals. In such scenarios, three-body perturbations by the protoplanet as well as mutual collisions and gravitational interactions between the swarm bodies are important in determining the velocity distribution of the swarm. We are developing a model to examine the effects of these processes on the evolution of a planetesimal swarm. The model consists of a combination of numerical integrations of the gravitational influence of one (or a few) massive protoplanets on swarm bodies together with a statistical treatment of the interactions between the planetesimals. Integrating the planetesimal orbits allows us to take into account effects that are difficult to model analytically or statistically, such as three-body collision cross-sections and resonant perturbations by the protoplanet, while using a statistical treatment for the particle-particle interactions allows us to use a large enough sample to obtain meaningful results.

Kary, David M.↗

NASA NTRS1989

High-energy radiation background in space

The radiation environment of near-earth space and its effects on biological and hardware systems are examined in reviews and reports. Sections are devoted to particle interactions and propagation, data bases, instrument background and dosimetry, detectors and experimental progress, biological effects, and future needs and strategies. Particular attention is given to angular distributions and spectra of geomagnetically trapped protons in LEO, bremsstrahlung production by electrons, nucleon-interaction data bases for background estimates, instrumental and atmospheric background lines observed by the SMM gamma-ray spectrometer, the GRAD high-altitude balloon flight over Antarctica, space protons and brain tumors, a new radioprotective antioxidative agent, LEO radiation measurements on the Space Station, and particle-background effects on the Hubble Space Telescope and the Lyman FUV Spectroscopic Explorer.

Rester, A. C., Jr.↗