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At least 379 records · Page 21

Time resolved spectra in the infrared absorption and emission from shock heated hydrocarbons

The wavelength range of a previously constructed multichannel fast recording spectrometer was extended to the mid-infrared. With the initial configuration, light intensities were recorded simultaneously with a silicon-diode array simultaneously at 20 adjacent wavelengths, each with a 20-micron time resolution. For studies in the infrared, the silicon diodes were replaced by a 20-element PbSe array of similar dimensions, cooled by a three-stage thermoelectric device. It is proposed that infrared emissions could be due to shock-heated low molecular-weight hydrocarbons. The full Swan band system appeared in time-integrated emission spectra from shock-heated C2H2; no soot was generated. At low resolution, the profiles on the high-frequency side of the black body maximum show no distinctive features. These could be fitted to Planck curves, with temperatures that declined with time from an initial high that was intermediate between T5 (no conversion) and T5(eq).

Bauer, S. H.↗

Discrete Adjoint-Based Design Optimization of Unsteady Turbulent Flows on Dynamic Unstructured Grids

An adjoint-based methodology for design optimization of unsteady turbulent flows on dynamic unstructured grids is described. The implementation relies on an existing unsteady three-dimensional unstructured grid solver capable of dynamic mesh simulations and discrete adjoint capabilities previously developed for steady flows. The discrete equations for the primal and adjoint systems are presented for the backward-difference family of time-integration schemes on both static and dynamic grids. The consistency of sensitivity derivatives is established via comparisons with complex-variable computations. The current work is believed to be the first verified implementation of an adjoint-based optimization methodology for the true time-dependent formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations in a practical computational code. Large-scale shape optimizations are demonstrated for turbulent flows over a tiltrotor geometry and a simulated aeroelastic motion of a fighter jet.

Nielsen, Eric J.↗

Receptivity of Hypersonic Boundary Layers over Straight and Flared Cones

The effects of adverse pressure gradients on the receptivity and stability of hypersonic boundary layers were numerically investigated. Simulations were performed for boundary layer flows over a straight cone and two flared cones. The steady and the unsteady flow fields were obtained by solving the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations in axi-symmetric coordinates using the 5th order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme for space discretization and using third-order total-variation-diminishing (TVD) Runge-Kutta scheme for time integration. The mean boundary layer profiles were analyzed using local stability and non-local parabolized stability equations (PSE) methods. After the most amplified disturbances were identified, two-dimensional plane acoustic waves were introduced at the outer boundary of the computational domain and time accurate simulations were performed. The adverse pressure gradient was found to affect the boundary layer stability in two important ways. Firstly, the frequency of the most amplified second-mode disturbance was increased relative to the zero pressure gradient case. Secondly, the amplification of first- and second-mode disturbances was increased. Although an adverse pressure gradient enhances instability wave growth rates, small nose-tip bluntness was found to delay transition due to the low receptivity coefficient and the resulting weak initial amplitude of the instability waves. The computed and measured amplitude-frequency spectrums in all three cases agree very well in terms of frequency and the shape except for the amplitude.

Balakumar, Ponnampalam↗

A burst of energetic gamma rays

A burst of gamma rays with energies greater than 1 MeV occurring on May 14, 1972, at 201247 UT (151247 local time) was detected during a balloon flight from Palestine, Texas, at a float altitude of 4g/sq cm residual atmosphere. The detector was a tank of liquid scintillator 1m x 0.5 m x 15 cm surrounded by a 0.6 cm plastic scintillator in anticoincidence. The signal was 60 standard deviations above a steady background of 600 counts/sec. The flux was 0.12 (+0.07 or -0.04) gamma/sq cm, and the time integrated flux 20(+11 or -7) gamma/sq cm. Only one such event was seen during the 8 hours of observation in the daytime on May 14 and 15. Two sub-flares in H alpha occurred during the burst, but not coincident with the start time. A detector on the Solrad satellite observed X-rays on all channels 2 minutes after the gamma ray start time. This event is similar to three earlier reported events.

Koga, R.↗

Time scales and variability of area-averaged tropical oceanic rainfall

A statistical analysis of time series of area-averaged rainfall over the oceans has been conducted around the diurnal time scale. The results of this analysis can be applied directly to the problem of establishing the magnitude of expected errors to be incurred in the estimation of monthly area-averaged rain rate from low orbiting satellites. Such statistics as the mean, standard deviation, integral time scale of background red noise, and spectral analyses were performed on time series of the GOES precipitation index taken at 3-hour intervals during the period spanning December 19, 1987 to March 31, 1988 over the central and eastern tropical Pacific. The analyses have been conducted on 2.5 x 2.5 deg and 5 x 5 deg grid boxes, separately. The study shows that rainfall measurements by a sun-synchronous satellite visiting a spot twice per day will include a bias due to the existence of the semidiurnal cycle in the SPCZ ranging from 5 to 10 percentage points. The bias in the ITCZ may be of the order of 5 percentage points.

Shin, Kyung-Sup↗

Position surveillance using one active ranging satellite and time-of-arrival of a signal from an independent satellite

A satellite-aided mobile communication service was tested for position surveillance, with an automatic responder circuit connected between the vehicle receiver and transmitter, and a receiver coded for signals from another satellite. Using the ATS-6 and GOES satellites, a tone-code ranging transponder was connected between the receiver and transmitter, and a 468 MHz receiver was connected to the responder unit for passive reception of the 100 bit per second timing and data signal. Results showed lines of position derived from the active ranging through ATS-6 to be accurate to approximately 0.1 nautical mile, while the NOAA-GOES signals were accurate to about 1.6 miles. The active ranging bandwidth was 2.44 kHz, and the integration time was 0.1 second, while the limitation on accuracy was the 100 Hz bandwidth. This technique of position surveillance was concluded to be feasible and simple to operate, providing needed, good quality communications to the inland waterways industry.

Anderson, R. E.↗

Multibody Parachute Flight Simulations for Planetary Entry Trajectories Using "Equilibrium Points"

A method has been developed to reduce numerical stiffness and computer CPU requirements of high fidelity multibody flight simulations involving parachutes for planetary entry trajectories. Typical parachute entry configurations consist of entry bodies suspended from a parachute, connected by flexible lines. To accurately calculate line forces and moments, the simulations need to keep track of the point where the flexible lines meet (confluence point). In previous multibody parachute flight simulations, the confluence point has been modeled as a point mass. Using a point mass for the confluence point tends to make the simulation numerically stiff, because its mass is typically much less that than the main rigid body masses. One solution for stiff differential equations is to use a very small integration time step. However, this results in large computer CPU requirements. In the method described in the paper, the need for using a mass as the confluence point has been eliminated. Instead, the confluence point is modeled using an "equilibrium point". This point is calculated at every integration step as the point at which sum of all line forces is zero (static equilibrium). The use of this "equilibrium point" has the advantage of both reducing the numerical stiffness of the simulations, and eliminating the dynamical equations associated with vibration of a lumped mass on a high-tension string.

Raiszadeh, Ben↗

Parallel processors and nonlinear structural dynamics algorithms and software

The adaptation of a finite element program with explicit time integration to a massively parallel SIMD (single instruction multiple data) computer, the CONNECTION Machine is described. The adaptation required the development of a new algorithm, called the exchange algorithm, in which all nodal variables are allocated to the element with an exchange of nodal forces at each time step. The architectural and C* programming language features of the CONNECTION Machine are also summarized. Various alternate data structures and associated algorithms for nonlinear finite element analysis are discussed and compared. Results are presented which demonstrate that the CONNECTION Machine is capable of outperforming the CRAY XMP/14.

Belytschko, Ted↗

The Adaptable and Resilient Safety System: The Human Factor in Future In-Time Aviation Safety Management Systems

In-time integrated safety management will be paramount for safely enabling the envisioned transformations of the future National Airspace System (NAS). The path for realizing the vision includes addressing the increasing need for advanced data analytics and fusion of aviation safety data, managed by human decision-makers. The paper describes safety management systems and its’ challenges, and how the concept of In-time Aviation Safety Management Systems addresses the need to ensure an adaptable and resilient future safety system in the envisioned transformed NAS. Finally, it discusses potential human factors challenges, including new human roles and responsibilities, new information and cognitive requirements, new intelligent technologies that change human-system interaction and coordination, and new design paradigms for human system integration and teaming.

L. Prinzel↗

The Adaptable and Resilient Safety System: The Human Factor in Future In-Time Aviation Safety Management Systems

In-time integrated safety management will be paramount for safely enabling the envisioned transformations of the future National Airspace System (NAS). The path for realizing the vision includes addressing the increasing need for advanced data analytics and fusion of aviation safety data, managed by human decision-makers. The paper describes safety management systems and its’ challenges, and how the concept of In-time Aviation Safety Management Systems addresses the need to ensure an adaptable and resilient future safety system in the envisioned transformed NAS. Finally, it discusses potential human factors challenges, including new human roles and responsibilities, new information and cognitive requirements, new intelligent technologies that change human-system interaction and coordination, and new design paradigms for human system integration and teaming.

Aviation Safety↗

Analysis of high velocity impact on hybrid composite fan blades

Recent developments in the analysis of high velocity impact of composite blades are described, using a computerized capability which consists of coupling a composites mechanics code with the direct-time integration features of NASTRAN. The application of the capability to determine the linear dynamic response of an interply hybrid composite aircraft engine fan blade is described in detail. The results also show that the impact stresses reach sufficiently high magnitudes to cause failures in the impact region at early times of the impact event.

Chamis, C. C.↗

Space optics for studying extra-solar planetary systems

The sharp imaging of telescopes in space will improve the ability to see faint objects near bright ones. One exciting application is the search for planets around other stars. However, because a planet is, at best, 10 exp 9 times fainter than a star in visible light, specialized optical systems are required. Using apodization to remove diffracted light, the limiting source of noise is the intensity of starlight scattered by mirror figure errors. Based on the prelaunch metrology of the HST mirrors, and considering only photonstatistics, months of integration would be needed for HST to detect Jupiter next to the sun at a distance of 5 pc. The integration times will be shorter for future telescopes in space with smoother mirrors and/or larger apertures.

Brown, Robert A.↗

Sensitivity of nulling interferometers to extra-solar zodiacal emission (EZE)

It should be possible to discover and to analyze the atmospheres of Earth-like planets of nearby stars, provided their thermal emission is not overwhelmed by a bright zodiacal cloud in the same system. Nulling interferometers in space, such as the Terrestrial Planet Finder, can efficiently suppress a stellar point source, but there is no way to suppress diffuse emission underlying the planet under study. A cloud much brighter than solar level would cause serious reduction in sensitivity, by its photon shot noise. Since some clouds have been detected that are orders of magnitude brighter, zodiacal measurements of TPF candidates to solar level are critically needed. These could be obtained relatively soon with the largest aperture ground-based interferometers observing in the 10 micron atmospheric window. A cloud would be detectable as an infrared excess, provided the stellar emission (some 10(exp 4) times brighter) is adequately suppressed by destructive interference. Ideally, the ground interferometer should have angular response similar to that of TPF, so as to measure directly the troublesome zodiacal component. The individual elements must be large, for even with approx. 8 m apertures, star cancellation and low thermal background, integration times of at least several hours will be needed to sense the clouds against shot noise from telescope thermal emission. In this paper we compare the sensitivity of TPF and ground based interferometers to a twin of the solar system at 10 pc, using Good's (1994) model of the zodiacal cloud.

Angel, Roger↗

SGR J1550-5418 Bursts Detected with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor during Its Most Prolific Activity

We have performed detailed temporal and time-integrated spectral analysis of 286 bursts from SGR J1550-5418 detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) in 2009 January, resulting in the largest uniform sample of temporal and spectral properties of SGR J1550-5418 bursts. We have used the combination of broadband and high time-resolution data provided with GBM to perform statistical studies for the source properties.We determine the durations, emission times, duty cycles, and rise times for all bursts, and find that they are typical of SGR bursts. We explore various models in our spectral analysis, and conclude that the spectra of SGR J15505418 bursts in the 8-200 keV band are equally well described by optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung (OTTB), a power law (PL) with an exponential cutoff (Comptonized model), and two blackbody (BB) functions (BB+BB). In the spectral fits with the Comptonized model, we find a mean PL index of -0.92, close to the OTTB index of -1. We show that there is an anti-correlation between the Comptonized E(sub peak) and the burst fluence and average flux. For the BB+BBfits, we find that the fluences and emission areas of the two BB functions are correlated. The low-temperature BB has an emission area comparable to the neutron star surface area, independent of the temperature, while the high temperature BB has a much smaller area and shows an anti-correlation between emission area and temperature.We compare the properties of these bursts with bursts observed from other SGR sources during extreme activations, and discuss the implications of our results in the context of magnetar burst models.

bursts↗

JPL airborne instruments activities

Two instruments intended for flight aboard aircraft for research in advanced remote sensing of the earth are under development: the airborne imaging spectrometer (AIS) and the airborne visible-infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS). The AIS utilizes a 32 x 32 element HgCdTe CCD array to gather 10nm spectral data, initially in the 1.2 to 2.4 micron range, with 32 pixels of cross-track spatial data. The instrument acquires 128 channels of spectral data by using a grating spectrometer whose grating is stepped through four positions during a fraction of an IFOV time on the ground. With an IFOV of 2 mrad, the GIFOV at the design altitude of 3 km is 6m. The instrument has several on-board processing capabilities including ax+b corrections for detector calibration, cross-track and down-track pixel summing, spectral band summing, and variable integration time to allow flight at various altitudes and velocities. The AVIRIS uses a proven scanning mechanism to acquire the spatial data in a whisk broom mode. The spectral coverage is from 0.35 to 2.5 microns at bandwidths ranging from 10 to 20 nm.

Vane, G.↗

Note on the Optimum Search Strategy for Uniformly Distributed CW Transmitters

The relative probability of detecting randomly distributed CW transmitters as a function of the fraction of the sky which is searched (in a fixed time) is given. It is shown that the probability of detecting such a class of transmitters with a given receiving system is a maximum if the entire sky is searched. The particular case of a search in which the number of directions searched is equal to the telescope gain and the integration time per beam element is equal to the reciprocal of the channel bandwidth is discussed.

Gulkis, S.↗

The application of trend surface analysis to a portion of the Apollo 15 X-ray fluorescence data

X-ray fluorescence data for 8 and 16 second time integrals gathered by Apollo 15 in circum lunar orbit were analyzed to determine the capability for chemical mapping of relatively small lunar features in a portion of Tranquillitatis and Serenitatis basins. Spatial mapping using trend surface analysis demonstrated that a useable signal could be extracted from Al/Si intensity ratios calculated for 8 second time spans. Reliability of the Al/Si ratio was enhanced when 16 second data were compiled using a sliding average technique. Residual anomalies from the trend surface mapping were identified and correlated with relatively small lunar surface features.

Podwysocki, M. H.↗

Canonical fluid thermodynamics

The space-time integral of the thermodynamic pressure plays in a certain sense the role of the thermodynamic potential for compressible adiabatic flow. The stability criterion can be converted into a variational minimum principle by requiring the molar free-enthalpy and temperature to be generalized velocities. In the fluid context, the definition of proper-time differentiation involves the fluid velocity expressed in terms of three particle identity parameters. The pressure function is then converted into a functional which is the Lagrangian density of the variational principle. Being also a minimum principle, the variational principle provides a means for comparing the relative stability of different flows. For boundary conditions with a high degree of symmetry, as in the case of a uniformly expanding spherical gas box, the most stable flow is a rectilinear flow for which the world-trajectory of each particle is a straight line. Since the behavior of the interior of a freely expanding cosmic cloud may be expected to be similar to that of the fluid in the spherical box of gas, this suggests that the cosmic principle is a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics, rather than just an ad hoc postulate.

Schmid, L. A.↗