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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 523 records · Page 29

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NASA NTRS1985

Penetration of solar protons into the Earth's magnetosphere on November 22, 1977

The low polar-orbiting Cosmos-900 satellite carried a large geometric factor Cerenkov counter to study the particle anisotropy and spectrum near the proton increase peak in solar cosmic rays. The data help understand different temporal behavior of the increases detected at the stations because the whole set of data showed that the angular distribution of solar cosmic ray particles in interplanetary space was narrow throughout the observation time, resulting in a rapid variation of particle intensity near the poles. The power-law index of the solar cosmic ray integral spectrum varied from -2.4 to -5.2 in the 1 to 4 GV rigidity range from 10.31 to 11.25 UT on November 22, 1977. The flare-time data from all orbits indicate an increased radiation intensity on L=3.5 to 4.0.

Gorchakov, E. V.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Numerical approximation for the infinite-dimensional discrete-time optimal linear-quadratic regulator problem

An abstract approximation framework is developed for the finite and infinite time horizon discrete-time linear-quadratic regulator problem for systems whose state dynamics are described by a linear semigroup of operators on an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. The schemes included the framework yield finite dimensional approximations to the linear state feedback gains which determine the optimal control law. Convergence arguments are given. Examples involving hereditary and parabolic systems and the vibration of a flexible beam are considered. Spline-based finite element schemes for these classes of problems, together with numerical results, are presented and discussed.

Gibson, J. S.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Numerical approximation for the infinite-dimensional discrete-time optimal linear-quadratic regulator problem

Gibson, J. S.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Dynamics of spacecraft with deploying flexible appendages

A computational formulation for the dynamic analysis of spacecraft with deploying appendages is presented. The appendage model is based on a geometrically nonlinear beam formulation which accurately accounts for large rotational and large deformation motions. A moving finite element reference grid is incorporated within the nonlinear beam formulation to model the deployment motion. Hamilton's Law is used to formulate the general equations of motion, and a transient integration solution procedure is derived from a space-time finite element discretization of the Hamiltonian variational statement. Computational results of the methodology are presented for a classical gravity gradient stabilized satellite configuration.

Downer, Janice D.↗

NASA NTRS1995

The space-time solution element method: A new numerical approach for the Navier-Stokes equations

This paper is one of a series of papers describing the development of a new numerical method for the Navier-Stokes equations. Unlike conventional numerical methods, the current method concentrates on the discrete simulation of both the integral and differential forms of the Navier-Stokes equations. Conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in space-time is explicitly provided for through a rigorous enforcement of both the integral and differential forms of the governing conservation laws. Using local polynomial expansions to represent the discrete primitive variables on each cell, fluxes at cell interfaces are evaluated and balanced using exact functional expressions. No interpolation or flux limiters are required. Because of the generality of the current method, it applies equally to the steady and unsteady Navier-Stokes equations. In this paper, we generalize and extend the authors' 2-D, steady state implicit scheme. A general closure methodology is presented so that all terms up through a given order in the local expansions may be retained. The scheme is also extended to nonorthogonal Cartesian grids. Numerous flow fields are computed and results are compared with known solutions. The high accuracy of the scheme is demonstrated through its ability to accurately resolve developing boundary layers on coarse grids. Finally, we discuss applications of the current method to the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations.

Scott, James R.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Implications of Gamma-Ray Transparency Constraints in Blazars: Minimum Distances and Gamma-Ray Collimation

We develop a general expression for the gamma - gamma absorption coefficient, alpha(sub gamma(gamma)) for gamma-rays propagating in an arbitrary direction at an arbitrary point in space above an X-ray-emitting accretion disk. The X-ray intensity is assumed to vary as a power law in energy and radius between the outer disk radius, R(sub 0), and the inner radius, R(sub ms) which is the radius of marginal stability for a Schwarzschild black hole. We use our result for alpha(sub gamma(gamma)) to calculate the gamma - gamma optical depth, tau(sub gamma(gamma)) for gamma - rays created at height z and propagating at angle Phi relative to the disk axis, and we show that for Phi = 0 and z greater than or approx equal to R(sub 0), tau(sub gamma(gamma)) proportional to Epsilon(sup alpha)z(sup -2(alpha) - 3), where alpha is the X-ray spectral index and Epsilon is the gamma - ray energy. As an application, we use our formalism to compute the minimum distance between the central black hole and the site of production of the gamma-rays detected by EGRET during the 1991 June flare of 3C 279. In order to obtain an upper limit, we assume that all of the X-rays observed contemporaneously by Ginga were emitted by the disk. Our results suggest that the observed gamma - rays may have originated within less than or approx equal to 45 GM/sq c from a black hole of mass greater than or approx equal to 10(exp 9) solar mass, perhaps in active plasma located above the central funnel of the accretion disk. This raises the possibility of establishing a direct connection between the production of the observed gamma - rays and the accretion of material onto the black hole. We also consider the variation of the optical depth as a function of the angle of propagation Phi. Our results indicate that the "focusing" of the gamma - rays along the disk axis due to pair production is strong enough to explain the observed degree of alignment in blazar sources. If the gamma - rays are produced isotropically in gamma - ray blazars, then these objects should appear as bright MeV sources when viewed along off-axis lines of sight.

Becker, Peter A.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Computational Aeroacoustics by the Space-Time CE/SE Method

The Space-Time Conservation Element and Solution Element Method, or CE/SE Method for short, is a newly developed numerical method for conservation laws. Despite its second order accuracy, it possesses low dispersion errors and low dissipation. The method is robust enough to cover a wide spectrum of compressible flows: from weak linear acoustic waves to strong discontinuous waves (shocks). An outstanding feature of the CE/SE scheme is its novel, simple but effective non-reflecting boundary condition (NRBC), which is particularly valuable for CAA (computational aeroacoustics). In this seminar, the 1-D and 2-D unstructured version of the CE/SE schemes are first briefly described. Secondly, some discussions on the NRBC are given. Then, various examples for linear, nonlinear aeroacoustics are presented.

Loh, Ching Y.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Minimizing Launch Mass for ISRU Processes

The University of Dayton and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing a methodology for estimating the Earth launch mass (ELM) of processes for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) with a focus on lunar resource recovery. ISRU may be enabling for both an extended presence on the Moon, and for large sample return missions and for a human presence on Mars. To accomplish these exploration goals, the resources recovered by ISRU must offset the ELM for the recovery process. An appropriate figure of merit is the cost of the exploration mission, which is closely related to ELM. For a given production rate and resource concentration, the lowest ELM - and the best ISRU process - is achieved by minimizing capital equipment for both the ISRU process and energy production. ISRU processes incur Carnot limitations and second law losses (irreversibilities) that ultimately determine production rate, material utilization and energy efficiencies. Heat transfer, chemical reaction, and mechanical operations affect the ELM in ways that are best understood by examining the process's detailed energetics. Schemes for chemical and thermal processing that do not incorporate an understanding of second law losses will be incompletely understood. Our team is developing a methodology that will aid design and selection of ISRU processes by identifying the impact of thermodynamic losses on ELM. The methodology includes mechanical, thermal and chemical operations, and, when completed, will provide a procedure and rationale for optimizing their design and minimizing their cost. The technique for optimizing ISRU with respect to ELM draws from work of England and Funk that relates the cost of endothermic processes to their second law efficiencies. Our team joins their approach for recovering resources by chemical processing with analysis of thermal and mechanical operations in space. Commercial firms provide cost inputs for ELM and planetary landing. Additional information is included in the original extended abstract.

England, C.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Non-Lipschitz Approach to Quantum Mechnics

An attempt to reconcile quantum mechanics with Newton's laws represented by the non-Lipschitz formalism has been made. As a Proof-of-concept, a line of equally spaced atoms was studied. It appeared that enforcement of atom incompressibility required relaxation of the lipschitz condition at the points of contact.

Quantum Mechanics↗

NASA NTRS2015

In-Flight Suppression of an Unstable F/A-18 Structural Mode Using the Space Launch System Adaptive Augmenting Control System

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Flight Control System (FCS) includes an Adaptive Augmenting Control (AAC) component which employs a multiplicative gain update law to enhance the performance and robustness of the baseline control system for extreme off-nominal scenarios. The SLS FCS algorithm including AAC has been flight tested utilizing a specially outfitted F/A-18 fighter jet in which the pitch axis control of the aircraft was performed by a Non-linear Dynamic Inversion (NDI) controller, SLS reference models, and the SLS flight software prototype. This paper describes test cases from the research flight campaign in which the fundamental F/A-18 airframe structural mode was identified using post-flight frequency-domain reconstruction, amplified to result in closed loop instability, and suppressed in-flight by the SLS adaptive control system.

VanZwieten, Tannen S.↗

NASA NTRS2015

In-Flight Suppression of a Destabilized F/A-18 Structural Mode Using the Space Launch System Adaptive Augmenting Control System

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Flight Control System (FCS) includes an Adaptive Augmenting Control (AAC) component which employs a multiplicative gain update law to enhance the performance and robustness of the baseline control system for extreme off nominal scenarios. The SLS FCS algorithm including AAC has been flight tested utilizing a specially outfitted F/A-18 fighter jet in which the pitch axis control of the aircraft was performed by a Non-linear Dynamic Inversion (NDI) controller, SLS reference models, and the SLS flight software prototype. This paper describes test cases from the research flight campaign in which the fundamental F/A-18 airframe structural mode was identified using frequency-domain reconstruction of flight data, amplified to result in closed loop instability, and suppressed in-flight by the SLS adaptive control system.

Wall, John H.↗

NASA NTRS2009

SHJAR Jet Noise Data and Power Spectral Laws

High quality jet noise spectral data measured at the Aeroacoustic Propulsion Laboratory at the NASA Glenn Research Center is used to examine a number of jet noise scaling laws. Configurations considered in the present study consist of convergent and convergent-divergent axisymmetric nozzles. The measured spectral data are shown in narrow band and cover 8193 equally spaced points in a typical Strouhal number range of 0.0 to 10.0. The measured data are reported as lossless (i.e., atmospheric attenuation is added to measurements), and at 24 equally spaced angles (50deg to 165deg) on a 100-diameter (200-in.) arc. Following the work of Viswanathan, velocity power factors are evaluated using a least squares fit on spectral power density as a function of jet temperature and observer angle. The goodness of the fit and the confidence margins for the two regression parameters are studied at each angle, and alternative relationships are proposed to improve the spectral collapse when certain conditions are met. As an immediate application of the velocity power laws, spectral density in shockcontaining jets are decomposed into components attributed to jet mixing noise and shock noise. From this analysis, jet noise prediction tools can be developed with different spectral components derived from different physics.

Khavaran, Abbas↗

NASA NTRS1988

A new class of energy based control laws for revolute robot arms - Tracking control, robustness enhancement and adaptive control

A class of joint-level control laws for all-revolute robot arms is introduced. The analysis is similar to the recently proposed energy Liapunov function approach except that the closed-loop potential function is shaped in accordance with the underlying joint space topology. By using energy Liapunov functions with the modified potential energy, a much simpler analysis can be used to show closed-loop global asymptotic stability and local exponential stability. When Coulomb and viscous friction and model parameter errors are present, a sliding-mode-like modification of the control law is proposed to add a robustness-enhancing outer loop. Adaptive control is also addressed within the same framework. A linear-in-the-parameters formulation is adopted, and globally asymptotically stable adaptive control laws are derived by replacing the model parameters in the nonadaptive control laws by their estimates.

Wen, John T.↗

NASA NTRS1991

An ISU study of asteroid mining

During the 1990 summer session of the International Space University, 59 graduate students from 16 countries carried out a design project on using the resources of near-earth asteroids. The results of the project, whose full report is now available from ISU, are summarized. The student team included people in these fields: architecture, business and management, engineering, life sciences, physical sciences, policy and law, resources and manufacturing, and satellite applications. They designed a project for transporting equipment and personnel to a near-earth asteroid, setting up a mining base there, and hauling products back for use in cislunar space. In addition, they outlined the needed precursor steps, beginning with expansion of present ground-based programs for finding and characterizing near-earth asteroids and continuing with automated flight missions to candidate bodies. (To limit the summer project's scope the actual design of these flight-mission precursors was excluded.) The main conclusions were that asteroid mining may provide an important complement to the future use of lunar resources, with the potential to provide large amounts of water and carbonaceous materials for use off earth. However, the recovery of such materials from presently known asteroids did not show an economic gain under the study assumptions; therefore, asteroid mining cannot yet be considered a prospective business.

Burke, J. D.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Carnegie Hubble Program: A Mid-Infrared Calibration of the Hubble Constant

Using a mid-infrared calibration of the Cepheid distance scale based on recent observations at 3.6 micrometers with the Spitzer Space Telescope, we have obtained a new, high-accuracy calibration of the Hubble constant. We have established the mid-IR zero point of the Leavitt law (the Cepheid period-luminosity relation) using time-averaged 3.6 micrometers data for 10 high-metallicity, MilkyWay Cepheids having independently measured trigonometric parallaxes. We have adopted the slope of the PL relation using time-averaged 3.6micrometers data for 80 long-period Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Cepheids falling in the period range 0.8 < log(P) < 1.8.We find a new reddening-corrected distance to the LMC of 18.477 +/- 0.033 (systematic) mag. We re-examine the systematic uncertainties in H(sub 0), also taking into account new data over the past decade. In combination with the new Spitzer calibration, the systematic uncertainty in H(sub 0) over that obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project has decreased by over a factor of three. Applying the Spitzer calibration to the Key Project sample, we find a value of H(sub 0) = 74.3 with a systematic uncertainty of +/-2.1 (systematic) kilometers per second Mpc(sup −1), corresponding to a 2.8% systematic uncertainty in the Hubble constant. This result, in combination with WMAP7measurements of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and assuming a flat universe, yields a value of the equation of state for dark energy, w(sub 0) = −1.09 +/- 0.10. Alternatively, relaxing the constraints on flatness and the numbers of relativistic species, and combining our results with those of WMAP7, Type Ia supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillations yield w(sub 0) = −1.08 +/- 0.10 and a value of N(sub eff) = 4.13 +/- 0.67, mildly consistent with the existence of a fourth neutrino species.

Program↗

NASA NTRS1975

Post-ejection impacts of the space shuttle solid rocket booster nose cap

The dynamics of impacts between the nose cap ejected from the space shuttle solid rocket booster and the drogue parachute pack are analyzed. The analysis is restricted to planar impact, and assumes the law of restitution and the possible occurrence of three types of impact, depending on the friction behavior of the colliding surfaces: forward slip; backward slip; no slip (normal rebound). The positions of both bodies and their velocities at the time of impact are required. Seven successive impacts, representing all three types, detected and simulated for the case of nose cap ejection at 20 fps normal to the direction of airflow, with selected coefficients of friction (0.25) and restitution (0.85).

Banerjee, A. K.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Extracts from Problems of Air Law, a collection of works of the Section of air law of the Aviakhim Society of the USSR and Aviakhim RSFSR

The difficulties of developing a body of international law to govern air travel is discussed. A summary of literature and agreements is presented as well as a brief history. Air space over the poles and the legality of methods of claiming territory in the polar regions is discussed.

Baranov, P. I.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Application of transonic codes to aeroelastic modeling of airfoils including active controls

A study is performed using aeroelastic modeling to investigate the stability behavior of airfoils in small-disturbance transonic flow. Two conventional airfoils, NACA 64.A006 and NACA 64A010, and a supercritical airfoil, MBB A-3, are considered. Three sets of unsteady aerodynamic data are computed using three different transonic codes (LTRAN2-NLR, LTRAN2-HI, and USTS) for comparison purposes. Stability results obtained using a constant matrix, state-space, aeroelastic model are presented in a root-locus format. Use of the state-space model is demonstrated through application to flutter suppression using active controls. Aeroelastic effects due to simple, constant gain, partial feedback, control laws that utilize displacement, velocity, and acceleration sensing are studied using a variety of control gains. Calculations are also performed using linear subsonic aerodynamic theory to reveal the differences between including and not including transonic effects in the aeroelastic model. Aeroelastic stability behavior of these airfoils is physically interpreted and discussed in detail.

Batina, J. T.↗