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At least 559 records · Page 31

Poisson’s ratio of eTPU molded bead foams in compression via in situ synchrotron X-ray microtomography

In situ synchrotron X-ray microtomography was used to characterize the bulk deformation behavior by computing the Poisson's ratio of expanded thermoplastic polyurethane (eTPU) molded bead foams used in footwear midsole during compression. Quantitative data on morphological characteristics were obtained using an iterative image processing workflow. Image correlation on the 4D datasets using DVC was performed to calculate the volumetric and axial strain to estimate the Poisson ratio. Strain maps from DVC showed the influence of variability in ligament thickness distribution on the global mechanical behavior exhibited which dominated the response seen in these bead foams. Lastly, our results showed a strong correlation between Poisson ratio and distribution of ligament thickness in foams.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Postbuckling of long thick plates in compression including higher order transverse shearing effects

Aluminum plates of various length/width ratios loaded in compression are examined analytically in terms of buckling and postbuckling for comparison with classical theory. The plates are considered to be subjected to longitudinal compressive displacement with no edge stress and are assumed to be simply supported at the side edges. The average longitudinal direct stresses are computed to plot characteristic curves by means of the following theories: 3D flexibility, higher-order shear deformation, first-order shear deformation, and classical von Karman. The 3D flexibility approach yields the lowest results with more unknowns than the higher-order shear-deformation method. The 3D flexibility approach is considered to be the most accurate, and it is shown that the calculated resultants and displacements tend to vary when consideration is given to the effects of transverse shear.

Stein, Manuel↗

Contraction ratio effects in a generic sidewall compression scramjet inlet - A computational and experimental investigation

Computed and experimental data on a generic three-dimensional sidewall compression scramjet inlet with a leading edge sweep of 45 degrees at Mach 20 are presented. A three-dimensional Navier-Stokes code was adapted to perform preliminary parametric studies leading to the present configuration. Following the design phase, the code was then employed as an analysis tool to provide a better understanding of the flow field and the experimental static and pitot pressure data. The model possessed 240 static pressure orifices distributed on the forebody plane, sidewalls, and cowl and was tested in the 31 Inch Mach 10 facility at the NASA Langley Research Center. Pitot rakes were employed to map the entrance and exit planes. The contraction ratio was observed to have a dominant effect on the inlet shock structure and performance; these effects are the emphasis of the present report. In addition to pressure measurements, oil flows were used for further visualization and comparison with computation.

Holland, Scott D.↗

Thermonuclear targets for direct-drive ignition by a megajoule laser pulse

Central ignition of a thin two-layer-shell fusion target that is directly driven by a 2-MJ profiled pulse of Nd laser second-harmonic radiation has been studied. The parameters of the target were selected so as to provide effective acceleration of the shell toward the center, which was sufficient for the onset of ignition under conditions of increased hydrodynamic stability of the ablator acceleration and compression. The aspect ratio of the inner deuterium-tritium layer of the shell does not exceed 15, provided that a major part (above 75%) of the outer layer (plastic ablator) is evaporated by the instant of maximum compression. The investigation is based on two series of numerical calculations that were performed using one-dimensional (1D) hydrodynamic codes. The first 1D code was used to calculate the absorption of the profiled laser-radiation pulse (including calculation of the total absorption coefficient with allowance for the inverse bremsstrahlung and resonance mechanisms) and the spatial distribution of target heating for a real geometry of irradiation using 192 laser beams in a scheme of focusing with a cubo-octahedral symmetry. The second 1D code was used for simulating the total cycle of target evolution under the action of absorbed laser radiation and for determining the thermonuclear gain that was achieved with a given target.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

A study of changes in deep fractured rock permeability due to coupled hydro-mechanical effects

This paper presents a numerical study of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a fractured rock domain at 1000. m depth below the land surface as a function of different levels of fluid pore pressure. A 2D fractured rock domain is adopted based on data obtained from outcrop mapping, displaying multiple fracture sets, fracture intersections, dead-end and curved fractures. A continuum based numerical model is used to evaluate the effects of compressive boundary stresses, cracking by tension failure in the intact rock and fractures and shear displacement along fractures on its equivalent permeability. Two in situ stress boundary conditions are considered: an isotropic case SR1 with the two horizontal boundary compressive stresses having the same magnitude, and an anisotropic case SR2 with the ratio between these compressive stress components set to be 2. In the SR2 case, changes in the local stress and stress ratio distributions due to different fluid pore pressure levels are anisotropic and more significant than in the SR1 case, because of tension failures in the intact rock forming bridges between fractures. These failure regions opened new flow connections between fractures and thereby caused important anisotropic changes in the flow paths, and significant decrease in local gradients of fluid pore pressure. The equivalent permeability increases sharply when the fluid pore pressure is approximately 90% of the magnitude of the minimum stress at the boundaries of the fractured rock domain. Results show that the equivalent permeability of the fractured rock domain is most sensitive to the fractures normal stiffness, the permeability of the tension failure regions and the power-law exponent for permeability change.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Truss-core corrugation for compressive loads

A corrugated panel structure for supporting compressive loads is described which includes curved cap strips separated by truss-core web segments. The truss-core web segments are formed from first and second flat panels with a corrugated filler in between them. The corrugated filler extends in the direction of the compressive load. As a result, all components of the panel structure have a compressive load carrying capability resulting in a high strength-to-weight ratio when the compressive load is limiting. Application to rocket and aircraft structures is suggested.

Randall C Davis↗

1D kinetic study of pinch formation in a dense plasma focus: Transition from collisional to collisionless regimes

Here, the pinch-formation stage of a deuterium dense plasma focus, and associated “shock-flash” neutron yield, is studied using 1D kinetic simulations considering a plasma column with initial pressure P, initial radius R, and the compression to be driven by a constant current I. The relative behavior of the compression is shown to be similar for fixed ratios of the characteristic ion mean free path to the radius of the plasma column at stagnation, $λ_{st}/R_{st}$. This dimensionless parameter is shown to scale like $I^4/(P^3R^5)$. The compression ratio, $R/R_{st}$, is found to be a minimum when $λ_{st}/R_{st} ≈$ 1 and is the largest in the collisionless limit where $λ_{st} \gg R_{st}$. This behavior is in contrast to the analogous planar pinch where R/Rst decreases from one constant for λst/Rst$\ll$1 to a smaller constant for $λ_{st}/R_{st} \gg$ 1. The yield in the collisionless regime is shown to fall between the two well-known $I^4$ scaling laws. Furthermore, this regime exhibits qualities that potentially make it appealing for radiography applications, such as increased localization in time and space of the neutron formation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Flux compression measurements in sintered bulk Ba2YCu3O7

Trapping of magnetic fields and subsequent flux compression have been realized in sintered bulk Ba2YCu3O7 superconductors at 77 K. The field is trapped in two interconnected holes of 0.95-cm and 0.52-cm diameter, respectively. By inserting a superconducting plunger with a diameter of 0.93 cm into the larger hole, the trapped flux is compressed into the smaller hole, where the flux density is measured with a Hall probe. The ratio of the areas available for the magnetic flux before and after compression is 3.7. Deviations from this compression ratio are observed to increase as the trapped field is increased, demonstrating penetration of magnetic flux into the interior of the superconductor. Using a simple extension of the critical state model, the authors demonstrate how the flux compression technique can be used to test the validity of the model and also to calculate the critical current density of the superconductor directly from the measurements.

Israelsson, U. E.↗

Ablation driven by hot electrons generated during the ignitor laser pulse in shock ignition

An analytical model for the ablation driven by hot electrons is presented. The hot electrons are assumed to be generated during the high intensity laser spike used to produce the ignitor shock wave in the shock ignition driven inertial fusion concept, and to carry on the absorbed laser energy in its totality. Efficient energy coupling requires to keep the critical surface sufficiently close to the ablation front and this goal can be achieved for high laser intensities provided that the laser wavelength is short enough. Scaling laws for the ablation pressure and the other relevant magnitudes of the ablation cloud are found in terms of the laser and target parameters. The effect of the preformed plasma assembled by the compression pulse, previous to the ignitor, is also discussed. It is found that a minimum ratio between the compression and the ignitor pulses would be necessary for the adequate matching of the corresponding scale lengths.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Crack width control and mechanical properties of low carbon engineered cementitious composites (ECC)

Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) have superior properties with high tensile ductility and tight crack width compared to conventional concrete. The properties of ECC are significantly influenced by the material composition which can be tailored to enhance the sustainability of ECC. Towards this goal, recycled crumb rubber (CR) and silica fume (SF) were used to tailor the properties of a polypropylene-fiber reinforced ECC with a low carbon binder based on limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) in this study. Crumb rubber was found to be effective in enhancing strain-hardening performance and reducing the width of the multiple microcracks. However, a loss of compressive strength was accompanied by an increasing amount of CR. While silica fume or lower w/b ratio enhanced the compressive strength, the crack width of ECC increased at higher SF content or lower w/b. The underlying mechanisms of these trends were traced to the alteration of the matrix fracture toughness and fiber/matrix interfacial bond. Rubber particle bridging was found to contribute to crack width control. Finally, the combined use of the LC3 green binder and CR led to a lowering of the embodied and operational carbon footprint of ECC.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

An experimental parametric study of geometric, Reynolds number, and ratio of specific heats effects in three-dimensional sidewall compression scramjet inlets at Mach 6

The effects of the decrease in the ratio of specific heats have been investigated in generic 3D sidewall compression scramjet inlets with leading-edge sweep angles of 30 and 70 degrees. The effects of a decrease in ratio of specific heats were seen by comparing data from two facilities in two test gases: in the Langley Mach 6 CF4 Tunnel in tetrafluoromethane and in the Langley 15-Inch Mach 6 Air Tunnel in perfect gas air. In addition to the simulated real gas effects, the parametric effects of cowl position, contraction ratio, leading-edge sweep, and Reynolds number were investigated in the 15-Inch Mach 6 Air Tunnel. The models were instrumented with a total of 45 static pressure orifices distributed on the sidewalls and baseplate. Surface streamline patterns were examined via oil flow, and schlieren videos were made of the external flow field. The results of these tests have significant implications to ground based testing of inlets in facilities which do not operate at flight enthalpies.

Holland, Scott D.↗

Scheduled Sequential Compressed Spectrum Sensing for Wideband Cognitive Radios

The support for high data rate applications with the cognitive radio technology necessitates wideband spectrum sensing. However, it is costly to apply long-term wideband sensing and is especially difficult in the presence of uncertainty, such as high noise, interference, outliers, and channel fading. In this paper, we propose scheduling of sequential compressed spectrum sensing which jointly exploits compressed sensing (CS) and sequential periodic detection techniques to achieve more accurate and timely wideband sensing. Instead of invoking CS to reconstruct the signal in each period, our proposed scheme performs backward grouped-compressed-data sequential probability ratio test (backward GCD-SPRT) using compressed data samples in sequential detection, while CS recovery is only pursued when needed. This method on one hand significantly reduces the CS recovery overhead, and on the other takes advantage of sequential detection to improve the sensing quality. Furthermore, we propose (a) an in-depth sensing scheme to accelerate sensing decision-making when a change in channel status is suspected, (b) a block-sparse CS reconstruction algorithm to exploit the block sparsity properties of wide spectrum, and (c) a set of schemes to fuse results from the recovered spectrum signals to further improve the overall sensing accuracy. Finally, extensive performance evaluation results show that our proposed schemes can significantly outperform peer schemes under sufficiently low SNR settings.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Performance Analysis of Two Early NACA High Speed Propellers with Application to Civil Tiltrotor Configurations

The helicopter industry is vigorously pursuing development of civil tiltrotors. One key to efficient high speed performance of this rotorcraft is prop-rotor performance. Of equal, if not greater, importance is assurance that the flight envelope is free of aeroelastic instabilities well beyond currently envisioned cuise speeds. This later condition requires study at helical tip Match numbers well in excess of 1.0. Two 1940's 'supersonic' propeller experiments conducted by NACA have provided an immensely valuable data bank with which to study prop-rotor behavior at transonic and supersonic helical tip Mach numbers. Very accurate 'blades alone' data were obtained by using nearly an infinite hub. Tabulated data were recreated from the many thrust and power figures and are included in two Appendices to this report. This data set is exceptionally well suited to re-evaluating classical blade element theories as well as evolving computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analyses. A limited comparison of one propeller's experimental results to a modem rotorcraft CFD code is made. This code, referred to as TURNS, gives very encouraging results. Detailed analysis of the performance data from both propellers is provided in Appendix A. This appendix quantifies the minimum power required to produce usable prop-rotor thrust. The dependence of minimum profile power on Reynolds number is quantified. First order compressibility power losses are quantified as well and a first approximation to design air-foil thickness ratio to avoid compressibility losses is provided. Appendix A's results are applied to study high speed civil tiltrotor cruise performance. Predicted tiltrotor performance is compared to two turboprop commercial transports. The comparison shows that there is no fundamental aerodynamic reason why the rotorcraft industry could not develop civil tiltrotor aircraft which have competitive cruise performance with today's regional, turboprop airlines. Recommendations for future study that will insure efficient prop-rotor performance to well beyond 400 knots are given.

Harris, Franklin D.↗

Optimizing Lossy Compression Rate-Distortion from Automatic Online Selection between SZ and ZFP

With ever-increasing volumes of scientific data produced by high-performance computing applications, significantly reducing data size is critical because of limited capacity of storage space and potential bottlenecks on I/O or networks in writing/reading or transferring data. SZ and ZFP are two leading BSD licensed open source C/C++ libraries for compressed floating-point arrays that support high throughput read and write random access. However, their performance is not consistent across different data sets and across different fields of some data sets, which raises the need for an automatic online (during compression) selection between SZ and ZFP, with minimal overhead. In this paper, the automatic selection optimizes the rate-distortion, an important statistical quality metric based on the signal-to-noise ratio. To optimize for rate-distortion, we investigate the principles of SZ and ZFP. We then propose an efficient online, low-overhead selection algorithm that predicts the compression quality accurately for two compressors in early processing stages and selects the best-fit compressor for each data field. Here, we implement the selection algorithm into an open-source library, and we evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed solution against plain SZ and ZFP in a parallel environment with 1,024 cores. Evaluation results on three data sets representing about 100 fields show that our selection algorithm improves the compression ratio up to 70 percent with the same level of data distortion because of very accurate selection (around 99 percent) of the bestfit compressor, with little overhead (less than 7 percent in the experiments).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Thermodynamic analysis of cascade microcryocoolers with low pressure ratios

The vapor-compression cycle for refrigeration near ambient temperature achieves high efficiency because the isenthalpic expansion of the condensed liquid is a rather efficient process. However, temperatures are limited to about 200 K with a single-stage system. Temperatures down to 77 K are possible with many stages. In the case of microcryocoolers using microcompressors, pressure ratios are usually limited to about 6 or less. As a result, even more stages are required to reach 77 K. If the microcompressors can be fabricated with low-cost wafer-level techniques, then the use of many stages with separate compressors may become a viable option for achieving temperatures of 77 K with high efficiency. We analyze the ideal thermodynamic efficiency of a cascade Joule-Thomson system for various temperatures down to 77 K and with low pressure ratios. About nine stages are required for 77 K, but fewer stages are also analyzed for operation at higher temperatures. For 77 K, an ideal second-law efficiency of 83 % of Carnot is possible with perfect recuperative heat exchangers and 65 % of Carnot is possible with no recuperative heat exchangers. The results are compared with calculated efficiencies in mixed-refrigerant cryocoolers over the range of 77 K to 200 K. Refrigeration at intermediate temperatures is also available. The use of single-component fluids in each of the stages is expected to eliminate the problem of pulsating flow and temperature oscillations experienced in microcryocoolers using mixed refrigerants.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Granular Media-Based Tunable Passive Vibration Suppressor

and vibration suppression device is composed of statically compressed chains of spherical particles. The device superimposes a combination of dissipative damping and dispersive effects. The dissipative damping resulting from the elastic wave attenuation properties of the bulk material selected for the granular media is independent of particle geometry and periodicity, and can be accordingly designed based on the dissipative (or viscoelastic) properties of the material. For instance, a viscoelastic polymer might be selected where broadband damping is desired. In contrast, the dispersive effects result from the periodic arrangement and geometry of particles composing a linear granular chain. A uniform (monatomic) chain of statically compressed spherical particles will have a low-pass filter effect, with a cutoff frequency tunable as a function of particle mass, elastic modulus, Poisson fs ratio, radius, and static compression. Elastic waves with frequency content above this cutoff frequency will exhibit an exponential decay in amplitude as a function of propagation distance. System design targeting a specific application is conducted using a combination of theoretical, computational, and experimental techniques to appropriately select the particle radii, material (and thus elastic modulus and Poisson fs ratio), and static compression to satisfy estimated requirements derived for shock and/or vibration protection needs under particular operational conditions. The selection of a chain of polymer spheres with an elastic modulus .3 provided the appropriate dispersive filtering effect for that exercise; however, different operational scenarios may require the use of other polymers, metals, ceramics, or a combination thereof, configured as an array of spherical particles. The device is a linear array of spherical particles compressed in a container with a mechanism for attachment to the shock and/or vibration source, and a mechanism for attachment to the article requiring isolation (Figure 1). This configuration is referred to as a single-axis vibration suppressor. This invention also includes further designs for the integration of the single-axis vibration suppressor into a six-degree-of-freedom hexapod "Stewart"mounting configuration (Figure 2). By integrating each singleaxis vibration suppressor into a hexapod formation, a payload will be protected in all six degrees of freedom from shock and/or vibration. Additionally, to further enable the application of this device to multiple operational scenarios, particularly in the case of high loads, the vibration suppressor devices can be used in parallel in any array configuration.

Dillon, Robert P.↗

Self‐Healing of Concrete Cracks by Ceramsite‐Loaded Microorganisms

Protective carrier is essential for the self‐healing of concrete cracks by microbially induced CaCO 3 precipitation, owing to the harsh conditions in concrete. In this paper, porous ceramsite particles are used as microbial carrier. Heat treatment and NaOH soaking are first employed to improve the loading content of the ceramsite. The viability of bacterial spores is assessed by urea decomposition measurements. Then, the self‐healing efficiency of concrete cracks by spores is evaluated by a series of tests including compressive strength regain, water uptake, and visual inspection of cracks. Results indicate that heat treatment can improve the loading content of ceramsite while not leading to a reduction of concrete strength by the ceramsite addition. The optimal heating temperature is 750°C. Ceramsite particles act as a shelter and protect spores from high‐pH environment in concrete. When nutrients and spores are incorporated in ceramsite particles at the same time, nutrients are well accessible to the cells. The regain ratio of the compressive strength increases over 20%, and the water absorption ratio decreases about 30% compared with the control. The healing ratio of cracks reaches 86%, and the maximum crack width healed is near 0.3 mm.

Xu, Jing↗