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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 559 records · Page 31

Dynamic characteristics of an assembly of prop-fan blades

In contrast to conventional propellers, propfan blades are thin and highly swept-back, thereby giving rise to large bending and twisting deformations and complex vibratory characteristics. Aerodynamic performance depends on the extent of steady state deformation, and the aeroelastic response depends on the vibratory frequency and mode shape. Attention is presently given to the principal results of structural analyses for a five-bladed propfan assembly; these results are compared with test data. The results encompass both steady deformations and vibratory frequencies and mode shapes in a vacuum centrifugal environment.

Srinivasan, A. V.↗

Venusian tectonics: Convective coupling to the lithosphere?

The relationship between the dominant global heat loss mechanism and planetary size has motivated the search for tectonic style on Venus. Prior to the American and Soviet mapping missions of the past eight years, it was thought that terrestrial style plate tectonics was operative on Venus because this planet is approximately the size of the Earth and is conjectured to have about the same heat source content per unit mass. However, surface topography mapped by the altimeter of the Pioneer Venus spacecraft did not show any physiographic expression of terrestrial style spreading ridges, trenches, volcanic arcs or transform faults, although the horizontal resolution was questionable for detection of at least some of these features. The Venera 15 and 16 radar missions mapped the northern latitudes of Venus at 1 to 2 km resolution and showed that there are significant geographic areas of deformation seemingly created by large horizontal stresses. These same high resolution images show no evidence for plate tectonic features. Thus a fundamental problem for venusian tectonics is the origin of large horizontal stresses near the surface in the apparent absence of plate tectonics.

Phillips, R. J.↗

Solar wind speed azimuthal variation along the heliospheric current sheet

Analysis of the speeds measured by Voyager 1 and 2 while skimming along a horizontal (east-west) portion of the current sheet over several days in 1977 is reported. The results demonstrate that in this case speed variations exist and would be large enough to significantly deform the sheet within a few AU or less if the current sheet were anything but perfectly horizontal. The spatial scale of the speed variation ranges from the smallest measureable scale using one hour averaged data up to tens of degrees in longitude. A deformation example is given under the assumption that the observed velocity variation exists on a current sheet that is initially perpendicular to the heliographic equator.

Suess, S. T.↗

Report on an international workshop on Cryptoexplosions and Catastrophes in the Geological Record, with a Special Focus on the Vredefort Structure

Eighty-five geoscientists gathered in the heart of the Vredefort Cryptoexplosion structure to discuss and evaluate the current knowledge about mass extinctions, impact and volcanic cratering and to obtain first-hand information on the Vredefort structure and its origin. Presentations were made within 8 topical sessions: (1) the regional setting of the Vredefort structure; (2) the Vredefort structure itself; (3) deformations and microdeformations; (4) large cryptoexplosion structures; (5) the Ries Crater; (6) tektites; (7) the K-T boundary, and (8) tectonophysics of cratering. The program was rounded up by working group and plenum discussions culminating in a Workshop report emphasizing problem areas, gaps in the data base and recommendations for future research.

Reimold, W. U.↗

Metamorphism of the Oddanchatram anorthosite, Tamil Nadu, South India

The Oddanchatram anorthosite is located in the Madurai District of Tamil Nadu, near the town of Palni. It is emplaced into a granulite facies terrain commonly presumed to have undergone its last regional metamorphism in the late Archean about 2600 m.y. The surrounding country rock consists of basic granulites, charnockites and metasedimentary rocks including quartzites, pelites and calc-silicates. The anorthosite is clearly intrusive into the country rock and contains many large inclusions of previously deformed basic granulite and quartzite within 100 meters of its contact. Both this intrusion and the nearby Kaduvar anorthosite show evidence of having been affected by later metamorphism and deformation.

Wiebe, R. A.↗

Evaluation of alternatives for best-fit paraboloid for deformed antenna surfaces

Paraboloid antenna surfaces suffer performance degradation due to structural deformation. A first step in the prediction of the performance degradation is to find the best-fit paraboloid to the deformed surface. Examined here is the question of whether rigid body translations perpendicular to the axis of the paraboloid should be included in the search for the best-fit paraboloid. It is shown that if these translations are included the problem is ill-conditioned, and small structural deformation can result in large translations of the best-fit paraboloid with respect to the original surface. The magnitude of these translations then requires nonlinear analysis for finding the best-fit paraboloid. On the other hand, if these translations are excluded, or if they are limited in magnitude, the errors with respect to the restricted not-so-best-fit paraboloid can be much greater than the errors with respect to the true best-fit paraboloid.

Baruch, Menahem↗

Adaptive Machining Of Large, Somewhat Flexible Parts

Adaptive machining is method of machining large, somewhat flexible workpieces to close tolerances. Devised for machining precise weld lands on aft skirts of rocket nozzles, but underlying concept generally applicable to precise machining of any of large variety of workpieces deformed by thermal, gravitational, and/or machining forces. For example, in principle, method used to bore precise hole on unanchored end of long cantilever beam.

Gutow, David↗

Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM)

The constitutive behavior of uncemented granular materials such as strength, stiffness, and localization of deformations are to a large extend derived from interparticle friction transmitted between solid particles and particle groups. Interparticle forces are highly dependent on gravitational body forces. At very low effective confining pressures, the true nature of the Mohr envelope, which defines the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion for soils, as well as the relative contribution of each of non-frictional components to soil's shear strength cannot be evaluated in terrestrial laboratories. Because of the impossibility of eliminating gravitational body forces on earth, the weight of soil grains develops interparticle compressive stresses which mask true soil constitutive behavior even in the smallest samples of models. Therefore the microgravity environment induced by near-earth orbits of spacecraft provides unique experimental opportunities for testing theories related to the mechanical behavior of terrestrial granular materials. Such materials may include cohesionless soils, industrial powders, crushed coal, etc. This paper will describe the microgravity experiment, 'Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM)', scheduled to be flown on Space Shuttle-MIR missions. The paper will describe the experiment's hardware, instrumentation, specimen preparation procedures, testing procedures in flight, as well as a brief summary of the post-mission analysis. It is expected that the experimental results will significantly improve the understanding of the behavior of granular materials under very low effective stress levels.

Alshibli, Khalid A.↗

Simulation of MEMS for the Next Generation Space Telescope

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is developing optical micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) components for potential application in Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) science instruments. In this work, we present an overview of the electro-mechanical simulation of three MEMS components for NGST, which include a reflective micro-mirror array and transmissive microshutter array for aperture control for a near infrared (NIR) multi-object spectrometer and a large aperture MEMS Fabry-Perot tunable filter for a NIR wide field camera. In all cases the device must operate at cryogenic temperatures with low power consumption and low, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible, voltages. The goal of our simulation efforts is to adequately predict both the performance and the reliability of the devices during ground handling, launch, and operation to prevent failures late in the development process and during flight. This goal requires detailed modeling and validation of complex electro-thermal-mechanical interactions and very large non-linear deformations, often involving surface contact. Various parameters such as spatial dimensions and device response are often difficult to measure reliably at these small scales. In addition, these devices are fabricated from a wide variety of materials including surface micro-machined aluminum, reactive ion etched (RIE) silicon nitride, and deep reactive ion etched (DRIE) bulk single crystal silicon. The above broad set of conditions combine to be a formidable challenge for space flight qualification analysis. These simulations represent NASA/GSFC's first attempts at implementing a comprehensive strategy to address complex MEMS structures.

Mott, Brent↗

Surface-Controlled Drop Oscillations in Space

Large liquid drops were deformed by an acoustic standing wave in a resonant air chanber called the Drop Physics Module, which was carried on Space Shuttle Columbia as part of the second United States Microgravity Laboratory mission. When this deforming force was suddenly reduced, the drops executed free oscillations about a perfect sherical equilibrium. Results are presented for pure water and aqueous solutions of soluble surfactants. [PACS: 43.25.U, 47.55Dz, 68.10.Cr, 83.10.-y].

microgravity drop oscillations drop physics module↗

Faraday Forcing of High-Temperature Levitated Liquid Metal Drops for the Measurement of Surface Tension

In this work, a method for the measurement of surface tension using continuous periodic forcing is presented. To reduce gravitational effects, samples are electrostatically levitated prior to forcing. The method, called Faraday forcing, is particularly well suited for fluids that require high temperature measurements such as liquid metals where conventional surface tension measurement methods are not possible. It offers distinct advantages over the conventional pulse-decay analysis method when the sample viscosity is high or the levitation feedback control system is noisy. In the current method, levitated drops are continuously translated about a mean position at a small, constant forcing amplitude over a range of frequencies. At a particular frequency in this range, the drop suddenly enters a state of resonance, which is confirmed by large executions of prolate/oblate deformations about the mean spherical shape. The arrival at this resonant condition is a signature that the parametric forcing frequency is equal to the drop’s natural frequency, the latter being a known function of surface tension. A description of the experimental procedure is presented. A proof of concept is given using pure Zr and a Ti(sub 39.5)Zr(sub 39.5)Ni(sub 21) alloy as examples. The results compare favorably with accepted literature values obtained using the pulse-decay method.

Nevin Brosius↗

High-Order Coronagraphic Wavefront Control With Algorithmic Differentiation: First Experimental Demonstration

Future space-based coronagraphs will rely critically on focal-plane wavefront sensing and control with deformable mirrors to reach deep contrast by mitigating optical aberrations in the primary beam path. Until now, most focal-plane wavefront control algorithms have been formulated in terms of Jacobian matrices, which encode the predicted effect of each deformable mirror actuator on the focal-plane electric field. A disadvantage of these methods is that Jacobian matrices can be cumbersome to compute and manipulate, particularly when the number of deformable mirror actuators is large. Recently, we proposed a new class of focal-plane wavefront control algorithms that utilize gradient-based optimization with algorithmic differentiation to compute wavefront control solutions while avoiding the explicit computation and manipulation of Jacobian matrices entirely. In simulations using a coronagraph design for the proposed Large UV/Optical/Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR), we showed that our approach reduces overall CPU time and memory consumption compared to a Jacobian-based algorithm. Here, we expand on these results by implementing the proposed algorithm on the High Contrast Imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT) testbed at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and present initial experimental results, demonstrating contrast suppression capabilities equivalent to Jacobian-based methods.

wavefront control↗

The influence of a thoria dispersion on preferred orientation in nickel alloys.

Preferred orientation has been examined in extruded, drawn, and swaged nickel, nickel-20% chromium, and nickel-20% chromium-10% tungsten, with and without a dispersion of 2 vol % of thoria particles. Duplex 100 (in carets) + 111 (in carets) fiber textures were observed in most cases. The 100 (in carets) component was stabilized by the presence of particles and also by the application of intermediate anneals during deformation. These results and the stability of the deformed state in thoriated nickel are attributed largely to the action of the particles in generating homogeneous deformation.

Hutchinson, W. B.↗

The Use of RGPS Kinematic Data to Estimate Nonlinear Sea Ice Motion

In current simulations of the interaction between sea ice and its environment, large significance is placed on the deformation of the sea ice. Sea ice deformation is an important process in determining the sea ice thickness distribution across a wide range of space and time scales. Changes in the sea ice thickness distribution affect energy and mass fluxes between the atmosphere and ocean and also the strength of the ice. While most current ice models assume linear variation in the ice motion field to calculate strain, deformation of sea ice occurs through the opening, closing and shearing of ice along discrete linear features. New numerical models are being developed which explicitly account for discontinuities in ice motion, and the need for requisite data sets for model validation has emerged. Multiple buoy data sets, as well as satellite data, have been used to examine the movement and deformation of sea ice. Generally it has been found that the ice motion field has been represented well by buoy data, as well as satellite data over a broad range of scales. However, the underlying deformation (spatial variation in displacement) as represented by different data sets may vary. For the work presented here, sea ice motion In current simulations of the interaction between sea ice and its environment, large significance is placed on the deformation of the sea ice. Sea ice deformation is an important process in determining the sea ice thickness distribution across a wide range of space and time scales. Changes in the sea ice thickness distribution affect energy and mass fluxes between the atmosphere and ocean and also the strength of the ice. While most current ice models assume linear variation in the ice motion field to calculate strain, deformation of sea ice occurs through the opening, closing and shearing of ice along discrete linear features. New numerical models are being developed which explicitly account for discontinuities in ice motion, and the need for requisite data sets for model validation has emerged. Multiple buoy data sets, as well as satellite data, have been used to examine the movement and deformation of sea ice. Generally it has been found that the ice motion field has been represented well by buoy data, as well as satellite data over a broad range of scales. However, the underlying deformation (spatial variation in displacement) as represented by different data sets may vary. For the work presented here, sea ice motio

Pruis, M.↗

Neutron star crust can support a large ellipticity

ABSTRACT Non-axisymmetrical deformations of the crust on rapidly rotating neutron stars are one of the main targets of searches for continuous gravitational waves. The maximum ellipticity, or fractional difference in moments of inertia, which can be supported by deformations of the crust (known as ‘mountains’), provides an important upper limit on the strength of these continuous gravitational wave sources. We use the formalism developed by Gittins and Andersson, along with a deforming force that acts mainly in the transverse direction, to obtain a maximum ellipticity of 7.4 × 10−6. This is larger than the original results that Gittins and Andersson obtained but consistent with earlier calculations by Ushomirsky, Cutler, and Bildsten. This suggests that rotating neutron stars could be strong sources of continuous gravitational waves.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Deformation mechanisms in an additively manufactured dual-phase eutectic high-entropy alloy

Nanostructured metals and alloys often exhibit high strengths but at the expense of reduced ductility. Through harnessing the far-from-equilibrium processing conditions of laser powder-bed fusion (L-PBF) additive manufacturing, we develop a dual-phase nanolamellar structure comprised of FCC/L1 2 and BCC/B2 phases in a Ni 40 Co 20 Fe 10 Cr 10 Al 18 W 2 eutectic high-entropy alloy (EHEA), which exhibits a combination of ultrahigh yield strength (>1.4 GPa) and large tensile ductility (~17%). The deformation mechanisms of the additively manufactured EHEA are studied via in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The high yield strength mainly results from effective blockage of dislocation motion by the high density of lamellar interfaces. The refined nanolamellar structures and low stacking fault energy (SFE) promote stacking fault (SF)-mediated deformation in FCC/L1 2 nanolamellae. The accumulation of abundant dislocations and SFs at lamellar interfaces can effectively elevate local stresses to promote dislocation multiplication and martensitic transformation in BCC/B2 nanolamellae. The cooperative deformation of the dual phases, assisted by the semi-coherent lamellar interfaces, gives rise to the large ductility of the as-printed EHEA. In addition, here we also demonstrate that post-printing heat treatment allows us to tune the non-equilibrium microstructures and deformation mechanisms. After annealing, the significantly reduced SFE and thicknesses of the FCC nanolamellae facilitate the formation of massive SFs. The dissolution of nano-precipitates in the BCC/B2 nanolamellae reduces spatial confinement and further promotes martensitic transformation to enhance work hardening. Our work provides fundamental insights into the rich variety of deformation mechanisms underlying the exceptional mechanical properties of the additively manufactured dual-phase nanolamellar EHEAs.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Identification and control of structures in space

The derivation of the equations of motion for the Spacecraft Control Laboratory Experiment (SCOLE) is reported and the equations of motion of a similar structure orbiting the earth are also derived. The structure is assumed to undergo large rigid-body maneuvers and small elastic deformations. A perturbation approach is proposed whereby the quantities defining the rigid-body maneuver are assumed to be relatively large, with the elastic deformations and deviations from the rigid-body maneuver being relatively small. The perturbation equations have the form of linear equations with time-dependent coefficients. An active control technique can then be formulated to permit maneuvering of the spacecraft and simultaneously suppressing the elastic vibration.

Meirovitch, L.↗

Maneuvering of flexible spacecraft with application to SCOLE

This paper is concerned with the derivation of the equations of motion for the Spacecraft Control Laboratory Experiment (SCOLE). For future reference, the equations of motion of a similar structure orbiting the earth are also derived. The structure is assumed to undergo large rigid-body maneuvers and small elastic deformations. A perturbation approach is presented where the quantities defining the rigid-body maneuver are assumed to be relatively large, with the elastic deformations and deviations from the rigid-body maneuver being relatively small. The perturbation equations have the form of linear, non-self-adjoint equations with time-dependent coefficients. An active control technique can then be formulated to permit maneuvering of the spacecraft and simultaneously suppressing the elastic vibration.

Meirovitch, L.↗