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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 NTRS1989

Free-piston Stirling technology for space power

An overview is presented of the NASA Lewis Research Center free-piston Stirling engine activities directed toward space power. This work is being carried out under NASA's new Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI). The overall goal of CSTI's High Capacity Power element is to develop the technology base needed to meet the long duration, high capacity power requirements for future NASA space missions. The Stirling cycle offers an attractive power conversion concept for space power needs. Discussed here is the completion of the Space Power Demonstrator Engine (SPDE) testing-culminating in the generation of 25 kW of engine power from a dynamically-balanced opposed-piston Stirling engine at a temperature ratio of 2.0. Engine efficiency was approximately 22 percent. The SPDE recently has been divided into two separate single-cylinder engines, called Space Power Research Engine (SPRE), that now serve as test beds for the evaluation of key technology disciplines. These disciplines include hydrodynamic gas bearings, high-efficiency linear alternators, space qualified heat pipe heat exchangers, oscillating flow code validation, and engine loss understanding.

Slaby, Jack G.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Free-piston Stirling technology for space power

Slaby, Jack G.↗

DOE OSTI2019

Including off-diagonal anisotropies in anisotropic hydrodynamics

In this paper we present a method for efficiently including the effects of off-diagonal local rest frame momentum anisotropies in leading-order anisotropic hydrodynamics. The method relies on diagonalization of the spacelike block of the anisotropy tensor and allows one to reduce the necessary moments of the distribution function in the off-diagonal case to a linear combination of diagonal-anisotropy integrals. Once reduced to diagonal-anisotropy integrals, the results can be computed efficiently using techniques described previously in the literature. Here, we present a general framework for how to accomplish this and provide examples for off-diagonal anisotropy moments entering into the energy-momentum tensor and viscous update equations which emerge when performing anisotropic pressure matching.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2017

Modeling UV Radiation Feedback from Massive Stars. I. Implementation of Adaptive Ray-tracing Method and Tests [Modeling UV Radiation Feedback from Massive Stars: I. Implementation of Adaptive Ray Tracing Algorithm]

Here, we present an implementation of an adaptive ray-tracing (ART) module in the Athena hydrodynamics code that accurately and efficiently handles the radiative transfer involving multiple point sources on a three-dimensional Cartesian grid. We adopt a recently proposed parallel algorithm that uses nonblocking, asynchronous MPI communications to accelerate transport of rays across the computational domain. We validate our implementation through several standard test problems, including the propagation of radiation in vacuum and the expansions of various types of H II regions. Additionally, scaling tests show that the cost of a full ray trace per source remains comparable to that of the hydrodynamics update on up to $\sim {10}^{3}$ processors. To demonstrate application of our ART implementation, we perform a simulation of star cluster formation in a marginally bound, turbulent cloud, finding that its star formation efficiency is 12% when both radiation pressure forces and photoionization by UV radiation are treated. We directly compare the radiation forces computed from the ART scheme with those from the M 1 closure relation. Although the ART and M 1 schemes yield similar results on large scales, the latter is unable to resolve the radiation field accurately near individual point sources.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Numeric spectral radiation hydrodynamic calculations of supernova shock breakouts

We present here an efficient numerical scheme for solving the non-relativistic one-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics equations including inelastic Compton scattering, which is not included in most codes and is crucial for solving problems such as shock breakout. The devised code is applied to the problems of a steady-state planar radiation mediated shock (RMS) and RMS breakout from a stellar envelope. The results are in agreement with those of a previous work on shock breakout, in which Compton equilibrium between matter and radiation was assumed and the 'effective photon' approximation was used to describe the radiation spectrum. In particular, we show that the luminosity and its temporal dependence, the peak temperature at breakout, and the universal shape of the spectral fluence derived in this earlier work are all accurate. Although there is a discrepancy between the spectral calculations and the effective photon approximation due to the inaccuracy of the effective photon approximation estimate of the effective photon production rate, which grows with lower densities and higher velocities, the difference in peak temperature reaches only 30% for the most discrepant cases of fast shocks in blue supergiants. The presented model is exemplified by calculations for supernova 1987A, showing the detailed evolution of the burst spectrum. The incompatibility of the stellar envelope shock breakout model results with observed properties of X-ray flashes (XRFs) and the discrepancy between the predicted and observed rates of XRFs remain unexplained.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2017

Modeling electrokinetic flows by consistent implicit incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics

We present an efficient implicit incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (I2SPH) discretization of Navier-Stokes, Poisson-Boltzmann, and advection-diffusion equations subject to Dirichlet or Robin boundary conditions. It is applied to model various two and three dimensional electrokinetic flows in simple or complex geometries. The I2SPH's accuracy and convergence are examined via comparison with analytical solutions, grid-based numerical solutions, or empirical models. The new method provides a framework to explore broader applications of SPH in microfluidics and complex fluids with charged objects, such as colloids and biomolecules, in arbitrary complex geometries.

Pan, Wenxiao↗

DOE OSTI2017

Gaseous Dynamical Friction in Presence of Black Hole Radiative Feedback

Dynamical friction is thought to be a principal mechanism responsible for orbital evolution of massive black holes (MBHs) in the aftermath of galactic mergers and an important channel for formation of gravitationally bound MBH binaries. We use 2D radiative hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the efficiency of dynamical friction in the presence of radiative feedback from an MBH moving through a uniform density gas. We find that ionizing radiation that emerges from the innermost parts of the MBH’s accretion flow strongly affects the dynamical friction wake and renders dynamical friction inefficient for a range of physical scenarios. MBHs in this regime tend to experience positive net acceleration, meaning that they speed up, contrary to the expectations for gaseous dynamical friction in absence of radiative feedback. The magnitude of this acceleration is however negligibly small and should not significantly alter the velocity of MBHs over relevant physical timescales. Our results suggest that suppression of dynamical friction is more severe at the lower mass end of the MBH spectrum which, compounded with inefficiency of the gas drag for lower mass objects in general, implies that <10{sup 7} M{sub ⊙} MBHs have fewer means to reach the centers of merged galaxies. These findings provide formulation for a sub-resolution model of dynamical friction in presence of MBH radiative feedback that can be easily implemented in large scale simulations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

PROTOSTELLAR OUTFLOWS AND RADIATIVE FEEDBACK FROM MASSIVE STARS. II. FEEDBACK, STAR-FORMATION EFFICIENCY, AND OUTFLOW BROADENING

We perform two-dimensional axially symmetric radiation hydrodynamic simulations to assess the impact of outflows and radiative force feedback from massive protostars by varying when the protostellar outflow starts, and to determine the ratio of ejection to accretion rates and the strength of the wide-angle disk wind component. The star-formation efficiency, i.e., the ratio of final stellar mass to initial core mass, is dominated by radiative forces and the ratio of outflow to accretion rates. Increasing this ratio has three effects. First, the protostar grows slower with a lower luminosity at any given time, lowering radiative feedback. Second, bipolar cavities cleared by the outflow become larger, further diminishing radiative feedback on disk and core scales. Third, the higher momentum outflow sweeps up more material from the collapsing envelope, decreasing the protostar's potential mass reservoir via entrainment. The star-formation efficiency varies with the ratio of ejection to accretion rates from 50% in the case of very weak outflows to as low as 20% for very strong outflows. At latitudes between the low-density bipolar cavity and the high-density accretion disk, wide-angle disk winds remove some of the gas, which otherwise would be part of the accretion flow onto the disk; varying the strength of these wide-angle disk winds, however, alters the final star-formation efficiency by only ±6%. For all cases, the opening angle of the bipolar outflow cavity remains below 20° during early protostellar accretion phases, increasing rapidly up to 65° at the onset of radiation pressure feedback.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

NASA NTRS1992

The formation of coronal regions in accretion disks

A mechanism for heating the hot low-density gas or winds above accretion disks, which is similar to that used to model chromospheric heating in the sun and other stars, is proposed. Sound waves propagating through an accretion disk are refracted away from the central plane by the strong density gradient. As they move into regions of lower density, the sound waves accelerate to form shocks, which heat the gas, leading to the formation of a hot low-density region. The steeper density gradients present in disks make the process more efficient than in stellar atmospheres. Results of hydrodynamical simulations show that waves with frequencies similar to the local Keplerian frequency lead to the most efficient heating. For the optically thin region modeled in the present study, the result is the formation of coronal regions with densities less than about 10 exp 10/cu cm, and the temperatures ranging from 10 exp 4 to 6 K over a few scale heights. It is argued that the hot low-density gas which results from the shock heating is responsible for the observed UV lines from cataclysmic variables, as well as the spatially coincidental lines of H and He I.

Murray, Stephen D.↗

DOE OSTI2015

Definition and solution of a stochastic inverse problem for the Manning’s n parameter field in hydrodynamic models

The uncertainty in spatially heterogeneous Manning’s n fields is quantified using a novel formulation and numerical solution of stochastic inverse problems for physics-based models. The uncertainty is quantified in terms of a probability measure and the physics-based model considered here is the state-of-the-art ADCIRC model although the presented methodology applies to other hydrodynamic models. An accessible overview of the formulation and solution of the stochastic inverse problem in a mathematically rigorous framework based on measure theory is presented in this paper. Technical details that arise in practice by applying the framework to determine the Manning’s n parameter field in a shallow water equation model used for coastal hydrodynamics are presented and an efficient computational algorithm and open source software package are developed. A new notion of “condition” for the stochastic inverse problem is defined and analyzed as it relates to the computation of probabilities. Finally, this notion of condition is investigated to determine effective output quantities of interest of maximum water elevations to use for the inverse problem for the Manning’s n parameter and the effect on model predictions is analyzed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2015

A scheme to produce high density and high temperature plasma for opacity measurement

The opacity of shock-compressed material is of general scientific interest for astrophysical plasmas and for inertial confinement fusion research. A proposal is suggested to produce high temperature plasma with density around 1 g/cm{sup −3}. Two types of opacity target (the sandwich target and the foam enhanced sandwich target) are investigated numerically. The foam enhanced sandwich target has structure of foam–solid-sample-solid-foam. The foam will increase laser absorption efficiency and the ablating pressure. Hydrodynamic simulations confirm that the laser can be fully absorbed by the under-critical-density foam and a faster shock is produced inside the CH layer. High intensity lasers heat opacity target from both sides. The CH layers must be thick enough to keep the laser away from the sample. The laser-driven shocks move inward and collide at the center. Part of their kinetic energy is converted into internal energy and high density and high temperature local thermodynamic equilibrium sample plasma is produced. The plasma produced by laser heating the foam enhanced sandwich target has higher sample temperature than by laser heating the sandwich target. It may be useful for measuring the opacity of shock compressed material in laboratory.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NASA NTRS1984

Three-dimensional computer model for the atmospheric general circulation experiment

An efficient, flexible, three-dimensional, hydrodynamic, computer code has been developed for a spherical cap geometry. The code will be used to simulate NASA's Atmospheric General Circulation Experiment (AGCE). The AGCE is a spherical, baroclinic experiment which will model the large-scale dynamics of our atmosphere; it has been proposed to NASA for future Spacelab flights. In the AGCE a radial dielectric body force will simulate gravity, with hot fluid tending to move outwards. In order that this force be dominant, the AGCE must be operated in a low gravity environment such as Spacelab. The full potential of the AGCE will only be realized by working in conjunction with an accurate computer model. Proposed experimental parameter settings will be checked first using model runs. Then actual experimental results will be compared with the model predictions. This interaction between experiment and theory will be very valuable in determining the nature of the AGCE flows and hence their relationship to analytical theories and actual atmospheric dynamics.

Roberts, G. O.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Efficient star formation in the bright bar of M83

The bright molecular bar in M83 was detected standing out as a 100% enhancement of molecular emission with respect to the off-bar emission at the same radii. The spatial variations in the star formation efficiency, as traced by H alpha emission and the surface density of the interstellar gas, in M83 and M51 were compared. Both the central bar of M83 and the spiral arms of M51 are regions characterized by high massive star formation rates. For M83, it is ascribed that both the gas surface density and the star formation efficiency are high to the hydrodynamics of the central region.

Lord, S. D.↗

DOE OSTI2015

Effects of MHD instabilities on neutral beam current drive

One of the primary tools foreseen for heating, current drive (CD) and q-profile control in future fusion reactors such as ITER and a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility is the neutral beam injection (NBI). However, fast ions from NBI may also provide the drive for energetic particle-driven instabilities (e.g. Alfvénic modes (AEs)), which in turn redistribute fast ions in both space and energy, thus hampering the control capabilities and overall efficiency of NB-driven current. Based on experiments on the NSTX tokamak (M. Ono et al 2000 Nucl. Fusion 40 557), the effects of AEs and other low-frequency magneto-hydrodynamic instabilities on NB-CD efficiency are investigated. When looking at the new fast ion transport model, which accounts for particle transport in phase space as required for resonant AE perturbations, is utilized to obtain consistent simulations of NB-CD through the tokamak transport code TRANSP. It is found that instabilities do indeed reduce the NB-driven current density over most of the plasma radius by up to ~50%. Moreover, the details of the current profile evolution are sensitive to the specific model used to mimic the interaction between NB ions and instabilities. Finally, implications for fast ion transport modeling in integrated tokamak simulations are briefly discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Experimental characterization of hot-electron emission and shock dynamics in the context of the shock ignition approach to inertial confinement fusion

We report on planar target experiments conducted on the OMEGA-EP laser facility performed in the context of the shock ignition (SI) approach to inertial confinement fusion. The experiment aimed at characterizing the propagation of strong shock in matter and the generation of hot electrons (HEs), with laser parameters relevant to SI (1-ns UV laser beams with I ~10 16 W/cm 2 ). Time-resolved radiographs of the propagating shock front were performed in order to study the hydrodynamic evolution. The hot-electron source was characterized in terms of Maxwellian temperature, T h , and laser to hot-electron energy conversion efficiency η using data from different x-ray spectrometers. The post-processing of these data gives a range of the possible values for T h and η [i.e., T h [keV] ϵ (20, 50) and η ϵ (2%, 13%)]. These values are used as input in hydrodynamic simulations to reproduce the results obtained in radiographs, thus constraining the range for the HE measurements. According to this procedure, we found that the laser converts ~10% ± 4% of energy into hot electrons with T h = 27 ± 8 keV. The paper shows how the coupling of different diagnostics and numerical tools is required to sufficiently constrain the problem, solving the large ambiguity coming from the post-processing of spectrometers data. The effect of the hot electrons on the shock dynamics is then discussed, showing an increase in the pressure around the shock front. Furthermore, the low temperature found in this experiment without pre-compression laser pulses could be advantageous for the SI scheme, but the high conversion efficiency may lead to an increase in the shell adiabat, with detrimental effects on the implosion.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2017

Constraints on the Optical Depth of Galaxy Groups and Clusters

Future data from galaxy redshift surveys, combined with high-resolutions maps of the cosmic microwave background, will enable measurements of the pairwise kinematic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (kSZ) signal with unprecedented statistical significance. This signal probes the matter-velocity correlation function, scaled by the average optical depth (τ) of the galaxy groups and clusters in the sample, and is thus of fundamental importance for cosmology. However, in order to translate pairwise kSZ measurements into cosmological constraints, external constraints on τ are necessary. In this work, we present a new model for the intracluster medium, which takes into account star formation, feedback, non-thermal pressure, and gas cooling. Our semi-analytic model is computationally efficient and can reproduce results of recent hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy cluster formation. We calibrate the free parameters in the model using recent X-ray measurements of gas density profiles of clusters, and gas masses of groups and clusters. Our observationally calibrated model predicts the average τ{sub 500} (i.e., the integrated τ within a disk of size R {sub 500}) to better than 6% modeling uncertainty (at 95% confidence level). If the remaining uncertainties associated with other astrophysical uncertainties and X-ray selection effects can be better understood, our model for the optical depth should break the degeneracy between optical depth and cluster velocity in the analysis of future pairwise kSZ measurements and improve cosmological constraints with the combination of upcoming galaxy and CMB surveys, including the nature of dark energy, modified gravity, and neutrino mass.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Physics-constrained Gaussian process model for prediction of hydrodynamic interactions between wave energy converters in an array

To improve the efficiency of wave farms and achieve maximum power generation, the layout of wave energy converters (WECs) in an array needs to be carefully designed so that the hydrodynamic interactions can be positively exploited. For this, the hydrodynamic characteristics of the WEC array in different layouts need to be calculated. However, such calculations using numerical models usually entail significant computational cost, especially for large arrays of WECs. To address the computational challenge, a physics-constrained Gaussian process (GP) model is proposed to replace the original expensive numerical model and predict the hydrodynamic characteristics of the WECs for any array layout. By exploring the relationship between the WEC array (i.e., the input) and different hydrodynamic characteristics (i.e., the output), here we summarize a set of physical constraints/features, including invariance, symmetry, and additivity. This prior knowledge about the input-output relationship is then directly embedded in the constructed GP model through the design of physics-constrained kernels. In particular, a double-sum invariant kernel is first developed to incorporate the invariance and symmetry features, and then an additive kernel is developed to incorporate the additive feature of the problem. The invariant kernel and the additive kernel are then integrated to construct the physics-constrained GP model. Compared to the standard GP model, the proposed physics-constrained GP models require less training data to achieve the desired accuracy in predicting the hydrodynamic characteristics and are also less vulnerable to the curse of dimensionality (i.e., good scalability for large arrays) due to the use of an additive kernel. The efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of the proposed approach are demonstrated through an application to predict the hydrodynamic characteristics for WEC arrays of different sizes and layouts.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2015

MATCHING THE DARK MATTER PROFILES OF dSph GALAXIES WITH THOSE OF SIMULATED SATELLITES: A TWO-PARAMETER COMPARISON

We compare the dark matter halos’ structural parameters derived for four Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies to those of subhalos found in cosmological N-body simulations. We confirm that estimates of the mass at a single fixed radius are fully consistent with the observations. However, when a second structural parameter such as the logarithmic slope of the dark halo density profile measured close to the half-light radius is included in the comparison, we find little to no overlap between the satellites and the subhalos. Typically the right mass subhalos have steeper profiles at these radii than measurements of the dSph suggest. Using energy arguments we explore if it is possible to solve this discrepancy by invoking baryonic effects. Assuming that feedback from supernovae (SNe) can lead to a reshaping of the halos, we compute the required efficiency and find entirely plausible values for a significant fraction of the subhalos and even as low as 0.1%. This implies that care must be taken not to exaggerate the effect of SNe feedback as this could make the halos too shallow. These results could be used to calibrate and possibly constrain feedback recipes in hydrodynamical simulations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗