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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 73 records · Page 4

Chebyshev polynomials in the spectral Tau method and applications to Eigenvalue problems

Chebyshev Spectral methods have received much attention recently as a technique for the rapid solution of ordinary differential equations. This technique also works well for solving linear eigenvalue problems. Specific detail is given to the properties and algebra of chebyshev polynomials; the use of chebyshev polynomials in spectral methods; and the recurrence relationships that are developed. These formula and equations are then applied to several examples which are worked out in detail. The appendix contains an example FORTRAN program used in solving an eigenvalue problem.

Johnson, Duane↗

Pole orientation of asteroid 44 Nysa via photometric astrometry, including a discussion of the method's application and its limitations

The results of photometric astrometry, a method of determining the orientation of a rotation axis, as applied to asteroid 44 Nysa, are presented. The pole orientation of Nysa was found to be lambda(zero) = 100 deg, beta(zero) = +60 deg with an uncertainty of 10 deg. The sidereal period is 0.26755902 days + or - 0.00000006, and the rotation prograde. Refinements to, and limitations of, the application of the method of photometric astrometry are discussed. In light of the results presented herein, it is believed that all photometric astrometry pole determinations of the past should be redone.

Taylor, R. C.↗

Overview of Krylov subspace methods with applications to control problems

An overview of projection methods based on Krylov subspaces are given with emphasis on their application to solving matrix equations that arise in control problems. The main idea of Krylov subspace methods is to generate a basis of the Krylov subspace Span and seek an approximate solution the the original problem from this subspace. Thus, the original matrix problem of size N is approximated by one of dimension m typically much smaller than N. Krylov subspace methods have been very successful in solving linear systems and eigenvalue problems and are now just becoming popular for solving nonlinear equations. It is shown how they can be used to solve partial pole placement problems, Sylvester's equation, and Lyapunov's equation.

Saad, Youcef↗

An engineering optimization method with application to STOL-aircraft approach and landing trajectories

An optimization method has been developed that computes the optimal open loop inputs for a dynamical system by observing only its output. The method reduces to static optimization by expressing the inputs as series of functions with parameters to be optimized. Since the method is not concerned with the details of the dynamical system to be optimized, it works for both linear and nonlinear systems. The method and the application to optimizing longitudinal landing paths for a STOL aircraft with an augmented wing are discussed. Noise, fuel, time, and path deviation minimizations are considered with and without angle of attack, acceleration excursion, flight path, endpoint, and other constraints.

Jacob, H. G.↗

Spectral multigrid methods with applications to transonic potential flow

Spectral multigrid methods are demonstrated to be a competitive technique for solving the transonic potential flow equation. The spectral discretization, the relaxation scheme, and the multigrid techniques are described in detail. Significant departures from current approaches are first illustrated on several linear problems. The principal applications and examples, however, are for compressible potential flow. These examples include the relatively challenging case of supercritical flow over a lifting airfoil.

Streett, C. L.↗

Spectral multigrid methods with applications to transonic potential flow

Spectral multigrid methods are demonstrated to be a competitive technique for solving the transonic potential flow equation. The spectral discretization, the relaxation scheme, and the multigrid techniques are described in detail. Significant departures from current approaches are first illustrated on several linear problems. The principal applications and examples, however, are for compressible potential flow. These examples include the relatively challenging case of supercritical flow over a lifting airfoil.

Streett, C. L.↗

CSM research: Methods and application studies

Computational mechanics is that discipline of applied science and engineering devoted to the study of physical phenomena by means of computational methods based on mathematical modeling and simulation, utilizing digital computers. The discipline combines theoretical and applied mechanics, approximation theory, numerical analysis, and computer science. Computational mechanics has had a major impact on engineering analysis and design. When applied to structural mechanics, the discipline is referred to herein as computational structural mechanics. Complex structures being considered by NASA for the 1990's include composite primary aircraft structures and the space station. These structures will be much more difficult to analyze than today's structures and necessitate a major upgrade in computerized structural analysis technology. NASA has initiated a research activity in structural analysis called Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM). The broad objective of the CSM activity is to develop advanced structural analysis technology that will exploit modern and emerging computers, such as those with vector and/or parallel processing capabilities. Here, the current research directions for the Methods and Application Studies Team of the Langley CSM activity are described.

Knight, Norman F., Jr.↗

A 3-D Coupled CFD-DSMC Solution Method With Application to the Mars Sample Return Orbiter

A method to obtain coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics-Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (CFD-DSMC), 3-D flow field solutions for highly blunt bodies at low incidence is presented and applied to one concept of the Mars Sample Return Orbiter vehicle as a demonstration of the technique. CFD is used to solve the high-density blunt forebody flow defining an inflow boundary condition for a DSMC solution of the afterbody wake flow. By combining the two techniques in flow regions where most applicable, the entire mixed flow field is modeled in an appropriate manner.

Glass, Christopher E.↗

A review of melt and vapor growth techniques for polydiacetylene thin films for nonlinear optical applications

Methods for the growth of polydiacetylene thin films by melt and vapor growth and their subsequent polymerization are summarized. Films with random orientations were obtained when glass or quartz were used as substrates in the vapor growth process. Oriented polydiacetylene films were fabricated by the vapor deposition of diacetylene monomer onto oriented polydiacetylene on a glass substrate and its subsequent polymerization by UV light. A method for the growth of oriented thin films by a melt-shear growth process as well as a method of film growth by seeded recrstallization from the melt between glass plates, that may be applied to the growth of polydiacetylene films, are described. Moreover, a method is presented for the fabrication of single crystal thin films of polyacetylenes by irradiation of the surface of diacetylene single crystals to a depth between 100 and 2000 angstroms.

Penn, B. G.↗

Development of a vortex-lift-design method and application to a slender maneuver-wing configuration

A method has been developed to optimize the mean camber surface of a cranked slender wing having leading-edge vortex flow at transonic-maneuver conditions using the suction analogy. This type of flow was assumed because it was anticipated that the slenderness of the wing would preclude attached flow at the required lift coefficient. A constraint was imposed in that the camber deflections were to be restricted by a realistic structural-box requirement. The resulting application yielded mean-camber shapes which produced effective suction levels equivalent to 77 percent of the full-planar leading-edge value at the design lift coefficient.

Lamar, J. E.↗

A self-adaptive-grid method with application to airfoil flow

A self-adaptive-grid method is described that is suitable for multidimensional steady and unsteady computations. Based on variational principles, a spring analogy is used to redistribute grid points in an optimal sense to reduce the overall solution error. User-specified parameters, denoting both maximum and minimum permissible grid spacings, are used to define the all-important constants, thereby minimizing the empiricism and making the method self-adaptive. Operator splitting and one-sided controls for orthogonality and smoothness are used to make the method practical, robust, and efficient. Examples are included for both steady and unsteady viscous flow computations about airfoils in two dimensions, as well as for a steady inviscid flow computation and a one-dimensional case. These examples illustrate the precise control the user has with the self-adaptive method and demonstrate a significant improvement in accuracy and quality of the solutions.

Nakahashi, K.↗

Comparisons of several aerodynamic methods for application to dynamic loads analyses

The results of a study are presented in which the applicability at subsonic speeds of several aerodynamic methods for predicting dynamic gust loads on aircraft, including active control systems, was examined and compared. These aerodynamic methods varied from steady state to an advanced unsteady aerodynamic formulation. Brief descriptions of the structural and aerodynamic representations and of the motion and load equations are presented. Comparisons of numerical results achieved using the various aerodynamic methods are shown in detail. From these results, aerodynamic representations for dynamic gust analyses are identified. It was concluded that several aerodynamic methods are satisfactory for dynamic gust analyses of configurations having either controls fixed or active control systems that primarily affect the low frequency rigid body aircraft response.

Kroll, R. I.↗

Empirical source noise prediction method with application to subsonic coaxial jet mixing noise

A general empirical method, developed for source noise predictions, uses tensor splines to represent the dependence of the acoustic field on frequency and direction and Taylor's series to represent the dependence on source state parameters. The method is applied to prediction of mixing noise from subsonic circular and coaxial jets. A noise data base of 1/3-octave-band sound pressure levels (SPL's) from 540 tests was gathered from three countries: United States, United Kingdom, and France. The SPL's depend on seven variables: frequency, polar direction angle, and five source state parameters: inner and outer nozzle pressure ratios, inner and outer stream total temperatures, and nozzle area ratio. A least-squares seven-dimensional curve fit defines a table of constants which is used for the prediction method. The resulting prediction has a mean error of 0 dB and a standard deviation of 1.2 dB. The prediction method is used to search for a coaxial jet which has the greatest coaxial noise benefit as compared with an equivalent single jet. It is found that benefits of about 6 dB are possible.

Zorumski, W. E.↗

Model Robust Calibration: Method and Application to Electronically-Scanned Pressure Transducers

This article presents the application of a recently developed statistical regression method to the controlled instrument calibration problem. The statistical method of Model Robust Regression (MRR), developed by Mays, Birch, and Starnes, is shown to improve instrument calibration by reducing the reliance of the calibration on a predetermined parametric (e.g. polynomial, exponential, logarithmic) model. This is accomplished by allowing fits from the predetermined parametric model to be augmented by a certain portion of a fit to the residuals from the initial regression using a nonparametric (locally parametric) regression technique. The method is demonstrated for the absolute scale calibration of silicon-based pressure transducers.

Walker, Eric L.↗

Relaxation and Preconditioning for High Order Discontinuous Galerkin Methods with Applications to Aeroacoustics and High Speed Flows

This project is about the investigation of the development of the discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods, for general geometry and triangulations, for solving convection dominated problems, with applications to aeroacoustics. Other related issues in high order WENO finite difference and finite volume methods have also been investigated. methods are two classes of high order, high resolution methods suitable for convection dominated simulations with possible discontinuous or sharp gradient solutions. In [18], we first review these two classes of methods, pointing out their similarities and differences in algorithm formulation, theoretical properties, implementation issues, applicability, and relative advantages. We then present some quantitative comparisons of the third order finite volume WENO methods and discontinuous Galerkin methods for a series of test problems to assess their relative merits in accuracy and CPU timing. In [3], we review the development of the Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin (RKDG) methods for non-linear convection-dominated problems. These robust and accurate methods have made their way into the main stream of computational fluid dynamics and are quickly finding use in a wide variety of applications. They combine a special class of Runge-Kutta time discretizations, that allows the method to be non-linearly stable regardless of its accuracy, with a finite element space discretization by discontinuous approximations, that incorporates the ideas of numerical fluxes and slope limiters coined during the remarkable development of the high-resolution finite difference and finite volume schemes. The resulting RKDG methods are stable, high-order accurate, and highly parallelizable schemes that can easily handle complicated geometries and boundary conditions. We review the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of these methods and show several applications including nonlinear conservation laws, the compressible and incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and Hamilton-Jacobi-like equations.

Shu, Chi-Wang↗

Multivarable nyquist array method with application to turbofan engine control

Extensions to the multivariable Nyquist array (MNA) method are used to design a feedback control system for the quiet clean shorthaul experimental engine. The results of this design are compared with those obtained from the deployment of an alternate control system design on a full scale nonlinear, real time digital simulation. The results clearly demonstrate the utility of the MNA synthesis procedures for highly nonlinear sophisticated design applications.

Leininger, G. G.↗