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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 775 records · Page 43
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1996

Resolving Magnetic Flux Patches at the Surface of the Core

The geomagnetic field at a given epoch can be used to partition the surface of the liquid outer core into a finite number of contiguous regions in which the radial component of the magnetic flux density, B (sub r), is of one sign. These flux patches are instrumental in providing detail to surface fluid flows inferred from the changing geomagnetic field and in evaluating the validity of the frozen-flux approximation on which such inferences rely. Most of the flux patches in models of the modem field are small and enclose little flux compared to the total unsigned flux emanating from the core. To demonstrate that such patches are not required to explain the most spatially complete and accurate data presently available, those from the Magsat mission, I have constructed a smooth core field model that fits the Magsat data but does not possess small flux patches. I conclude that our present knowledge of the geomagnetic field does not allow us to resolve these features reliably at the core-mantle boundary; thus we possess less information about core flow than previously believed.

OBrien, Michael S.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Roles of non-axisymmetric perturbations in free drift vertical displacement events on EAST

Abstract The safe operation of most tokamaks, especially the large ones, relies on the feedback control of vertical displacement events (VDEs). However, most of these feedback control systems are based on axisymmetric VDE models. In this study, we use NIMROD simulations to study the role of non-axisymmetric perturbations in free drift vertical displacement events on EAST. The high- n modes in the non-axisymmetric VDE grow first, which drives the formation of high- n magnetic island chains. Subsequently, the magnetic island chains grow and overlap with each other, leading to the destruction of the magnetic flux surface, which induces a minor disruption and accelerates the start of the following major disruption. The magnetic island and the stochastic magnetic field allow the toroidally non-axisymmetric poloidal plasma current to jet towards the hoop force direction, forming finger-like and filamentary structures. Such a plasma current non-axisymmetry strongly depends on the anisotropy in the thermal transport coefficients.

Physics↗
NASA NTRS1994

Drift shells and aurora computed using the O8 magnetic field model for Neptune

Charged particle drift shells are calculated using the O8 magnetic field model for Neptune. Inner drift shell morphologies differ significantly from dipolar drift shells for the parts of drift shells inward of r = 2 R(sub N). Outer drift shells (L approx. greater than 10), when traced down to Neptune's surface following magnetic field lines, are simple closed loops around magnetic poles. Inner drift shells (L approx. less than 4), on the other hand, when traced to the surface, are also single loops but stretched in a previously unknown way: sometimes with a cusp and sometimes into two joined loops. Inner drift shell footprints on R = 1 provide the basis for identifying precipitation L shells, interpreting observed aurora, and predicting additional emissions on that part of Neptune's surface unobserved by the Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS). Precipitation in a global magnetic anomaly, `ordinary' auroral precipitation near the south magnetic pole, and precipitation from field lines with no magnetic field minimum above Neptune's exobase collectively appear to account for all of the observed auroral emission regions at Neptune. To the extent that aurora can be understood in this model, it is suggested O8 may be reasonably accurate.

Paranicas, C.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Flows in the Solar Convection Zone

Flows within the solar convection zone are the primary drivers of the Sun's magnetic activity cycle. Differential rotation stretches out the magnetic field and converts poloidal fields into toroidal fields. Zones of strong radial shear are found at both the surface and at the base of the convection zone (the tachocline). The poleward meridional flow near the surface transports magnetic flux that is observed to reverse the magnetic poles near the time of cycle maxima. The deeper (and as yet unobserved), equatorward meridional flow should carry magnetic flux toward the equator where it reconnects with oppositely directed fields in the other hemisphere. The non-axisymmetric flows (granules, supergranules, and giant cells) also transport magnetic flux but in a more random, diffusive, manner. Supergranules and giant cells also play significant roles in driving the large-scale, axisymmetric flows themselves. The effect of solar rotation on supergranulation produces the shear layer near the surface and enhances the meridional flow. The effect of solar rotation on giant cells should produce the latitudinal differential rotation, the shear in the tachocline, and the meridional circulation. In this presentation I will describe the observed and theorized characteristics of the flows in the solar convection zone and discuss their connections to the solar activity cycle.

Hathaway, D. H.↗
NASA NTRS1989

The magnetic, basal, and radiative-equilibrium components in Mount Wilson Ca II H + K fluxes

Mount Wilson Ca II H + K flux measurements of cool dwarf stars are analyzed and compared with stellar Mg II h + k fluxes, variability amplitudes, rotation rates, and solar data. It is concluded that the Mount Wilson Ca II H + K fluxes comprise three principal parts: (1) a photospheric contribution in the line wings, (2) a basal chromospheric component that appears to be unrelated to stellar magnetic activity and is, therefore, possibly nonmagnetic in origin, and (3) a chromospheric component which is associated with magnetically active regions and the (quiet and active) network. The basal chromosphere appears to cover the entire surface of magnetically inactive stars. The basal Ca II H + K flux density for solar-type stars equals the average emission observed in the centers of solar supergranulation cells, where the magnetic flux density is small.

Schrijver, C. J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Validity condition for the local sheath impedance boundary condition and a nonlocal generalization

ICRF sheaths can cause unwanted interactions of high-power RF waves with material surfaces in magnetic fusion devices. In previous work, a local RF sheath impedance boundary condition (BC) was derived for use in ICRF codes together with a microscale (i.e., Debye or sheath width scale) model for obtaining the sheath impedance used in that BC. This local RF sheath BC matches the normal component of current and electrostatic potential across the sheath-plasma interface. Collapsing the matching conditions at the sheath-plasma interface to a BC depends on the assumption of scale separation, which can be violated when conditions along the local radius of curvature of the surface vary sufficiently rapidly. The validity condition is explored in this contribution, with special attention to the case where the magnetic field approaches being tangent to the surface. When the local sheath BC no longer applies, a non-local sheath BC is developed under the assumption of a more relaxed scale separation assumption. It is shown that the non-local sheath BC reduces to the previous local sheath BC under appropriate conditions. Furthermore, a surface-integrated sheath admittance parameter describes the 2D physics in the new BC.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

On the limits of uniaxial magnetic anisotropy tuning by a ripple surface pattern

Ion beam patterning of a nanoscale ripple surface has emerged as a versatile method of imprinting uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (UMA) on a desired in-plane direction in magnetic films. In the case of ripple patterned thick films, dipolar interactions around the top and/or bottom interfaces are generally assumed to drive this effect following Schlömann's calculations for demagnetizing fields of an ideally sinusoidal surface [E. Schlömann, J. Appl. Phys. 41, 1617 (1970)]. We have explored the validity of his predictions and the limits of ion beam sputtering to induce UMA in a ferromagnetic system where other relevant sources of magnetic anisotropy are neglected: ripple films not displaying any evidence of volume uniaxial anisotropy and where magnetocrystalline contributions average out in a fine grain polycrystal structure. To this purpose, the surface of 100 nm cobalt films grown on flat substrates has been irradiated at fixed ion energy, fixed ion fluency but different ion densities to make the ripple pattern at the top surface with wavelength Λ and selected, large amplitudes (ω) up to 20 nm so that stray dipolar fields are enhanced, while the residual film thickness t = 35–50 nm is sufficiently large to preserve the continuous morphology in most cases. The film-substrate interface has been studied with X-ray photoemission spectroscopy depth profiles and is found that there is a graded silicon-rich cobalt silicide, presumably formed during the film growth. This graded interface is of uncertain small thickness but the range of compositions clearly makes it a magnetically dead layer. On the other hand, the ripple surface rules both the magnetic coercivity and the uniaxial anisotropy as these are found to correlate with the pattern dimensions. Remarkably, the saturation fields in the hard axis of uniaxial continuous films are measured up to values as high as 0.80 kG and obey a linear dependence on the parameter ω{sup 2}/Λ/t in quantitative agreement with Schlömann's prediction for a surface anisotropy entirely ruled by dipolar interaction. The limits of UMA tuning by a ripple pattern are discussed in terms of the surface local angle with respect to the mean surface and of the onset of ripple detachment.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2017

Kinematics of Magnetic Bright Features in the Solar Photosphere

Convective flows are known as the prime means of transporting magnetic fields on the solar surface. Thus, small magnetic structures are good tracers of turbulent flows. We study the migration and dispersal of magnetic bright features (MBFs) in intergranular areas observed at high spatial resolution with Sunrise/IMaX. We describe the flux dispersal of individual MBFs as a diffusion process whose parameters are computed for various areas in the quiet-Sun and the vicinity of active regions from seeing-free data. We find that magnetic concentrations are best described as random walkers close to network areas (diffusion index, γ=1.0), travelers with constant speeds over a supergranule (γ=1.9--2.0), and decelerating movers in the vicinity of flux emergence and/or within active regions (γ=1.4--1.5). The three types of regions host MBFs with mean diffusion coefficients of 130 km{sup 2} s{sup −1}, 80–90 km{sup 2} s{sup −1}, and 25–70 km{sup 2} s{sup −1}, respectively. The MBFs in these three types of regions are found to display a distinct kinematic behavior at a confidence level in excess of 95%.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1975

Lunar topography and the limb compression source regions

Data from the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 laser altimeters have been used to study slopes, elevations, and roughness in the identifiable regions on the moon which sporadically produce plasma compressions and magnetic-field enhancements in the solar wind/lunar void boundary when those regions are at a flow limb. It is found that occurrence rates for such 'limb compressions' derived from Explorer 35 satellite measurements are significantly correlated with peak, average, and RMS slopes in the source regions, whereas rates derived from Apollo 15 and 16 subsatellite data are not correlated with topography. This suggests that two or more mechanisms operate in the source regions to produce limb compressions. Together with the known correlation between limb compressions and local surface remanent magnetic fields, the results indicate that lunar magnetization is not strongly related to surface features.

Srnka, L. J.↗
DOE OSTI2014

Surface electromagnetic wave equations in a warm magnetized quantum plasma

Based on the single-fluid plasma model, a theoretical investigation of surface electromagnetic waves in a warm quantum magnetized inhomogeneous plasma is presented. The surface electromagnetic waves are assumed to propagate on the plane between a vacuum and a warm quantum magnetized plasma. The quantum magnetohydrodynamic model includes quantum diffraction effect (Bohm potential), and quantum statistical pressure is used to derive the new dispersion relation of surface electromagnetic waves. And the general dispersion relation is analyzed in some special cases of interest. It is shown that surface plasma oscillations can be propagated due to quantum effects, and the propagation velocity is enhanced. Furthermore, the external magnetic field has a significant effect on surface wave's dispersion equation. Our work should be of a useful tool for investigating the physical characteristic of surface waves and physical properties of the bounded quantum plasmas.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

The Role of Wheel Surface Quality on Structural and Hard Magnetic Properties of Nd–Fe–B Permanent Magnet Powders

Rapidly solidified Nd{sub 15}Fe{sub 77}B{sub 8} magnetic alloy powders have been produced by using melt-spinning method. Different wheel surface structures such as smooth and textured were tested to investigate the effect of wheel surface morphology on powder shape, microstructure, Curie temperature, and magnetic properties. Produced powders were subjected to surfactant-active ball-milling process for powder size reduction and to enhance magnetic and thermal properties. Generally, flaky-shaped powders were obtained with smooth surface wheels and spherical-shaped powders were produced with textured surface wheel. Microstructure of flaky-shaped powders consisted of polygonal fine equiaxed grains with an average grain size of 0.45 µm. Spherical-shaped powders had dendritic microstructure regardless of their sizes. Both flaky and spherical powders involved hard magnetic Nd{sub 2}Fe{sub 14}B phase located in the grain interior and a fine network of Nd-rich phase at the grain boundaries. Surfactant-active ball-milling process significantly contributed to magnetic and thermal properties of powders. The coercivity values of flaky-shaped powders milled for 90, 150, 210, 270, 330, and 390 min milling times were substantially higher than that of spherical-shaped powders milled for the same period of times. The Curie temperatures of Nd{sub 15}Fe{sub 77}B{sub 8} ingot alloy and spherical- and flaky-shaped powders were found as 279, 305, and 321 {sup ∘}C, respectively. On the other hand, the Curie temperatures of flaky- and spherical-shaped powders milled for 390 min were measured as 331 and 311 {sup ∘}C, respectively.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Extensions of ion orbit loss theory

Theoretical refinements to an existing model for the loss of ions by drifting across the last closed flux surface are presented.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

NuSTAR discovery of a young, energetic pulsar associated with the luminous gamma-ray source HESS J1640–465

We report the discovery of a 206 ms pulsar associated with the TeV γ-ray source HESS J1640–465 using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) X-ray observatory. PSR J1640–4631 lies within the shell-type supernova remnant (SNR) G338.3–0.0, and coincides with an X-ray point source and putative pulsar wind nebula (PWN) previously identified in XMM-Newton and Chandra images. It is spinning down rapidly with period derivative P-dot = 9.758(44) × 10{sup –13}, yielding a spin-down luminosity E-dot = 4.4 × 10{sup 36} erg s{sup –1}, characteristic age τ{sub c}≡P/2 P-dot = 3350 yr, and surface dipole magnetic field strength B{sub s} = 1.4 × 10{sup 13} G. For the measured distance of 12 kpc to G338.3–0.0, the 0.2-10 TeV luminosity of HESS J1640–465 is 6% of the pulsar's present E-dot . The Fermi source 1FHL J1640.5–4634 is marginally coincident with PSR J1640–4631, but we find no γ-ray pulsations in a search using five years of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data. The pulsar energetics support an evolutionary PWN model for the broadband spectrum of HESS J1640–465, provided that the pulsar's braking index is n ≈ 2, and that its initial spin period was P {sub 0} ∼ 15 ms.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Functional form for plasma velocity in a rapidly rotating tokamak discharge

A recently developed technique using charge exchange spectroscopy determines the ion poloidal rotation in tokamak plasmas from the poloidal variation in the toroidal angular rotation speed. The basis for this technique is the functional form for the plasma velocity calculated from the equilibrium equations. The initial development of this technique utilized the functional form determined for conditions where the ion toroidal rotation speed is much smaller than the ion thermal speed. There are cases, however, where the toroidal rotation can be comparable to the ion thermal speed, especially for high atomic number impurities. The present paper extends the previous analysis to this high rotation speed case and demonstrates how to extract the poloidal rotation speed from measurements of the toroidal angular rotation speed at two points on a flux surface.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

DESC: A stellarator equilibrium solver

In this paper, the new code DESC is presented to solve for fixed-boundary ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibria in stellarators. The approach directly solves the equilibrium force balance as a system of nonlinear equations in the form f(x) = 0. The independent variables x represent nested magnetic flux surfaces expressed in the inverse representation with toroidal flux coordinates, and the equations f(x) quantify equilibrium force balance errors at discrete points in real space. Discretizing with global Fourier–Zernike basis functions properly treats the magnetic axis and minimizes the number of coefficients needed to describe the flux surfaces. The pseudospectral method provides great flexibility in where the errors are evaluated, and the system of equations is efficiently solved with a Newton–Raphson iteration. Equilibria are computed and compared against VMEC for both axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric examples. The results show fast convergence rates and solutions with low errors throughout the plasma volume.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Low-Field Alignment of Anisotropic Bonded Magnets for Additive Manufacturing of Permanent Magnet Motors

Additive manufacturing techniques for fabricating bonded magnets have the potential to reduce manufacturing cost and time-to-market of products and address the criticality of rare-earth elements (REEs), which is a concern for economic design of dependent applications such as permanent magnet machines. We investigated the magnetic alignment of anisotropic bonded magnet material comprising 65 vol.% Nd-Fe-B in nylon-12 produced by extrusion in a 20-W brushless direct current surface permanent magnet motor for submersible water pump application using finite element analysis. The results predict that sufficient alignment for this application could be obtained at low alignment fields (μoH ≤ 1 T) with a reduction in the volume of critical materials by up to 40% compared with isotropic permanent magnets. Furthermore, this demonstrates the economic feasibility of incorporating a magnetic alignment field source into additive manufacturing systems for bonded magnets, and the potential of aligned anisotropic bonded magnets to address REE criticality.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗