Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “wake fields”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 811 records · Page 45

The measurement of boundary layers on a compressor blade in cascade. Volume 1: Experimental technique, analysis and results

Measurements were made of the boundary layers and wakes about a highly loaded, double-circular-arc compressor blade in cascade. These laser Doppler velocimetry measurements have yielded a very detailed and precise data base with which to test the application of viscous computational codes to turbomachinery. In order to test the computational codes at off-design conditions, the data were acquired at a chord Reynolds number of 500,000 and at three incidence angles. Moreover, these measurements have supplied some physical insight into these very complex flows. Although some natural transition is evident, laminar boundary layers usually detach and subsequently reattach as either fully or intermittently turbulent boundary layers. These transitional separation bubbles play an important role in the development of most of the boundary layers and wakes measured in this cascade and the modeling or computing of these bubbles should prove to be the key aspect in computing the entire cascade flow field. In addition, the nonequilibrium turbulent boundary layers on these highly loaded blades always have some region of separation near the trailing edge of the suction surface. These separated flows, as well as the subsequent near wakes, show no similarity and should prove to be a challenging test for the viscous computational codes.

Zierke, William C.↗

Trailing edge noise prediction from measured surface pressures

Trailing edge (TE) noise is investigated for the case of a two-dimensional airfoil embedded in a uniform low Mach number flow, and the usefulness of several TE noise theories is examined by applying them to the measured data. The TE noise spectra and directivity are quantitatively determined for the case of a high Reynolds number and a fully turbulent boundary layer. Parameters include angle of attack, flow velocity and TE bluntness. Evanescent wave theories by Chase (1975) and Chandiramani (1974) are compared to the present results and show good agreement. Agreement of the near field pressure scatter phenomenon analysis with measurements implies that the basic assumptions used in the analysis are correct, i.e., the turbulent boundary layer (TBL) flow passes the trailing edge into the wake region. No hydrodynamic wake shedding activity is confirmed for the two-sided TBL flow, and a method incorporating the principles of the coherent output power method is used to determine the sound field. The near field edge scatter model is found to not only establish optimum sizing of edge treatment for noise control, but also to separate and identify the scattered field from the incident hydrodynamic field.

Brooks, T. F.↗

Impacts to FeRAM design arising from interfacial dielectric layers and wake up modulation in ferroelectric hafnium zirconium oxide

As ferroelectric hafnium zirconium oxide (HZO) becomes more widely utilized in ferroelectric microelectronics, integration impacts of intentional and non-intentional dielectric interfaces and their effects upon the ferroelectric film wake up and circuit parameters become important to understand. In this work, the effect of the addition of a linear dielectric aluminum oxide, Al 2 O 3 , below a ferroelectric Hf 0.58 Zr 0.42 O 2 film in a capacitor structure for FeRAM applications with NbN electrodes was measured. Depolarization fields resulting from the linear dielectric is observed to induce a reduction of the remanent polarization of the ferroelectric. Addition of the aluminum oxide also impacts the wake up of the HZO with respect to the cycling voltage applied. Intricately linked to the design of a FeRAM 1C/1T cell, the metal-ferroelectric-insulator-metal (MFIM) devices are observed to significantly shift charge related to the read states based on aluminum oxide thickness and wake up cycling voltage. As a result, a 33% reduction in the separation of read states is measured, which complicates how a memory cell is designed and illustrates the importance of clean interfaces in devices.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

Identifying Large Transients within ARTEMIS Solar Wind Data for Nightside Time Domain Electromagnetic Sounding

Mysteries regarding the Moon’s internal composition persist. By studying the induced magnetic fields produced by the Moon in response to changes in the magnetic field of the surrounding solar wind, inferences can be made regarding the associated eddy currents and thus regarding the electrical conductivities of the lunar regions hosting these currents. In this manner, a greater understanding of the Moon’s inner geophysical properties can be garnered. This investigative strategy, known as electromagnetic sounding, can be employed using magnetic field data from the ARTEMIS satellites. In particular, data taken from time intervals in which one satellite is within the lunar wake and within 500 km of the surface while the other is relatively far from the surface immersed within the pristine solar wind. Per Faraday’s Law, the steeper the magnetic transient from the solar wind, the greater the current induced within the Moon, and per Ampère’s Law, the greater this induced current, the larger the magnetic field it produces. Larger signals generally feature higher signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Thus, larger transients tend to produce more valuable data in terms of sounding. The enhanced separation between source signal and reaction signal via the aforementioned positioning of the probes during time intervals of interest augments the SNRs as well. Here we discuss tools developed in Python (making use of the PySPEDAS package) that expedites the task of identifying large magnetic transients within these time frames of interest. These exceptional changes in magnetic field are then evaluated for use in electromagnetic sounding as described above. We have identified 51 major transient events (during times of interest) from 8/1/2011 to 7/31/2021. One key hurdle we overcame was identifying and navigating data gaps. These data gaps would often interfere with our time intervals of interest, necessitating an algorithm to avoid them.

Moons↗

Generation of meter-scale hydrogen plasmas and efficient, pump-depletion-limited wakefield excitation using 10 GeV electron bunches

High repetition rates and efficient energy transfer to the accelerating beam are important for a future linear collider based on the beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration scheme (PWFA-LC). This paper reports the first results from the Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Collaboration (E300) that are beginning to address both of these issues using the recently commissioned FACET-II facility at SLAC national accelerator laboratory. Here we have generated meter-scale hydrogen plasmas using time-structured 10 GeV electron bunches from FACET-II, which hold the promise of dramatically increasing the repetition rate of PWFA by rapidly replenishing the gas between each shot compared to the hitherto used lithium plasmas that operate at 1–10 Hz. Furthermore, we have excited wakes in such plasmas that are suitable for high gradient particle acceleration with high drive-bunch to wake energy transfer efficiency- a first step in achieving a high overall energy transfer efficiency. We have done this by using time-structured electron drive bunches that typically have one or more ultra-high current (> 30 kA) femtosecond spike(s) superimposed on a longer (~0.4 ps) lower current (< 10 kA) bunch structure. The first spike effectively field-ionizes the gas and produces a meter-scale (30–160 cm) plasma, whereas the subsequent beam charge creates a wake. The length and amplitude of the wake depends on the longitudinal current profile of the bunch and plasma density. We find that the onset of pump depletion, when some of the drive beam electrons are nearly fully depleted of their energy, occurs for hydrogen pressure ≥ 1.5Torr. We also show that some electrons in the rear of the bunch can gain several GeV energies from the wake. These results are reproduced by particle-in-cell simulations using the QPAD code. At a pressure of ~2Torr, simulation results and experimental data show that the beam transfers about 60% of its energy to the wake.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Characteristics of mean velocity in the annulus wall region at the exit of turbomachinery rotor passage

This paper reports the experimental study of the three-dimensional characteristics of the mean velocity in the annulus-wall boundary layer and wake mixing region of a moderately loaded compressor rotor blade. The measurements reported were obtained using a three-sensor hot-wire probe at the exit of the rotor. They consisted of tangential surveys at several axial and radial locations downstream of the compressor rotor blade passage. The variation of the streamwise, normal, and radial velocity profiles and their decay characteristics are derived from this data. The measurements reveal the highly complex and three-dimensional nature of the annulus-wall flow field and the nature of the interaction of the annulus-wall boundary layer, the blade boundary layers and wake, and the secondary flow associated with the annulus-wall region.

Davino, R.↗

Finite Gyro-Radius Ion Pickup Current at Titan: Application to T9 and T5

We propose a possible explanation for the second wake event observed by Cassini during the T9 encounter with Titan. As shown in Hartle and Sittler [2007a], ions will emanate from Titan's upper atmosphere as ion beams when the ion gyroradii are large compared to the neutral scale height. Furthermore, Sittler and Hartle [2007] and Hartle and Sittler [2007b] showed that when this condition is satisfied and the electric field of the external flow is not reduced significantly due to draping field lines, the heavier pickup ions will be highly localized in space and velocity, or beam-like, in Titan's wake. This can cause these ion bunches to jump across the spacecraft trajectory and not be observed except for the lighter ions such as H+ and H2+, which have smaller gyroradii. These heavy ions will form a large pickup current which can deflect the tail position away from Saturn. We will discuss this model for the T9 encounter, which was a wake pass, and also explore its possible application for T5.

Sittler, Edward C.↗

Convergence characteristics of nonlinear vortex-lattice methods for configuration aerodynamics

Nonlinear panel methods have no proof for the existence and uniqueness of their solutions. The convergence characteristics of an iterative, nonlinear vortex-lattice method are, therefore, carefully investigated. The effects of several parameters, including 1) the surface-paneling method, 2) the integration method of the trajectories of the wake vortices, 3) vortex-grid refinement , and 4) the initial conditions for the first iteration on the computed aerodynamic coefficients and on the flow field details are presented. The convergence of the iterative-solution procedure is usually rapid. The solution converges with grid refinement to a constant value, but the final value is not unique and varies with the wing surface-paneling and wake-discretization methods within some range in the vicinity of the experimental result.

Seginer, A.↗

Results of the integration of a transonic full-potential analysis program with a free-wake lifting-line program for hovering rotors

The hovering performance predictions of the TFAR1 and OPLIN codes and the experimental data are discussed. The TFAR1 program solves the full-potential equation in a rotor-fixed coordinate system by use of the line relaxation method. The OPLIN program calculates the positions of wake vortices and rotor performance using the influence-coefficient-and-lifing-line method. The two programs are combined by adding the induced velocities from the OPLIN code to the near flow-field of the rotor from the TFAR1 code. Results show that the TFAR1 program converges better with the downwash-coupling method than the twist correction method to include the wake downwash.

Chung, Song-Young↗

Laser Anemometer Measurements of the Flow Field in a 4:1 Pressure Ratio Centrifugal Impeller

A laser-doppler anemometer was used to obtain flow-field velocity measurements in a 4:1 pressure ratio, 4.54 kg/s (10 lbm/s), centrifugal impeller, with splitter blades and backsweep, which was configured with a vaneless diffuser. Measured through-flow velocities are reported for ten quasi-orthogonal survey planes at locations ranging from 1% to 99% of main blade chord. Measured through-flow velocities are compared to those predicted by a 3-D viscous steady flow analysis (Dawes) code. The measurements show the development and progression through the impeller and vaneless diffuser of a through-flow velocity deficit which results from the tip clearance flow and accumulation of low momentum fluid centrifuged from the blade and hub surfaces. Flow traces from the CFD analysis show the origin of this deficit which begins to grow in the inlet region of the impeller where it is first detected near the suction surface side of the passage. It then moves toward the pressure side of the channel, due to the movement of tip clearance flow across the impeller passage, where it is cut by the splitter blade leading edge. As blade loading increases toward the rear of the channel the deficit region is driven back toward the suction surface by the cross-passage pressure gradient. There is no evidence of a large wake region that might result from flow separation and the impeller efficiency is relatively high. The flow field in this impeller is quite similar to that documented previously by NASA Lewis in a large low-speed backswept impeller.

Skoch, G. J.↗

Measurement Capabilities of Planar Doppler Velocimetry in Large-Scale Wind Tunnels

Over the past few years, Planar Doppler Velocimetry (PDT) has been shown by several laboratories to offer an attractive means for measuring three-dimensional velocity vectors everywhere in a light sheet placed in a flow. Unlike some other optical means of measuring flow velocities, PDT is particularly attractive for use in large wind tunnels where distances to the sample region may be several meters, because it does not require the spatial resolution and tracking of individual scattering particles or the alignment of crossed beams at large distances. To date, demonstrations of PDT (also called Doppler Global Velocimetry by some authors) have been made either in low speed flows without quantitative comparison to other measurements, or in supersonic flows where the Doppler shift is large and its measurement is relatively insensitive to instrumental errors. Moreover, most reported applications have relied on the use of continuous-wave lasers, which limit the measurement to time-averaged velocity fields. This work summarizes the results of two previous studies of PDT in which the use of pulsed lasers to obtain instantaneous velocity vector fields is evaluated. The objective has been to quantitatively define and demonstrate PDT capabilities for applications in large-scale wind tunnels that are intended primarily for the testing of rotorcraft and subsonic aircraft at speeds typically less than 100 m/s. For such applications, the adequate resolution of low-speed flow fields requires accurate measurements of small Doppler shifts that are obtained at distances of several meters from the sample region and with a field of view that is sufficient to encompass the entire region of interest. The use of pulsed lasers provides the unique capability to obtain not only time-averaged fields, but also their statistical fluctuation amplitudes and the spatial excursions of unsteady flow regions such as wakes, separations, and rotor-tip vortices. To accomplish the objectives of these studies, the PDT measurement process was first modeled and its performance evaluated computationally. The noise sources considered included those related to the optical and electronic properties of Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) arrays and to speckle effects associated with the coherent illumination of aerosols from pulsed lasers. The signal noise estimates were incorporated into the PDT signal analysis process and combined with computed scattering signals using a Mae scattering theory for a distributed range of aerosol particle sizes. The results are used to define the necessary instrument configuration, to show that the expected signal levels from a practical PDT system are sufficiently large to allow its useful application in large facilities, and to show that the expected velocity measurement uncertainties are small compared to the mean velocities of interest for most subsonic, large-scale wind tunnel testing, Experimental studies using several bench-top setups are then described that validate the physics of the PDT model and demonstrate the ability to obtain accurate PDT measurements using procedures that are compatible with large-scale wind tunnel operations. The PDT measurement capabilities found in this study lead to the conclusion that PDT offers significant advantages compared to other means of measuring velocity fields in large-scale wind tunnels, including those operating at low speeds.

McKenzie, Robert L.↗

An Advanced Actuator Line Method for Wind Energy Applications and Beyond: Preprint

The actuator line method to represent rotor aerodynamics within computational fluid dynamics has been in use for over a decade. This method applies a body force to the flow field along rotating lines corresponding to the individual rotor blades and employs tabular airfoil data to compute the force distribution. The actuator line method is attractive because compared to blade-resolved simulations, the required mesh is much simpler and the computational cost is lower. This work proposes a higher fidelity variant of the actuator line method meant to fill the space between current actuator line and blade-resolved simulations. It contains modifications in two key areas. The first is that of freestream velocity vector estimation along the line, which is necessary to compute the lift and drag along the line using tabular airfoil data. Most current methods rely on point sampling in which the location of sampling is ambiguous. Here we test a velocity sampling method that uses a properly weighted integral over space, removing this ambiguity. The second area of improvement is the function used to project the one-dimensional actuator line force onto the three-dimensional fluid mesh as a body force. We propose and test a projection function that spreads the force over a region that looks something like a real blade with the hope that it will produce the blade local and near wake flow features with more accuracy and higher fidelity. Our goal is that between these two improvements, not only will the flow field predictions be enhanced, but also the spanwise loading will be made more accurate. We refer to this combination of improvements as the advanced actuator line method. We apply these improvements to two different wind turbine cases. Although there is a strong wind energy motivation in our work, there is no reason these advanced actuator line ideas cannot be used in other applications, such as helicopter rotors.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Modeling Macro- and Micro-Scale Turbulent Mixing and Chemistry in Engine Exhaust Plumes

Simulation of turbulent mixing and chemical processes in the near-field plume and plume-vortex regimes has been successfully carried out recently using a reduced gas phase kinetics mechanism which substantially decreased the computational cost. A detailed mechanism including gas phase HOx, NOx, and SOx chemistry between the aircraft exhaust and the ambient air in near-field aircraft plumes is compiled. A reduced mechanism capturing the major chemical pathways is developed. Predictions by the reduced mechanism are found to be in good agreement with those by the detailed mechanism. With the reduced chemistry, the computer CPU time is saved by a factor of more than 3.5 for the near-field plume modeling. Distributions of major chemical species are obtained and analyzed. The computed sensitivities of major species with respect to reaction step are deduced for identification of the dominant gas phase kinetic reaction pathways in the jet plume. Both the near field plume and the plume-vortex regimes were investigated using advanced mixing models. In the near field, a stand-alone mixing model was used to investigate the impact of turbulent mixing on the micro- and macro-scale mixing processes using a reduced reaction kinetics model. The plume-vortex regime was simulated using a large-eddy simulation model. Vortex plume behind Boeing 737 and 747 aircraft was simulated along with relevant kinetics. Many features of the computed flow field show reasonable agreement with data. The entrainment of the engine plumes into the wing tip vortices and also the partial detrainment of the plume were numerically captured. The impact of fluid mechanics on the chemical processes was also studied. Results show that there are significant differences between spatial and temporal simulations especially in the predicted SO3 concentrations. This has important implications for the prediction of sulfuric acid aerosols in the wake and may partly explain the discrepancy between past numerical studies (that employed parabolic or temporal approximations) and the measured data. Finally to address the major uncertainty in the near-field plume modeling related to the plume processing of sulfur compounds and advanced model was developed to evaluate its impact on the chemical processes in the near wake. A comprehensive aerosol model is developed and it is coupled with chemical kinetics and the axisymmetric turbulent jet flow models. The integrated model is used to simulate microphysical processes in the near-field jet plume, including sulfuric acid and water binary homogeneous nucleation, coagulation, non-equilibrium heteromolecular condensation, and sulfur-induced soot activation. The formation and evolution of aerosols are computed and analyzed. The computed results show that a large number of ultra-fine (0.3--0.6 nm in radius) volatile HSO4 - HO embryos are generated in the near-field plume. These embryos further grow in size by self coagulation and condensation. Soot particles can be activated by both heterogeneous nucleation and scavenging of H2SO4-H2O aerosols. These activated soot particles can serve as water condensation nuclei for contrail formation. Conditions under which ice contrails can form behind aircrafts are studied. The sensitivities of the threshold temperature for contrail formation with respect to aircraft propulsion efficiency, relative humidity, and ambient pressure are evaluated. The computed aerosol properties for different extent of fuel sulfur conversion to S(VI) (SO3 and H2SO4) in engine are examined and the results are found to be sensitive to this conversion fraction.

Menon, Suresh↗

Unsteady two- and three-dimensional Navier-Stokes simulations of multistage turbomachinery flows

The flow-field within an axial flow turbomachine, such as a turbine or compressor, is extremely complex because of three-dimensional features such as hub-corner stall, tip-leakage flows, and airfoil wakes. These flow features interact with each other and with rotor and stator airfoils inducing time-varying forces on the airfoils. These complicated rotor-stator interactions must be understood in order to design turbomachines that are light and compact as well as reliable and efficient. Two codes, STAGE-2 and STAGE-3, have been developed to compute these unsteady rotor-stator interaction flows in multistage turbomachines. An implicit, thin-layer Euler/Navier-Stokes zonal algorithm is used to compute the unsteady flow-field within both turbine and compressor configurations. Results include surface pressures and wake profiles for two-dimensional turbine and compressor configurations and surface pressures for a three-dimensional single-stage turbine configuration. The results compare well with experimental data and other unsteady computations.

Gundy-Burlet, K. L.↗

Performance of Virtual Current Meters in Hydroelectric Turbine Intakes

Standards provide recommendations for the best practices in the installation of current meters for measuring fluid flow in closed conduits. These include PTC-18 and IEC-41 . Both of these standards refer to the requirements of the ISO Standard 3354 for cases where the velocity distribution is assumed to be regular and the flow steady. Due to the nature of the short converging intakes of Kaplan hydroturbines, these assumptions may be invalid if current meters are intended to be used to characterize turbine flows. In this study, we examine a combination of measurement guidelines from both ISO standards by means of virtual current meters (VCM) set up over a simulated hydroturbine flow field. To this purpose, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to model the velocity field of a short converging intake of the Ice Harbor Dam on the Snake River, in the State of Washington. The detailed geometry and resulting wake of the submersible traveling screen (STS) at the first gate slot was of particular interest in the development of the CFD model using a detached eddy simulation (DES) turbulence solution. An array of virtual point velocity measurements were extracted from the resulting velocity field to simulate VCM at two virtual measurement (VM) locations at different distances downstream of the STS. The discharge through each bay was calculated from the VM using the graphical integration solution to the velocity-area method. This method of representing practical velocimetry techniques in a numerical flow field has been successfully used in a range of marine and conventional hydropower applications. A sensitivity analysis was performed to observe the effect of the VCM array resolution on the discharge error. The downstream VM section required 11–33% less VCM in the array than the upstream VM location to achieve a given discharge error. In general, more instruments were required to quantify the discharge at high levels of accuracy when the STS was introduced because of the increased spatial variability of the flow velocity.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

On the three-dimensional magnetic structure of the plasmoid created in the magnetotail at substorm onset

The magnetic field in the plasmoid which is created by the reconnection of magnetic field lines at a neutral line formed in the near-earth region of the plasma sheet at substorm onset, and which flows out of the magnetotail into the magnetosphere's wake, displays a strong positive or negative Y(SM) component that has been difficult to reconcile with the standard, two-dimensional reconnection geometry. It is shown that this deviation of the magnetic field is a manifestation of the newly-reconnected field line loop's draping toward the tail's central or midnight meridian, and that the draping is a consequence of the three-dimensional plasma flow associated with the reconnection process.

Hones, E. W., Jr.↗

Nonlinear plasma wave in magnetized plasmas

Nonlinear axisymmetric cylindrical plasma oscillations in magnetized collisionless plasmas are a model for the electron fluid collapse on the axis behind an ultrashort relativisically intense laser pulse exciting a plasma wake wave. We present an analytical description of the strongly nonlinear oscillations showing that the magnetic field prevents closing of the cavity formed behind the laser pulse. This effect is demonstrated with 3D PIC simulations of the laser-plasma interaction. An analysis of the betatron oscillations of fast electrons in the presence of the magnetic field reveals a characteristic “Four-Ray Star” pattern.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗