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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

Transition correlation in subsonic flow over a flat plate

A 2D subsonic flow over a flat plate with a freestream Mach number M(infinity) up to 0.8 is considered. The flow can experience continuous uniform suction through the wall and the wall can be heated or cooled continuously with a fixed wall temperature. For a specific combination of M(infinity), suction velocity, and level of heat transfer, the mean flow problem is solved and linear stability calculations are performed to compute the location on the flat plate where the factor representing the integration of growth rates reaches nine. These calculations are repeated for several combinations of flow parameters and the theoretically predicted transition location is presented in the form of a correlation that can account for the effect of wall suction, heat transfer, and Mach number.

Masad, J. A.↗
NASA NTRS1939

Wind-tunnel Investigation of Effect of Yaw on Lateral-stability Characteristics I : Four N.A.C.A. 23012 Wings of Various Plan Forms with and Without Dihedral

Four N.A.C.A. 23012 wings were tested at several angles of yaw in the N.A.C.A. 7- by 10-foot wind tunnel. All the wings have rounded tips and, in plan form, one is rectangular and the others are tapered 3:1 with various amounts of sweep. Each wing was tested with two amounts of dihedral and with partial-span split flaps. The coefficients of lift, drag, and pitching moment are given for all the models at zero yaw. The coefficients of rolling moment, yawing moment, and side force are given for the rectangular wing at all values of yaw tested. The rate of change in the coefficients with angle of yaw is given in convenient form for stability calculations.

Bamber, M J↗
NASA NTRS1954

Matrix methods for determining the longitudinal-stability derivatives of an airplane from transient flight data

Three matrice methods are developed and presented for determining the longitudinal-stability derivatives from transient flight data. In these methods the expressions for some of the stability derivatives are in the form generally used in stability calculations. The first method requires the combination of four measurements in time-history form, two of which must be incremental elevator deflection and incremental tail load and the other two measurements can be chosen from a possible three, namely incremental load factor, pitching velocity, and angle of attack. The method demonstrates the use of the tail load to separate the pitching-moment derivatives and to determine the downwash derivative. (author)

Donegan, James J↗
NASA NTRS1944

Some Notes on the Determination of the Stick-Free Neutral Point from Wind-Tunnel Data

Two graphical methods are presented for determining the stick-free neutral point, and they are extensions of the methods commonly used to determine the stick-free neutral point. A mathematical formula for computing the stick-free neutral point is also given. These methods may be applied to determine approximately the increase in tail size necessary to shift the neutral point (stick fixed or free) to any desired location on an airplane having inadequate longitudinal stability.

STABILITY CALCULATIONS↗
NASA NTRS1993

Multigrid time-accurate integration of Navier-Stokes equations

Efficient acceleration techniques typical of explicit steady-state solvers are extended to time-accurate calculations. Stability restrictions are greatly reduced by means of a fully implicit time discretization. A four-stage Runge-Kutta scheme with local time stepping, residual smoothing, and multigridding is used instead of traditional time-expensive factorizations. Some applications to natural and forced unsteady viscous flows show the capability of the procedure.

Arnone, Andrea↗
NASA NTRS1993

Atmospheric moisture fields derived by satellite observations over the tropical Pacific Ocean

Values of precipitable water are retrieved over the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean from TOVS infrared and microwave channel brightness temperature and OLR observations by means of stepwise linear regression. The most useful temperature and moisture sensing channels are pre-selected from sensitivity tests of a radiative transfer model. Numerous models are developed and tested against collocated radiosonde observations and Nimbus-7 SMMR precipitable water estimates. For RAOB comparisons, the best estimator used 15 TOVS predictors and captured 71.1 deg percent of the variance (+0.62 g/sq cm standard error) for column precipitable water; for precipitable water of 700-500 mb bulk layer, these values were 71.7 percent and +/- 0.17 g/sq cm. Little skill of estimated precipitable water was obtained for moisture above 500 mb. Regressions were less skillful against SMMR, unless collocation parameters were tightly controlled; SMMR was less acceptable than RAOB's because of observational drift and errors. Generally, the most skillful predictors were boundary layer brightness temperatures of TOVS channels and satellite estimated stability indices. 'Moisture channels' were hardly useful except for estimating middle and upper tropospheric moisture. Additional regression models were constructed testing the sensitivity to different observational and meteorological characteristics. Models which used some in situ observations surface observations or stabilities calculated from RAOB, were the most successful. The best of these explained 87.5 percent of the variance but the regression selected almost no TOVS channels, relying instead on conventional RAOB and surface observations. A set of four regression models were developed, stratifying atmospheric characteristics on the basis of collocated OLR values. These models improved the variance explained by 5.0 percent; the model associated with the highest OLR values (275 W/sq m less than or equal to OLR; that is, no cloud) showed only marginal skill. Precipitable water fields were generated from the best TOVS-only model for seven days in January 1983 and compared with SMMR-estimated fields. OLR fields and ECMWF precipitable water analysis. The TOVS regression model compared favorably to the SMMR analysis in amplitudes and features. It revealed more evolving synoptic signal than the ECMWF analysis. In synoptically active regions, it differed with respect to the OLR analysis, primarily because of actual differences in the vertical distribution of water vapor.

Chung, Hyosang↗
NASA NTRS1994

The Aeroacoustics of Supersonic Coaxial Jets

Instability waves have been established as the dominant source of mixing noise radiating into the downstream arc of a supersonic jet when the waves have phase velocities that are supersonic relative to ambient conditions. Recent theories for supersonic jet noise have used the concepts of growing and decaying linear instability waves for predicting radiated noise. This analysis is extended to the prediction of noise radiation from supersonic coaxial jets. Since the analysis requires a known mean flow and the coaxial jet mean flow is not described easily in terms of analytic functions, a numerical prediction is made for its development. The Reynolds averaged, compressible, boundary layer equations are solved using a mixing length turbulence model. Empirical correlations are developed for the effects of velocity and temperature ratios and Mach number. Both normal and inverted velocity profile coaxial jets are considered. Comparisons with measurements for both single and coaxial jets show good agreement. The results from mean flow and stability calculations are used to predict the noise radiation from coaxial jets with different operating conditions. Comparisons are made between different coaxial jets and a single equivalent jet with the same total thrust, mass flow, and exit area. Results indicate that normal velocity profile jets can have noise reductions compared to the single equivalent jet. No noise reductions are found for inverted velocity profile jets operated at the minimum noise condition compared to the single equivalent jet. However, it is inferred that changes in area ratio may provide noise reduction benefits for inverted velocity profile jets.

Dahl, Milo D.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Linear Stability Regime Analysis of the Compressible Reacting Mixing Layer

Previous investigations have shown that a compressible reacting mixing layer can develop two peaks in the mean density weighted vorticity profile. Linear stability analyses show that at these peaks two distinct 'outer' instability modes appear in addition to the more common central mode, which exists unaccompanied in incompressible nonreacting flows. The present study parametrically analyzes the effects of compressibility, heat release, stoichiometry, and density ratio on the amplification rate and obliquity of each stability mode. The mean profiles used in the spatial stability calculation are generated by self-similar solutions of the compressible boundary layer equations combined with the assumption of infinitely fast chemistry. It is shown that the influence of stoichiometry and density ratio on the peaks of the density weighted vorticity profile determines which modes will dominate. Of particular interest are the conditions where two modes are equally amplified, causing the mixing layer to develop into a 'colayer' structure.

Day, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS2003

The Langley Stability and Transition Analysis Code (LASTRAC) : LST, Linear and Nonlinear PSE for 2-D, Axisymmetric, and Infinite Swept Wing Boundary Layers

During the past two decades, our understanding of laminar-turbulent transition flow physics has advanced significantly owing to, in a large part, the NASA program support such as the National Aerospace Plane (NASP), High-speed Civil Transport (HSCT), and Advanced Subsonic Technology (AST). Experimental, theoretical, as well as computational efforts on various issues such as receptivity and linear and nonlinear evolution of instability waves take part in broadening our knowledge base for this intricate flow phenomenon. Despite all these advances, transition prediction remains a nontrivial task for engineers due to the lack of a widely available, robust, and efficient prediction tool. The design and development of the LASTRAC code is aimed at providing one such engineering tool that is easy to use and yet capable of dealing with a broad range of transition related issues. LASTRAC was written from scratch based on the state-of-the-art numerical methods for stability analysis and modem software technologies. At low fidelity, it allows users to perform linear stability analysis and N-factor transition correlation for a broad range of flow regimes and configurations by using either the linear stability theory (LST) or linear parabolized stability equations (LPSE) method. At high fidelity, users may use nonlinear PSE to track finite-amplitude disturbances until the skin friction rise. Coupled with the built-in receptivity model that is currently under development, the nonlinear PSE method offers a synergistic approach to predict transition onset for a given disturbance environment based on first principles. This paper describes the governing equations, numerical methods, code development, and case studies for the current release of LASTRAC. Practical applications of LASTRAC are demonstrated for linear stability calculations, N-factor transition correlation, non-linear breakdown simulations, and controls of stationary crossflow instability in supersonic swept wing boundary layers.

Chang, Chau-Lyan↗
NASA NTRS2004

Objective Lightning Forecasting at Kennedy Space Center/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station using Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Surveillance System Data

The 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) forecasters at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida include a probability of thunderstorm occurrence in their daily morning briefings. This information is used by personnel involved in determining the possibility of violating Launch Commit Criteria, evaluating Flight Rules for the Space Shuttle, and daily planning for ground operation activities on Kennedy Space Center (KSC)/CCAFS. Much of the current lightning probability forecast is based on a subjective analysis of model and observational data. The forecasters requested that a lightning probability forecast tool based on statistical analysis of historical warm-season (May - September) data be developed in order to increase the objectivity of the daily thunderstorm probability forecast. The tool is a set of statistical lightning forecast equations that provide a lightning occurrence probability for the day by 1100 UTC (0700 EDT) during the warm season. This study used 15 years (1989-2003) of warm season data to develop the objective forecast equations. The local CCAFS 1000 UTC sounding was used to calculate stability parameters for equation predictors. The Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Surveillance System (CGLSS) data were used to determine lightning occurrence for each day. The CGLSS data have been found to be more reliable indicators of lightning in the area than surface observations through local informal analyses. This work was based on the results from two earlier research projects. Everitt (1999) used surface observations and rawinsonde data to develop logistic regression equations that forecast the daily thunderstorm probability at CCAFS. The Everitt (1999) equations showed an improvement in skill over the Neumann-Pfeffer thunderstorm index (Neumann 1971), which uses multiple linear regression, and also persistence and climatology forecasts. Lericos et al. (2002) developed lightning distributions over the Florida peninsula based on specific flow regimes. The flow regimes were inferred from the average wind direction in the 1000-700 mb layer at Miami (MIA), Tampa (TBW), and Jacksonville (JAX), Florida, and the lightning data were from the National Lightning Detection Network. The results suggested that the daily flow regime may be an important predictor of lightning occurrence on KSC/CCAFS.

Lambert, Winifred↗
NASA NTRS2020

Toward Transition Modeling in a Hypersonic Boundary Layer at Flight Conditions

An accurate physics-based transition prediction method integrated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers is pursued for hypersonic boundary layer flows over slender hypersonic vehicles at flight conditions. The geometry and flow conditions are selected to match relevant trajectory locations from the ascent phase of the HIFiRE-1 flight experiment, namely, a 7-degree half-angle cone with 2.5 mm nose radius, freestream Mach numbers in the range of 3.8 – 5.5 and freestream unit Reynolds numbers in the range of 3.3 × 10(exp 6) – 21.4 × 10(exp 6) m(exp -1). Earlier research had shown that the onset of transition during the HIFiRE-1 flight experiment correlated with an amplification factor of N ≈ 13.5 for the planar Mack modes. However, to incorporate the N-factor correlations into a CFD code, we investigate surrogate models for disturbance amplification that avoid the direct computation of stability characteristics. A commonly used approach for low-speed flows is based on an a priori database of stability characteristics for locally similar profiles. However, the results presented in this paper demonstrate that the application of this approach to hypersonic boundary layers over blunt spherical nose-tip cones leads to large, unacceptable errors in the predictions of amplification factors, mainly due to its failure in accounting for the effects of the entropy layer on the boundary-layer profiles along the length of the model. We propose and demonstrate an alternate approach that employs the stability computations for a canonical set of blunt cone configurations to train a physics-informed convolutional neural network model that is shown to provide substantially improved transition predictions for hypersonic flow configurations with entropy-layer effects. Furthermore, the excellent performance of the neural network model is also confirmed for cone configurations with nose radius and half-angle values that do not correspond to those used to build the database. Finally, the convolutional neural network model is shown to outperform the linear stability calculations for underresolved basic states.

Pedro Paredes↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Thermochemistry of Aerospace Materials

The reliability and development of aerospace materials in extreme environments relies on a comprehensive understanding of their thermochemical properties. Such properties are commonly used for equilibrium phase stability calculations of interactions with corrosive environments at very high temperatures. These calculations can lead to in-depth understanding of degradation mechanisms in both coatings and components for applications such as nuclear thermal propulsion and gas turbine engines, both of which are part of NASA’s current R&D focus for improving propulsion systems for aerospace missions. The first part of this talk summarizes and discuss our current thermochemical calculations of the behavior of ceramic-ceramic (cercer) UN-based fuels and their coating systems during nuclear thermal rocket operation. The second part of the talk summarizes and discuss the energetics of reactions of ceramic coating materials and their binary oxide components with silicate melts measured by high temperature reaction calorimetry.

Nuclear Thermal propulsion↗
NASA NTRS1973

Computer Programs for Calculating and Plotting the Stability Characteristics of a Balloon Tethered in a Wind

Computer programs for calculating the stability characteristics of a balloon tethered in a steady wind are presented. Equilibrium conditions, characteristic roots, and modal ratios are calculated for a range of discrete values of velocity for a fixed tether-line length. Separate programs are used: (1) to calculate longitudinal stability characteristics, (2) to calculate lateral stability characteristics, (3) to plot the characteristic roots versus velocity, (4) to plot the characteristic roots in root-locus form, (5) to plot the longitudinal modes of motion, and (6) to plot the lateral modes for motion. The basic equations, program listings, and the input and output data for sample cases are presented, with a brief discussion of the overall operation and limitations. The programs are based on a linearized, stability-derivative type of analysis, including balloon aerodynamics, apparent mass, buoyancy effects, and static forces which result from the tether line.

Bennett, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS1972

A parametric study of planform and aeroelastic effects on aerodynamic center, alpha- and q- stability derivatives. Appendix A: A computer program for calculating alpha- and q- stability derivatives and induced drag for thin elastic aeroplanes at subsonic and supersonic speeds

The computer program used to determine the rigid and elastic stability derivatives presented in the summary report is listed in this appendix along with instructions for its use, sample input data and answers. This program represents the airplane at subsonic and supersonic speeds as (a) thin surface(s) (without dihedral) composed of discrete panels of constant pressure according to the method of Woodward for the aerodynamic effects and slender beam(s) for the structural effects. Given a set of input data, the computer program calculates an aerodynamic influence coefficient matrix and a structural influence coefficient matrix.

Roskam, J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Models of resistive wall tearing mode disruptions

Disruptions are a serious issue in tokamaks. In a disruption, the thermal energy is lost by means of an instability which could be a resistive wall tearing mode (RWTM). During precursors to a disruption, the plasma edge region cools, causing the current to contract. Model sequences of contracted current equilibria are given, and their stability is calculated. A linear stability study shows that there is a maximum value of edge q a ≈ 3 for RWTMs to occur. Further, this also implies a minimum rational surface radius normalized to plasma radius from RWTMs to be unstable. Nonlinear simulations are performed using a similar model sequence derived from an equilibrium reconstruction. There is a striking difference in the results, depending on whether the wall is ideal or resistive. With an ideal wall, the perturbations saturate at moderate amplitude, causing a minor disruption without a thermal quench. With a resistive wall, there is a major disruption with a thermal quench, if the edge q a ≤ 3. There is a sharp transition in nonlinear behavior at q a = 3. This is consistent with the linear model and with experiments. If disruptions are caused by RWTMs, then devices with highly conducting walls, such as the International Tokamak Experimental Reactor will experience much milder, tolerable, disruptions than presently predicted.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗