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At least 1,387 records · Page 77

Theoretical evaluation of a V/STOL fighter model utilizing the PAN AIR code

The PAN AIR computer code was investigated as a tool for predicting closely coupled aerodynamic and propulsive flowfields of arbitrary configurations. The NASA/Ames V/STOL fighter model, a configuration of complex geometry, was analyzed with the PAN AIR code. A successful solution for this configuration was obtained when the nozzle exit was treated as an impermeable surface and no wakes were included around the nozzle exit. When separated flow was simulated from the end of the nacelle, requiring the use of wake networks emanating from the nozzle exit, a number of problems were encountered. A circular body nacelle model was used to investigate various techniques for simulating the exhaust plume in PAN AIR. Several approaches were tested and eliminated because they could not correctly simulate the interference effects. Only one plume modeling technique gave good results. A PAN AIR computation that used a plume shape and inflow velocities obtained from the Navier-Stokes solution for the plume produced results for the effects of power that compared well with experimental data.

Howell, G. A.↗

Use of Generalized Fluid System Simulation Program (GFSSP) for Teaching and Performing Senior Design Projects at the Educational Institutions

This paper describes the experience of the authors in using the Generalized Fluid System Simulation Program (GFSSP) in teaching Design of Thermal Systems class at University of Alabama in Huntsville. GFSSP is a finite volume based thermo-fluid system network analysis code, developed at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, and is extensively used in NASA, Department of Defense, and aerospace industries for propulsion system design, analysis, and performance evaluation. The educational version of GFSSP is freely available to all US higher education institutions. The main purpose of the paper is to illustrate the utilization of this user-friendly code for the thermal systems design and fluid engineering courses and to encourage the instructors to utilize the code for the class assignments as well as senior design projects. The need for a generalized computer program for thermofluid analysis in a flow network has been felt for a long time in aerospace industries. Designers of thermofluid systems often need to know pressures, temperatures, flow rates, concentrations, and heat transfer rates at different parts of a flow circuit for steady state or transient conditions. Such applications occur in propulsion systems for tank pressurization, internal flow analysis of rocket engine turbopumps, chilldown of cryogenic tanks and transfer lines, and many other applications of gas-liquid systems involving fluid transients and conjugate heat and mass transfer. Computer resource requirements to perform time-dependent, three-dimensional Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis of such systems are prohibitive and therefore are not practical. Available commercial codes are generally suitable for steady state, single-phase incompressible flow. Because of the proprietary nature of such codes, it is not possible to extend their capability to satisfy the above-mentioned needs. Therefore, the Generalized Fluid System Simulation Program (GFSSP1) has been developed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) as a general fluid flow system solver capable of handling phase changes, compressibility, mixture thermodynamics and transient operations. It also includes the capability to model external body forces such as gravity and centrifugal effects in a complex flow network. The objectives of GFSSP development are: a) to develop a robust and efficient numerical algorithm to solve a system of equations describing a flow network containing phase changes, mixing, and rotation; and b) to implement the algorithm in a structured, easy-to-use computer program. The analysis of thermofluid dynamics in a complex network requires resolution of the system into fluid nodes and branches, and solid nodes and conductors as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 shows a schematic and GFSSP flow circuit of a counter-flow heat exchanger. Hot nitrogen gas is flowing through a pipe, colder nitrogen is flowing counter to the hot stream in the annulus pipe and heat transfer occurs through metal tubes. The problem considered is to calculate flowrates and temperature distributions in both streams. GFSSP has a unique data structure, as shown in Figure 2, that allows constructing all possible arrangements of a flow network with no limit on the number of elements. The elements of a flow network are boundary nodes where pressure and temperature are specified, internal nodes where pressure and temperature are calculated, and branches where flowrates are calculated. For conjugate heat transfer problems, there are three additional elements: solid node, ambient node, and conductor. The solid and fluid nodes are connected with solid-fluid conductors. GFSSP solves the conservation equations of mass and energy, and equation of state in internal nodes to calculate pressure, temperature and resident mass. The momentum conservation equation is solved in branches to calculate flowrate. It also solves for energy conservation equations to calculate temperatures of solid nodes. The equations are coupled and nonlinear; therefore, they are solved by an iterative numerical scheme. GFSSP employs a unique numerical scheme known as simultaneous adjustment with successive substitution (SASS), which is a combination of Newton-Raphson and successive substitution methods. The mass and momentum conservation equations and the equation of state are solved by the Newton-Raphson method while the conservation of energy and species are solved by the successive substitution method. GFSSP is linked with two thermodynamic property programs, GASP2 and WASP3 and GASPAK4, that provide thermodynamic and thermophysical properties of selected fluids. Both programs cover a range of pressure and temperature that allows fluid properties to be evaluated for liquid, liquid-vapor (saturation), and vapor region. GASP and WASP provide properties of 12 fluids. GASPAK includes a library of 36 fluids. GFSSP has three major parts. The first part is the graphical user interface (GUI), visual thermofluid analyzer of systems and components (VTASC). VTASC allows users to create a flow circuit by a 'point and click' paradigm. It creates the GFSSP input file after the completion of the model building process. GFSSP's GUI provides the users a platform to build and run their models. It also allows post-processing of results. The network flow circuit is first built using three basic elements: boundary node, internal node, and branch.

Majumdar, A. K.↗

Identification of the molecular-weight growth reaction network in counterflow flames of the C 3 H 4 isomers allene and propyne

The reaction networks responsible for aromatics formation in counterflow flames of the C 3 H 4 isomers allene and propyne are identified through a combined experimental and modeling study. Mole fraction profiles of near-atmospheric pressure (933 mbar) diffusion flames fueled by the C 3 H 4 isomers are analyzed by means of a newly assembled, chemically detailed kinetic mechanism. The experiment consists of a counterflow burner system that is coupled to a high-resolution time-of-flight molecular-beam mass spectrometer with single-photon ionization via synchrotron-generated vacuum-ultraviolet photons. Flame-sampled, mass-specific photoionization efficiency curves are used to identify the presence of aliphatically substituted aromatic species in addition to the commonly considered pericondensed ring structures. The new mechanism describes the formation and growth of aromatics through repetitive sequences of radical–radical and radical–molecule reactions that include C 1 6 intermediates. Higher concentrations of aromatic species are observed in the allene flame and the new mechanism captures the observed experimental trends very accurately. The results indicate the importance of the aliphatically substituted aromatics and of ring-enlargement reactions for the growth reactions. According to the model simulations, radical+radical recombination and PAH-radical+molecule reactions play an important role in PAH growth.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

A Noncanonical Metal Center Drives the Activity of the Sediminispirochaeta smaragdinae Metallo-β-lactamase SPS-1

In an effort to evaluate whether a recently reported putative metallo-β-lactamase (MβL) contains a novel MβL active site, SPS-1 from Sediminispirochaeta smaragdinae was overexpressed, purified, and characterized using spectroscopic and crystallographic studies. Metal analyses demonstrate that recombinant SPS-1 binds nearly 2 equiv of Zn(II), and steady-state kinetic studies show that the enzyme hydrolyzes carbapenems and certain cephalosporins but not β-lactam substrates with bulky substituents at the 6/7 position. Spectroscopic studies of Co(II)-substituted SPS-1 suggest a novel metal center in SPS-1, with a reduced level of spin coupling between the metal ions and a novel Zn 1 metal binding site. This site was confirmed with a crystal structure of the enzyme. The structure shows a Zn 2 site that is similar to that in NDM-1 and other subclass B1 MβLs; however, the Zn 1 metal ion is coordinated by two histidine residues and a water molecule, which is held in position by a hydrogen bond network. The Zn 1 metal is displaced nearly 1 Å from the position reported in other MβLs. The structure also shows extended helices above the active site, which create a binding pocket that precludes the binding of substrates with large, bulky substituents at the 6/7 position of β-lactam antibiotics. Here, this study reveals a novel metal binding site in MβLs and suggests that the targeting of metal binding sites in MβLs with inhibitors is now more challenging with the identification of this new MβL.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Molecular Mechanisms of Sorbed Ion Effects during Boehmite Particle Aggregation

Classical theories of particle aggregation, such as Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO), do not explain recent observations of ion-specific effects or the complex concentration dependence for aggregation. Thus, here, we probe the molecular mechanisms by which selected alkali nitrate ions (Na + , K + , and NO 3 –) influence aggregation of the mineral boehmite (γ-AlOOH) nanoparticles. Nanoparticle aggregation was analyzed using classical molecular dynamics (CMD) simulations coupled with the metadynamics rare event approach for stoichiometric surface terminations of two boehmite crystal faces. Calculated free energy landscapes reveal how electrolyte ions alter aggregation on different crystal faces relative to pure water. Consistent with experimental observations, we find that adding an electrolyte significantly reduces the energy barrier for particle aggregation (~3–4×). However, in this work, we show this is due to the ions disrupting interstitial water networks, and that aggregation between stoichiometric (010) basal–basal surfaces is more favorable than between (001) edge–edge surfaces (~5–6×) due to the higher interfacial water densities on edge surfaces. The interfacial distances in the interlayer between aggregated particles with electrolytes (~5–10 Å) are larger than those in pure water (a few Ångströms). Together, aggregation/disaggregation in salt solutions is predicted to be more reversible due to these lower energy barriers, but there is uncertainty on the magnitudes of the energies that lead to aggregation at the molecular scale. By analyzing the peak water densities of the first monolayer of interstitial water as a proxy for solvent ordering, we find that the extent of solvent ordering likely determines the structures of aggregated states as well as the energy barriers to move between them. Further, the results suggest a path for developing a molecular-level basis to predict the synergies between ions and crystal faces that facilitate aggregation under given solution conditions. Such fundamental understanding could be applied extensively to the aggregation and precipitation utilization in the biological, pharmaceutical, materials design, environmental remediation, and geological regimes.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

N -way parametric frequency beamsplitter for quantum photonics

Optical networks are the leading platform for the transfer of information due to their low loss and ability to scale to many information channels using optical frequency modes. To fully leverage the quantum properties of light in this platform, it is desired to manipulate higher-dimensional superpositions by orchestrating linear, beamsplitter-type interactions between several channels simultaneously. We propose a method of achieving simultaneous, all-to-all coupling between N optical frequency modes via N -way Bragg-scattering four-wave mixing. By exploiting the frequency degree of freedom, additional modes can be multiplexed in an interaction medium of fixed volume and loss while avoiding the introduction of excess noise. We generalize the theory of the frequency-encoded two-mode interaction to N modes under this four-wave-mixing approach, finding that arbitrary unitary transformations are possible through successive four-wave-mixing pump configurations. We experimentally verify the quantum nature of this scheme by demonstrating three-way multiphoton interference. Two input photons are shared among three frequency modes and display interference differing from that of two classical (coherent-state) inputs. These results show the potential of our approach for the scalability of photonic quantum information processing to general N -mode systems in the frequency domain. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

Oliver, Richard (ORCID:0000000207760657)↗

How eddy covariance flux measurements have contributed to our understanding of Global Change Biology

Abstract A global network of long‐term carbon and water flux measurements has existed since the late 1990s. With its representative sampling of the terrestrial biosphere's climate and ecological spaces, this network is providing background information and direct measurements on how ecosystem metabolism responds to environmental and biological forcings and how they may be changing in a warmer world with more carbon dioxide. In this review, I explore how carbon and water fluxes of the world's ecosystem are responding to a suite of covarying environmental factors, like sunlight, temperature, soil moisture, and carbon dioxide. I also report on how coupled carbon and water fluxes are modulated by biological and ecological factors such as phenology and a suite of structural and functional properties. And, I investigate whether long‐term trends in carbon and water fluxes are emerging in various ecological and climate spaces and the degree to which they may be driven by physical and biological forcings. As a growing number of time series extend up to 20 years in duration, we are at the verge of capturing ecosystem scale trends in the breathing of a changing biosphere. Consequently, flux measurements need to continue to report on future conditions and responses and assess the efficacy of natural climate solutions.

Baldocchi, Dennis D.↗

Structure of a ribonucleotide reductase R2 protein radical

Aerobic ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) initiate synthesis of DNA building blocks by generating a free radical within the R2 subunit; the radical is subsequently shuttled to the catalytic R1 subunit through proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET). Here we present a high-resolution room temperature structure of the class Ie R2 protein radical captured by x-ray free electron laser serial femtosecond crystallography. The structure reveals conformational reorganization to shield the radical and connect it to the translocation path, with structural changes propagating to the surface where the protein interacts with the catalytic R1 subunit. Restructuring of the hydrogen bond network, including a notably short O–O interaction of 2.41 angstroms, likely tunes and gates the radical during PCET. These structural results help explain radical handling and mobilization in RNR and have general implications for radical transfer in proteins.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Influence of Lake Ice Biases in Reanalysis Data on Downscaled Climate Simulations over the Great Lakes Region

This data package contains observation-based and model-simulated datasets (all provided in NetCDF format) for evaluating how wintertime lake-ice representation affects regional weather and climate over the Laurentian Great Lakes (freshwater lake ecosystem) during the high–ice-cover winter of 2009. The observational component includes: (1) Stage IV gridded precipitation at 4 km, hourly resolution for January–February 2009 over the Great Lakes region (radar–gauge multisensor precipitation analyses); (2) Great Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis (GLSEA) satellite-derived lake-ice coverage at 1.3 km, daily resolution for the 2009 winter months, providing ice coverage over Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario; and (3) in situ measurements at the Standard Rock site on Lake Superior from the Great Lakes Evaporation Network (GLEN) at hourly resolution, including near-surface atmospheric variables and sensible and latent heat fluxes (air–lake exchange) at a fixed point location. The modeling component provides corresponding fields from two simulations, both archived at 4 km, hourly resolution: a standalone Weather Research Forecasting model (WRF) run driven by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Reanalysis 5 (ERA5), and a two-way coupled model using WRF and the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (WRF-FVCOM, a 3-D hydrodynamic lake model). These outputs include variables relevant to air–lake interaction and lake-effect processes (e.g., near-surface temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, and surface turbulent fluxes), enabling direct comparison with the observational datasets. Users can analyze and visualize these NetCDF files with common tools such as Python (e.g., xarray, netCDF4, numpy, pandas), NCO/CDO, Panoply, or ncview; NetCDF variables can also be converted to other formats (e.g., CSV, GeoTIFF) using these utilities.

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATU↗

Thunderstorm Hypothesis Reasoner

THOR is a knowledge-based system which incorporates techniques from signal processing, pattern recognition, and artificial intelligence (AI) in order to determine the boundary of small thunderstorms which develop and dissipate over the area encompassed by KSC and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. THOR interprets electric field mill data (derived from a network of electric field mills) by using heuristics and algorithms about thunderstorms that have been obtained from several domain specialists. THOR generates two forms of output: contour plots which visually describe the electric field activity over the network and a verbal interpretation of the activity. THOR uses signal processing and pattern recognition to detect signatures associated with noise or thunderstorm behavior in a near real time fashion from over 31 electrical field mills. THOR's AI component generates hypotheses identifying areas which are under a threat from storm activity, such as lightning. THOR runs on a VAX/VMS at the Kennedy Space Center. Its software is a coupling of C and FORTRAN programs, several signal processing packages, and an expert system development shell.

Mulvehill, Alice M.↗

Exploring Aerosols Near Clouds With High‐Spatial‐Resolution Aircraft Remote Sensing During SEAC(4)RS

Since aerosols are important to our climate system, we seek to observe the variability of aerosol properties within cloud systems. When applied to the satellite‐borne Moderate‐resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the Dark Target retrieval algorithm provides global aerosol optical depth (AOD; at 0.55 μm) in cloud‐free scenes. Since MODIS' resolution (500‐m pixels, 3‐ or 10‐km product) is too coarse for studying near‐cloud aerosol, we ported the Dark Target algorithm to the high‐resolution (~50‐m pixels) enhanced‐MODIS Airborne Simulator (eMAS), which flew on the high‐altitude ER‐2 during the Studies of Emissions, Atmospheric Composition, Clouds, and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys Airborne Science Campaign over the United States in 2013. We find that even with aggressive cloud screening, the ~0.5‐km eMAS retrievals show enhanced AOD, especially within 6 km of a detected cloud. To determine the cause of the enhanced AOD, we analyze additional eMAS products (cloud retrievals and degraded‐resolution AOD), coregistered Cloud Physics Lidar profiles, MODIS aerosol retrievals, and ground‐based Aerosol Robotic Network observations. We also define spatial metrics to indicate local cloud distributions near each retrieval and then separate into near‐cloud and far‐from‐cloud environments. The comparisons show that low cloud masking is robust, and unscreened thin cirrus would have only a small impact on retrieved AOD. Some of the enhancement is consistent with clear‐cloud transition zone microphysics such as aerosol swelling. However, 3‐D radiation interaction between clouds and the surrounding clear air appears to be the primary cause of the high AOD near clouds.

aerosol retrieval algorithm↗

An Integrated Multiscale Experimental-Numerical Analysis on Reconsolidation of Salt-Clay Mixture for Disposal of Heat-Generating Waste (Final NEUP Technical Report)

The overall purpose of this research is to improve understanding of THMC coupling effect on the reconsolidation of granular (or crushed) salt-clay mixture used for seal systems of shafts and drifts in salt repositories. This proposed work is partially motivated by the recent work on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) that shows the promising sealing capability of clay-salt mixture compared to crushed salt. In particular, primary emphasis is to develop a fully integrated multiscale experiment-numerical study to determine and explain what leads to the superior sealing ability of the clay-salt mixture. These research activities are designed to seek further understanding of (1) why clay additives may enhance the fluid trapping and (2) whether this flow barrier effect may prevail under different combinations of temperature, confining pressure, deviatoric stress and other foreseeable environmental factors. If successful, this enhanced flow trapping ability of the seal provides significant improvement to the seal and repository performance and therefore make the repository safer in the long-term. The experiment component includes microstructural investigation and macroscopic tests on a reconsolidated salt-clay mixture. In the microstructural study, the goal is to (1) characterize microscopic distributions of distinct phases (e.g., clay, salt crystal boundaries, trapped brine, and pore) to examine the connectivity of the pore network inside the salt-clay mixture with different amounts of clay additive and moisture content and (2) analyze multiscale imaging data to reconstruct the polycrystalline microstructures for numerical simulations. Meanwhile, macroscopic tests are performed to analyze how clay alters the failure/creep mechanisms in the salt-clay mixture. Microscopic and macroscopic experimental observations will both be used to calibrate and validate a multiscale model that explicitly simulates the capillary and multiphase flow in the connected pores and the deformation due to the presence of intra-crystalline brine at the pore scale via a new polyhedral discrete element–lattice Boltzmann method (DEM-LBM) coupling model. The pore-scale simulations are homogenized via an upscaling procedure that converts pore-scale information (e.g. force exerted on grain boundary, sliding, pressure-solution) to continuum measures (e.g. Cauchy stress, Darcy’s flow) at each integration point in the macroscopic multiphase TMHC model. This multiscale scheme will allow coupling be- tween high-fidelity simulations of brine-salt-clay interaction and the macroscopic TMHC model. The multiscale model helps the understanding of how the trapped brine inclusion affects the pressure-solution mechanism with the presence of clay and moisture. This work brings new insight into the sealing capacity of salt-clay mixture under elevated temperature over a long period of time - a key to evaluating the potential of salt-clay mixture usage for salt repositories.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Echo state network for coarsening dynamics of charge density waves

An echo state network (ESN) is a type of reservoir computer that uses a recurrent neural network with a sparsely connected hidden layer. Compared with other recurrent neural networks, one great advantage of ESN is the simplicity of its training process. Yet, despite the seemingly restricted learnable parameters, ESN has been shown to successfully capture the spatial-temporal dynamics of complex patterns. Here we build an ESN to model the coarsening dynamics of charge-density waves (CDWs) in a semiclassical Holstein model, which exhibits a checkerboard electron density modulation at half-filling stabilized by a commensurate lattice distortion. The inputs to the ESN are local CDW order parameters in a finite neighborhood centered around a given site, while the output is the predicted CDW order of the center site at the next time step. Special care is taken in the design of couplings between hidden layer and input nodes to ensure lattice symmetries are properly incorporated into the ESN model. Since the model predictions depend only on CDW configurations of a finite domain, the ESN is scalable and transferrable in the sense that a model trained on dataset from a small system can be directly applied to dynamical simulations on larger lattices. Furthermore, our work opens avenues for efficient dynamical modeling of pattern formations in functional electron materials.

2-dimensional systems↗

Uncertainty quantification and propagation in lithium-ion battery electrodes using bayesian convolutional neural networks

The complex nature of manufacturing processes stipulates electrodes to possess high variability with increased heterogeneity during production. X-ray computed tomography imaging has proved to be critical in visualizing the complicated stochastic particle distribution of as-manufactured electrodes in lithium-ion batteries. However, accurate prediction of their electrochemical performance necessitates precise evaluation of kinetic and transport properties from real electrodes. Image segmentation that characterizes voxels to particle/pore phase is often meticulous and fraught with subjectivity owing to a myriad of unconstrained choices and filter algorithms. Here we utilize a Bayesian convolutional neural network to tackle segmentation subjectivity and quantify its pertinent uncertainties. Otsu inter-variance and Blind/Referenceless Imaging Spatial Quality Evaluator are used to assess the relative image quality of grayscale tomograms, thus evaluating the uncertainty in the derived microstructural attributes. We analyze how image uncertainty is correlated with the uncertainties and magnitude of kinetic and transport properties of an electrode, further identifying pathways of uncertainty propagation within microstructural attributes. The coupled effect of spatial heterogeneity and microstructural anisotropy on the uncertainty quantification of transport parameters is also understood. This work demonstrates a novel methodology to extract microstructural descriptors from real electrode images through quantification of associated uncertainties and discerning the relative strength of their propagation, thus facilitating feedback to manufacturing processes from accurate image based electrochemical simulations.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Aftershocks of a Chemical Explosion in Granite from the Source Physics Experiment Phase I

The Source Physics Experiment (SPE) is a multiphase experiment to better understand explosion source physics and thereby improve explosion monitoring. The rst phase (Phase I) examined the explosion source in a hard-rock medium and took place in a granite outcrop called the Climax Stock section of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). This series of chemical explosions are called the Wet Granite Geology (WGG) events, but are usually referred to simply as the SPE events (i.e., SPE-1, SPE-2, etc.). Event information for the chemical explosions is given in Table 1. The study of explosion aftershocks can aid in understanding of in-situ stresses and be used as a discriminant for earthquakes [Ford and Walter, 2010]. Sweeney and Harben reported no observed aftershocks for SPE-1 and -2, respectively. They calculated a minimum magnitude of observation based on the noise oor of the seismic array and predicted at least one or two events in the week after the events using the hard-rock aftershock model from Ford and Labak. Possible explanations for the null observation ranged from instrumental - poor seismometer coupling, to physical - the shallow depth of burial was unable to access the deep tectonic stress that causes some explosion aftershocks. We extend the analysis of Sweeney and Harben to the largest of the SPE Phase I chemical explosions, SPE-5, which was approximately a 5 tonne TNT-equivalent shot at 76.5 m depth. This event registered as an M L 2 on the University of Nevada, Reno seismic network and should produce a measurable aftershock sequence.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Erratum to: Data Fusion to Support Integrated Nuclear Detonation Detection [Slides]

The original document (LA-UR-22-29547) contained minor equation errors that approximate correct equations that couple the multi-sensor, serial system detector thresholds for a seismic Rayleigh wave detector and an acoustic energy detector. Those errors appeared on slides 62-67. This erratum associates the following slides with the erroneous slides. The numbers of the erroneous slides are marked at the upper right in small text in orange. A result of those errors over-predict the performance of the two-sensor serial network, that is, the former document provides an optimistic estimate of system performance.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

The Tropical Atlantic Observing System

The tropical Atlantic is home to multiple coupled climate variations covering a wide range of timescales and impacting societally relevant phenomena such as continental rainfall, Atlantic hurricane activity, oceanic biological productivity, and atmospheric circulation in the equatorial Pacific. The tropical Atlantic also connects the southern and northern branches of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and receives freshwater input from some of the world's largest rivers. To address these diverse, unique, and interconnected research challenges, a rich network of ocean observations has developed, building on the backbone of the Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA). This network has evolved naturally over time and out of necessity in order to address the most important outstanding scientific questions and to improve predictions of tropical Atlantic severe weather and global climate variability and change. The tropical Atlantic observing system is motivated by goals to understand and better predict phenomena such as tropical Atlantic interannual to decadal variability and climate change; multidecadal variability and its links to the meridional overturning circulation; air-sea fluxes of CO 2 and their implications for the fate of anthropogenic CO 2 ; the Amazon River plume and its interactions with biogeochemistry, vertical mixing, and hurricanes; the highly productive eastern boundary and equatorial upwelling systems; and oceanic oxygen minimum zones, their impacts on biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems, and their feedbacks to climate. Past success of the tropical Atlantic observing system is the result of an international commitment to sustained observations and scientific cooperation, a willingness to evolve with changing research and monitoring needs, and a desire to share data openly with the scientific community and operational centers. The observing system must continue to evolve in order to meet an expanding set of research priorities and operational challenges. This paper discusses the tropical Atlantic observing system, including emerging scientific questions that demand sustained ocean observations, the potential for further integration of the observing system, and the requirements for sustaining and enhancing the tropical Atlantic observing system.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Semi-coupled flow and thermal analysis of the field joint during rapid pressurization of the redesigned solid rocket motor

A transient, semi-coupled, multi-dimensional thermal and flow analysis methodology was developed to predict the thermal/gas dynamic conditions in the field joint region of the Redesigned Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM). Transient temperature response, pressure history, and combustion gas flow rate (within the field joint region), were of principle interest, in the course of this study. The thermal environment in the field joint was modeled using SINDA, a finite difference based thermal network analyzer. The combustion gas flow boundary condition was generated using the FLAP code; this code performs a transient, lumped-parameter, control volume analysis to solve the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations. The FLAP computer code was modified to account for erosion of the NBR insulation material, following ignition. An independent grid sensitivity study was conducted to determine an appropriate grid distribution near the wall. The predicted results, obtained using an optimum grid distribution and computer generated flow boundary condition, were compared with subscale test data.

Ghaffarian, Benny↗