Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Skewness”

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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

Model-data comparisons of moments of nonbreaking shoaling surface gravity waves

The predictions of linear and nonlinear (Boussinesq) shoaling wave models for nonbreaking unidirectional surface gravity waves are compared to field observations, with particular emphasis on quantities that may be important for cross-shore sediment transport. The extensive data sets were obtained on two natural beaches, span water depths between 1 and 10 m, and include incident wave power spectra with narrow, broad, and bimodal shapes. Significant wave heights varied between approximately 30 and 100 cm, and peak periods between approximately 8 and 18 s. The evolution of total variances of sea surface elevation, cross-shore velocity, and horizontal acceleration is modeled at least qualitatively well by both linear and nonlinear theories. Only the nonlinear theory predicts the increasingly asymmetric sea surface elevations and horizontal velocities (pitched-forward wave shapes) and the weaker variation of skewness (difference between crest and trough profiles) which are observed to occur during shoaling. The nonlinear theory also models qualitatively well the large skewed accelerations which occur during the passage of asymmetric waves.

Elgar, Steve↗
NASA NTRS1991

The pulse-pair algorithm as a robust estimator of turbulent weather spectral parameters using airborne pulse Doppler radar

The pulse pair method for spectrum parameter estimation is commonly used in pulse Doppler weather radar signal processing since it is economical to implement and can be shown to be a maximum likelihood estimator. With the use of airborne weather radar for windshear detection, the turbulent weather and strong ground clutter return spectrum differs from that assumed in its derivation, so the performance robustness of the pulse pair technique must be understood. Here, the effect of radar system pulse to pulse phase jitter and signal spectrum skew on the pulse pair algorithm performance is discussed. Phase jitter effect may be significant when the weather return signal to clutter ratio is very low and clutter rejection filtering is attempted. The analysis can be used to develop design specifications for airborne radar system phase stability. It is also shown that the weather return spectrum skew can cause a significant bias in the pulse pair mean windspeed estimates, and that the poly pulse pair algorithm can reduce this bias. It is suggested that use of a spectrum mode estimator may be more appropriate in characterizing the windspeed within a radar range resolution cell for detection of hazardous windspeed gradients.

Baxa, Ernest G., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Steerable windowed enclosures

A gyro-stabilized mechanism that is to be carried on a vehicle, such as a helicopter, is provided with a protective enclosure consisting of a dome, usually of glass fibre reinforced plastic. The dome must be provided with a window transparent to the radiation involved, and this must be steered with the mechanism so that they remain in register with one another. Prior art structures employ elongated windows of sufficiently large size to accommodate the tilting and rolling of the mechanism, while pan movements are accommodated by rotating the entire dome. The invention provides a structure employing a small window that can be steered or slaved with the mechanism by rotation of the part of the dome including the window relative to the other part, which has the pan or yaw rotation motor connected to it. This rotation between the dome parts takes place in a skew plane disposed at as small a skew angle to the vertical as is possible, the compensation for the resulting transverse movement of the window being effected by a programmed rotation of the dome about the pan axis. Optically flat glass can then be used for the window, it can be coated to reduce reflections, etc, and it can also be wiped in operation to remove moisture. A broadcast antenna can be mounted on the part of the dome out of the line-of-sight of the apparatus.

John N Leavitt↗
NASA NTRS1991

Nozzle fabrication technique

A block of electrically conductive material which is to be formed into a body with internal and/or external surfaces that approximate hyperboloids of one sheet is placed so that its axis is set at a predetermined skew angle with relation to a traveling EDM electrode wire. The electrode wire is then moved into cutting proximity of the body wire. Thereafter, by revolving the body about its own axis, the external and/or internal surfaces of the body will be cut into an approximate hyperbolic surface of revolution depending upon whether the body is positioned with the cutting wire outside of the body or in a previously formed longitudinal passage in the body. As an alternative technique, elongated channels can also be cut into the wall of the body by successively orienting the body to a selected number of angular positions, with the electrode wire being either outside of the body or in a previously formed passage in the body. At each of these angular positions, the electrode wire is moved orthogonally with respect to the axis of the wire, while both the body axis skew angle and the rotational position about that axis is controlled by cutting a channel or groove in the body to relieve stresses in the body material or to convey a coolant fluid.

Wells, Dennis L.↗
NASA NTRS1989

The discrimination of sea ice types using SAR backscatter statistics

X-band (HH) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data of sea ice collected during the Marginal Ice Zone Experiment in March and April of 1987 was statistically analyzed with respect to discriminating open water, first-year ice, multiyear ice, and Odden. Odden are large expanses of nilas ice that rapidly form in the Greenland Sea and transform into pancake ice. A first-order statistical analysis indicated that mean versus variance can segment out open water and first-year ice, and skewness versus modified skewness can segment the Odden and multilayer categories. In additions to first-order statistics, a model has been generated for the distribution function of the SAR ice data. Segmentation of ice types was also attempted using textural measurements. In this case, the general co-occurency matrix was evaluated. The textural method did not generate better results than the first-order statistical approach.

Shuchman, Robert A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Boundary-layer moisture regimes

Boundary-layer moisture fluctuations are estimated by analyzing HAPEX and FIFE data collected on 52 aircraft flight legs. Moisture fluctuations were given considerable attention in the HAPEX flights, which were 120 km long, and flew 150 m over one area of homogeneous terrain. The repetitions permit statistical consideration of motion characteristics on horizontal scales. Two prototypical boundary layer regimes are discovered: the entrainment-drying boundary layer, and the moistening boundary layer. The latter demonstrates positive moisture skewness close to the surface related to high surface evaporation. The former is characterized by boundary-layer instability, weak surface evaporation, and drier air aloft, leading to unexpected negative moisture skewness. It is noted that 10 km moisture variations with horizontal gradients are often found in narrow zones of horizontal convergence, called mesoscale moisture fronts. A negative moisture to temperature correlation, due to surface energy budget inhomogeneity, is shown to incur large mesoscale variations of relative humidity.

Mahrt, L.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Static aeroelastic analysis of a three-dimensional oblique wing

A capability to perform static aeroelastic analyses of an oblique wing at arbitrary skew positions was developed based on the framework of the MSC/NASTRAN static aeroelastic analysis. By means of DMAP alterations, a portion of the subsonic static aeroelastic analysis scheme was modified to insert an aerodynamic influence coefficient matrix created externally by the NASA-Ames aerodynamic panel codes. The modified scheme can cover the subsonic as well as the supersonic range for both symmetric and asymmetric configurations. Static aeroelastic responses of the oblique wing are studied at two skew angles and, in particular, the capability to calculate 3D camber effects on the aerodynamic properties of the wing is investigated. Various aerodynamic coefficients of the rigid oblique wing are computed for two Mach numbers, 0.7 and 1.4, and the angle of attack is varied from -5 through 15 deg. Also, the wing flexibility effects on the aerodynamic coefficients and the displacement are examined at a Mach number of 0.7 for a 45-deg swept wing.

Lee, I.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Turbulence and deterministic chaos

Several turbulent and nonturbulent solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations are obtained. The unaveraged equations are used numerically in conjunction with tools and concepts from nonlinear dynamics, including time series, phase portraits, Poincare sections, largest Liapunov exponents, power spectra, and strange attractors. Initially neighboring solutions for a low Reynolds number fully developed turbulence are compared. Several flows are noted: fully chaotic, complex periodic, weakly chaotic, simple periodic, and fixed-point. Of these, only fully chaotic is classified as turbulent. Besides the sustained flows, a flow which decays as it becomes turbulent is examined. For the finest grid, 128(exp 3) points, the spatial resolution appears to be quite good. As a final note, the variation of the velocity derivatives skewness of a Navier-Stokes flow as the Reynolds number goes to zero is calculated numerically. The value of the skewness is shown to become small at low Reynolds numbers, in agreement with intuitive arguments that nonlinear terms should be negligible.

Deissler, Robert G.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Electromagnetic scattering by coated convex surfaces and wedges simulated by approximate boundary conditions

Asymptotic/high-frequency solutions are developed for analyzing the non-specular scattering mechanisms associated with coated convex surfaces and edges simulated by approximate boundary conditions. In particular, the standard impedance boundary conditions (SIBC's) and the second order generalized impedance boundary conditions (GIBC's) are employed for a characterization of the edge diffraction, creeping wave, and surface diffracted wave contributions. To study the creeping wave and surface diffracted wave mechanisms, rigorous UTD (uniform geometrical theory of diffraction) diffraction coefficients are developed for a convex coated cylinder simulated with SIBC's and GIBC's. The ray solutions obtained remain valid in the transition region and reduce uniformly to those in the deep lit and shadow regions. A uniform asymptotic solution is also presented for observations in the close vicinity of the cylinder. The diffraction coefficient for a convex cylinder are obtained via a generalization of the corresponding ones of the circular cylinder. To validate the asymptotic/high-frequency solution, integral equations are derived for both E and H-polarization and solved numerically using the method of moments. Results are presented for a single and three layered coated convex cylinder. Some insights are also provided on the accuracy of the employed GIBC's versus SIBC's for application to curved surfaces. To characterize the scattering by impedance wedges illuminated at skew incidence, diffraction coefficients are derived from an approximate solution of the governing functional difference equations. This solution exactly recovers the known ones for an impedance half plane or an arbitrary wedge at normal incidence, and to validate it for other wedge angles, a moment method code was used. Finally, to test the usefulness of the approximate skew incidence impedance wedge diffraction coefficient for three dimensional structures, equivalent currents are derived in the context of the physical theory of diffraction (PTD) for a finite length impedance wedge of arbitrary internal angles. These are incorporated in a standard general purpose PTD code and results are presented for a number of different impedance structures.

Syed, H. H.↗
NASA NTRS1991

A laboratory investigation of electromagnetic bias in sea level measurements by microwave altimeters

To contribute to a better understanding of the electromagnetic bias in radar altimetry, a series of experiments was conducted using a focused beam radar set at 13.5-GHz frequency. For pure wind wave fields, the authors found the bias to be a quadratic function of each of the commonly used parameters, namely, the significant wave height, the wind speed, the water elevation skewness, and significant slope. The bias divided by the significant wave height is a linear function of these parameters. The coefficients in bias representation as a function of either the significant wave height or the wind speed are significantly different from values obtained in field experiments. This led to the conclusion that none of the latter parameters can be taken solely to account for all observed bias variations. Instead, dimensionless parameters such as the wave skewness or a dimensionless wave height are shown to be more appropriate.

Branger, H.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Moment method analysis of linearly tapered slot antennas

A method of moments (MOM) model for the analysis of the Linearly Tapered Slot Antenna (LTSA) is developed and implemented. The model employs an unequal size rectangular sectioning for conducting parts of the antenna. Piecewise sinusoidal basis functions are used for the expansion of conductor current. The effect of the dielectric is incorporated in the model by using equivalent volume polarization current density and solving the equivalent problem in free-space. The feed section of the antenna including the microstripline is handled rigorously in the MOM model by including slotline short circuit and microstripline currents among the unknowns. Comparison with measurements is made to demonstrate the validity of the model for both the air case and the dielectric case. Validity of the model is also verified by extending the model to handle the analysis of the skew-plate antenna and comparing the results to those of a skew-segmentation modeling results of the same structure and to available data in the literature. Variation of the radiation pattern for the air LTSA with length, height, and taper angle is investigated, and the results are tabulated. Numerical results for the effect of the dielectric thickness and permittivity are presented.

Koeksal, Adnan↗
NASA NTRS1993

Prevalent properties of gamma-ray burst variability

With the aim of isolating universal characteristics of gamma-ray burst variability, we compare time histories for 20 bright bursts detected by the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (Fishman et al., 1992). Using an autocorrelation function method, we find that the durations of individual structures within a burst, as well as the burst as a whole, become shorter with increasing energy in most events. We introduce the skewness function, a measure of temporal asymmetry. We find that most bursts exhibit a net skewness, in the sense that the intensity rises more rapidly than it falls. Over short time scales, bursts exhibit no preferred asymmetry. Taken together, these properties suggest that the overall time structure of a burst is due to an explosive phenomenon in which the evolution is initially energetic and rapid and is later slower during a 'cooling' period. We cannot rule out the possibility that short time-scale variability is caused by radiation beams sweeping past the observer.

Link, Bennett↗
NASA NTRS1957

Experimental static aerodynamic forces and moments at high subsonic speeds on a missile model during simulated launching from the midsemispan location of a 45 degree sweptback wing-fuselage-pylon combination

An investigation was made at high subsonic speeds in the Langley high-speed 7- by 10-foot tunnel to determine the static aerodynamic forces and moments on a missile model during simulated launching from the midsemispan location of a 45 degree sweptback wing-fuselage-pylon combination. The results indicated significant variations in all the aerodynamic components with changes in chordwise location of the missile. Increasing the angle of attack caused increases in the induced effects on the missile model because of the wing-fuselage-pylon combination. Increasing the Mach number had little effect on the variations of the missile aerodynamic characteristics with angle of attack except that nonlinearities were incurred at smaller angles of attack for the higher Mach numbers. The effects of finite wing thickness on the missile characteristics, at zero angle of attack, increase with increasing Mach number. The effects of the pylon on the missile characteristics were to causeincreases in the rolling-moment variation with angle of attack and a negative displacement of the pitching-moment curves at zero angle of attack. The effects of skewing the missile in the lateral direction relative to and sideslipping the missile with the wing-fuselage-pylon combination were to cause additional increments in side force at zero angle of attack. For the missile yawing moments the effects of changes in skew or sideslip angles were qualitatively as would be expected from consideration of the isolated missile characteristics, although there existed differences in theyawing-moment magnitudes.

Alford, William J↗
NASA NTRS1995

Exploratory flow visualization investigation of mast-mounted sights in presence of a rotor

A flow visualization investigation with a laser light sheet system was conducted on a 27-percent-scale AH-64 attack helicopter model fitted with two mast-mounted sights in the langley 14- by 22-foot subsonic tunnel. The investigation was conducted to identify aerodynamic phenomena that may have contributed to adverse vibration encountered during full-scale flight of the AH-64D apache/longbow helicopter with an asymmetric mast-mounted sight. Symmetric and asymmetric mast-mounted sights oriented at several skew angles were tested at simulated forward and rearward flight speeds of 30 and 45 knots. A laser light sheet system was used to visualize the flow in planes parallel to and perpendicular to the free-stream flow. Analysis of these flow visualization data identified frequencies of flow patterns in the wake shed from the sight, the streamline angle at the sight, and the location where the shed wake crossed the rotor plane. Differences in wake structure were observed between the sight configurations and various skew angles. Analysis of lateral light sheet plane data implied significant vortex structure in the wake of the asymmetric mast-mounted sight in the configuration that produced maximum in-flight vibration. The data showed no significant vortex structure in the wake of the asymmetric and symmetric configurations that produced no increase in in-flight adverse vibration.

Ghee, Terence A.↗
NASA NTRS1995

A 3DGRAPE/AL: The Ames/Langley technology upgrade

This paper describes a new three-dimensional structured multiple-block volume grid generator called 3DGRAPE/AL. It is a significantly improved version of the previously-released and widely-distributed program 3DGRAPE, with many of the improvements taken from the grid-generator program 3DMAGGS. It generates volume grids by iteratively solving the Poisson Equations in three-dimensions. The right-hand-side terms are designed so that user-specified grid cell heights and user-specified grid cell skewness near boundary surfaces result automatically, with little user intervention. Versatility was a high priority in this code's development, and as a result it can generate grids in almost any three-dimensional physical domain. Improvements include added kinds of forcing functions, improved control of cell skewness, improved initial conditions, convergence acceleration, the ability to take as input the output from GRIDGEN, and a simple but powerful graphical user interface (GUI).

Sorenson, Reese L.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Higher order statistics of planetary gravities and topographies

The statistical properties of Earth, Venus, Mars, Moon, and a 3-D mantle convection model are compared. The higher order properties are expressed by third and fourth moments: i.e., as mean products over equilateral triangles (defined as coskewance) and equilateral quadrangles (defined as coexance). For point values, all the fields of real planets have positive skewness, ranging from slightly above zero for Lunar gravity to 2.6 sigma(exp 3) for Martian gravity (sigma is rms magnitude). Six of the eight excesses are greater than Gaussian (3 sigma(exp 4)), ranging from 2.0 sigma(exp 4) for Earth topography to 18.6 sigma(exp 4), for Martian topography. The coskewances and coexances drop off to zero within 20 deg arc in most cases. The mantle convective model has zero skewness and excess slightly less than Gaussian, probably arising from viscosity variations being only radial.

Kaula, William M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Distributions of the interplanetary magnetic field revisited

The adequacy of the power spectrum to characterize the variations of a parameter depends on whether or not the parameter has a Gaussian distribution. We here perform very simple tests of Gaussianity on the distribution. We here perform very simple tests of Gaussianity on the distributions of the magnitudes of the interplanetary magnetic field, and on the distributions of the components; that is, we find the first four cumulants of the distributions (mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis) and their solar cycle variations. We find, consistent with other recent analyses, that the traditional distributions of the 1-hour averaged magnitude are not distributed normally or lognomally as has often been assumed and the 1-hour averaged z component is found to have a nonzero kurtosis. Thus the power spectrum is insufficient to completely characterize these variations and polyspectra are needed. We have isolated variations in the 1/f frequency region of the spectrum and show that the distributions of the magnitudes have nonzero skewness and kurtosis, the magnitudes are not distributed lognormally, and the distributions of the components have nonzero kurtosis. Thus higher-order spectra are again needed for a full characterization.

Feynman, Joan↗
NASA NTRS1995

Dependence of velocity fluctuations on solar wind speeds: A simple analysis with IPS method

A number of theoretical works have suggested that MHD plasma fluctuations in solar winds should play an important role particularly in the acceleration of high speed winds inside or near 0.1 AU from the sun. Since velocity fluctuations in solar winds are expected to be caused by the MHD plasma fluctuations, measurements of the velocity fluctuations give clues to reveal the acceleration process of solar winds. We made interplanetary scintillation (IPS) observations at the region out of 0.1 AU to investigate dependence of velocity fluctuations on flow speeds. For evaluating the velocity fluctuation of a flow, we selected the IPS data-set acquired at 2 separate antennas which located in the projected flow direction onto the baseline plane, and tried to compare skewness of the observed cross correlation function(CCF) with skewness of modeled CCFs in which velocity fluctuations were parametrized. The integration effect of IPS along a ray path was also taken into account in the estimation of modeled CCFs. Although this analysis method is significant to derive only parallel fluctuation components to the flow directions, preliminary analyses show following results: (1) High speed winds (Vsw greater than or equal to 500 km/s out of 0.3 AU) indicate enhancement of velocity fluctuations near 0.1 AU; and (2) Low speed winds (Vsw less than or equal to 400 Km/s out of 0.3 AU) indicate small velocity fluctuations at any distances.

Misawa, H.↗