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At least 1,675 records · Page 93

Numerical study of supersonic combustors by multi-block grids with mismatched interfaces

A three dimensional, finite rate chemistry, Navier-Stokes code was extended to a multi-block code with mismatched interface for practical calculations of supersonic combustors. To ensure global conservation, a conservative algorithm was used for the treatment of mismatched interfaces. The extended code was checked against one test case, i.e., a generic supersonic combustor with transverse fuel injection, examining solution accuracy, convergence, and local mass flux error. After testing, the code was used to simulate the chemically reacting flow fields in a scramjet combustor with parallel fuel injectors (unswept and swept ramps). Computational results were compared with experimental shadowgraph and pressure measurements. Fuel-air mixing characteristics of the unswept and swept ramps were compared and investigated.

Moon, Young J.↗

Operator strategies under varying conditions of workload

An attempt was made to operationally define and measure strategic behavior in a complex multiple task environment. The Multi-Attribute Task battery was developed to simulate various aspects of flight and consisted of an auditory communication task, monitoring tasks, a tracking tasks, a resource management task which allowed a wide range of responding patterns, and a scheduling window which allowed operators to predict changes in workload. This battery was validated for its sensitivity to strategic behavior, and baseline measures for each individual task were collected. Twenty-four undergraduate and graduate students then performed the battery for four 64 minute sessions which took place over a period of 2 days. Each subject performed the task battery under four levels of workload, which were presented for equal lengths of time during all four sessions. Results indicated that in general, performance improves as a function of experience with the battery, but that performance decreased as workload level increased. The data also showed that subjects developed strategies for responding to the resource management task which allowed them to manage the high workload levels more efficiently. This particular strategy developed over time but was also associated with errors of complacency. These results are presented along with implications for the aviation field and areas of future research.

Arnegard, Ruth J.↗

Numerical study of supersonic combustors by multi-block grids with mismatched interfaces

A three-dimensional, finite-rate chemistry, Navier-Stokes code has been extended to a multi-block with mismatched interface code for practical calculations of supersonic combustors. To ensure global conservation, a conservative algorithm was used for the treatment of mismatched interfaces. The extended code was checked against one test case, i.e., a generic supersonic combustor with transverse fuel injection, examining solution accuracy, convergence, and local mass flux error. After testing, the code was used to simulate the chemically reacting flow fields in a scramjet combustor with parallel fuel injectors (unswept and swept ramps). Computational results were compared with experimental shadowgraph and pressure measurements. Fuel-air mixing characteristics of the unswept and swept ramps were compared and investigated.

Moon, Young J.↗

Statistical evaluation of thermal advection and stratification effects in scatterometer observations

The effects of thermal advection and atmospheric stratification are statistically evaluated using Seasat scatterometer observations as a data base. The results indicate that, whenever the surface winds or wind stress are related to the atmospheric pressure field, the appropriate stratification and baroclinic corrections should be applied. Without such corrections, errors of 15-25 percent are likely to arise in the surface fluxes computed from model low-level winds or pressure measurements.

Levy, Gad↗

Development of an unstructured solution adaptive method for the quasi-three-dimensional Euler and Navier-Stokes equations

A general solution adaptive scheme based on a remeshing technique is developed for solving the two-dimensional and quasi-three-dimensional Euler and Favre-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The numerical scheme is formulated on an unstructured triangular mesh utilizing an edge-based pointer system which defines the edge connectivity of the mesh structure. Jameson's four-stage hybrid Runge-Kutta scheme is used to march the solution in time. The convergence rate is enhanced through the use of local time stepping and implicit residual averaging. As the solution evolves, the mesh is regenerated adaptively using flow field information. Mesh adaptation parameters are evaluated such that an estimated local numerical error is equally distributed over the whole domain. For inviscid flows, the present approach generates a complete unstructured triangular mesh using the advancing front method. For turbulent flows, the approach combines a local highly stretched structured triangular mesh in the boundary layer region with an unstructured mesh in the remaining regions to efficiently resolve the important flow features. One-equation and two-equation turbulence models are incorporated into the present unstructured approach. Results are presented for a wide range of flow problems including two-dimensional multi-element airfoils, two-dimensional cascades, and quasi-three-dimensional cascades. This approach is shown to gain flow resolution in the refined regions while achieving a great reduction in the computational effort and storage requirements since solution points are not wasted in regions where they are not required.

Jiang, Yi-Tsann↗

Development of an unstructured solution adaptive method for the quasi-three-dimensional Euler and Navier-Stokes equations

A general solution adaptive scheme-based on a remeshing technique is developed for solving the two-dimensional and quasi-three-dimensional Euler and Favre-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The numerical scheme is formulated on an unstructured triangular mesh utilizing an edge-based pointer system which defines the edge connectivity of the mesh structure. Jameson's four-stage hybrid Runge-Kutta scheme is used to march the solution in time. The convergence rate is enhanced through the use of local time stepping and implicit residual averaging. As the solution evolves, the mesh is regenerated adaptively using flow field information. Mesh adaptation parameters are evaluated such that an estimated local numerical error is equally distributed over the whole domain. For inviscid flows, the present approach generates a complete unstructured triangular mesh using the advancing front method. For turbulent flows, the approach combines a local highly stretched structured triangular mesh in the boundary layer region with an unstructured mesh in the remaining regions to efficiently resolve the important flow features. One-equation and two-equation turbulence models are incorporated into the present unstructured approach. Results are presented for a wide range of flow problems including two-dimensional multi-element airfoils, two-dimensional cascades, and quasi-three-dimensional cascades. This approach is shown to gain flow resolution in the refined regions while achieving a great reduction in the computational effort and storage requirements since solution points are not wasted in regions where they are not required.

Jiang, Yi-Tsann↗

Prediction of Undsteady Flows in Turbomachinery Using the Linearized Euler Equations on Deforming Grids

A linearized Euler solver for calculating unsteady flows in turbomachinery blade rows due to both incident gusts and blade motion is presented. The model accounts for blade loading, blade geometry, shock motion, and wake motion. Assuming that the unsteadiness in the flow is small relative to the nonlinear mean solution, the unsteady Euler equations can be linearized about the mean flow. This yields a set of linear variable coefficient equations that describe the small amplitude harmonic motion of the fluid. These linear equations are then discretized on a computational grid and solved using standard numerical techniques. For transonic flows, however, one must use a linear discretization which is a conservative linearization of the non-linear discretized Euler equations to ensure that shock impulse loads are accurately captured. Other important features of this analysis include a continuously deforming grid which eliminates extrapolation errors and hence, increases accuracy, and a new numerically exact, nonreflecting far-field boundary condition treatment based on an eigenanalysis of the discretized equations. Computational results are presented which demonstrate the computational accuracy and efficiency of the method and demonstrate the effectiveness of the deforming grid, far-field nonreflecting boundary conditions, and shock capturing techniques. A comparison of the present unsteady flow predictions to other numerical, semi-analytical, and experimental methods shows excellent agreement. In addition, the linearized Euler method presented requires one or two orders-of-magnitude less computational time than traditional time marching techniques making the present method a viable design tool for aeroelastic analyses.

Clark, William S.↗

Using Pipelined XNOR Logic to Reduce SEU Risks in State Machines

Single-event upsets (SEUs) pose great threats to avionic systems state machine control logic, which are frequently used to control sequence of events and to qualify protocols. The risks of SEUs manifest in two ways: (a) the state machine s state information is changed, causing the state machine to unexpectedly transition to another state; (b) due to the asynchronous nature of SEU, the state machine's state registers become metastable, consequently causing any combinational logic associated with the metastable registers to malfunction temporarily. Effect (a) can be mitigated with methods such as triplemodular redundancy (TMR). However, effect (b) cannot be eliminated and can degrade the effectiveness of any mitigation method of effect (a). Although there is no way to completely eliminate the risk of SEU-induced errors, the risk can be made very small by use of a combination of very fast state-machine logic and error-detection logic. Therefore, one goal of two main elements of the present method is to design the fastest state-machine logic circuitry by basing it on the fastest generic state-machine design, which is that of a one-hot state machine. The other of the two main design elements is to design fast error-detection logic circuitry and to optimize it for implementation in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) architecture: In the resulting design, the one-hot state machine is fitted with a multiple-input XNOR gate for detection of illegal states. The XNOR gate is implemented with lookup tables and with pipelines for high speed. In this method, the task of designing all the logic must be performed manually because no currently available logic synthesis software tool can produce optimal solutions of design problems of this type. However, some assistance is provided by a script, written for this purpose in the Python language (an object-oriented interpretive computer language) to automatically generate hardware description language (HDL) code from state-transition rules.

Le, Martin↗

An Overview of Atmospheric Composition OSSE Activities at NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office

A model-based Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) is a framework for numerical experimentation in which observables are simulated from fields generated by an earth system model, including a parameterized description of observational error characteristics. Simulated observations can be used for sampling studies, quantifying errors in analysis or retrieval algorithms, and ultimately being a planning tool for designing new observing missions. While this framework has traditionally been used to assess the impact of observations on numerical weather prediction, it has a much broader applicability, in particular to aerosols and chemical constituents. In this talk we will give a general overview of Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSE) activities at NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, with focus on its emerging atmospheric composition component.

daSilva, Arlinda↗

(abstract) Overview of NASA's Adaptive Structures Program

NASA's research program in Adaptive Structures was initiated seven years ago to provide the technology required for large (20-50 meters in dimension) precision (submicron) structures for observations from space. The current approach of designing thermally stable passive structures cannot meet the requirements and moreover the systems cannot be validated by ground tests. Adaptive Structures provides the capability to adjust the quasistatic dimensions of the structures, preload joints, add active damping, and provide the actuation forces necessary to attenuate the undesired dynamic motions. The technology is applicable to space platforms with various pointing instruments as well as for microspacecraft. This technology has been incorporated as part of a small Active Fold Mirror on the Wide Field Planetary Camera to be flown within the year to correct the optical errors in the Hubble Telescope. Highlights of NASA's Adaptive Structures research and applications will be presented along with future technology and research requirements for both small inexpensive spacecraft and large precision systems.

adaptive↗

Model-based verification of I and C specifications - 184

In the field of nuclear I and C (Instrumentation and Control), the late detection of errors in the specifications and the design of I and C has a strong impact in terms of time and money. The early verification in the V cycle of I and C functions is a key issue to capture inconsistencies and errors before the implementation and on-site tests. EDF, in the framework of the collaborative project CONNEXION, has investigated methods based on simulation to formalize I and C requirements and to evaluate them at the conceptual and basic design phases. Behavioral models of the physic parts of the system and I and C functions, described as functional diagrams, are co-simulated in an integration environment based on the FMI (Functional Mockup Interface) standard. In this specific environment, test scenarios are performed on these models. These scenarios are defined on the basis of a high level model of the studied system that takes into account the states to cover (in normal and degraded situations). Requirements, once formalized, are translated into observers that evaluate their fulfillment during the simulations. Simulation logs are then a tool for the designer to analyze the causes of the possible non-fulfillment of requirements and to fix the corresponding errors in the specifications. The proposed methodology enables to detect errors in the specifications of I and C functions, to generate automatically functional test scenarios taking into account the coverage of the requirements and all the different operational modes of the system. (authors)

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

The NIRCam Optical Telescope Simulator (NOTES)

The Near Infra-Red Camera (NIRCam), the 0.6-5.0 micron imager and wavefront sensing instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will be used on orbit both as a science instrument, and to tune the alignment of the telescope. The NIRCam Optical Telescope Element Simulator (NOTES) will be used during ground testing to provide an external stimulus to verify wavefront error, imaging characteristics, and wavefront sensing performance of this crucial instrument. NOTES is being designed and built by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center with the help of Swales Aerospace and Orbital Sciences Corporation. It is a single-point imaging system that uses an elliptical mirror to form an U20 image of a point source. The point source will be fed via optical fibers from outside the vacuum chamber. A tip/tilt mirror is used to change the chief ray angle of the beam as it passes through the aperture stop and thus steer the image over NIRCam's field of view without moving the pupil or introducing field aberrations. Interchangeable aperture stop elements allow us to simulate perfect JWST wavefronts for wavefront error testing, or introduce transmissive phase plates to simulate a misaligned JWST segmented mirror for wavefront sensing verification. NOTES will be maintained at an operating temperature of 80K during testing using thermal switches, allowing it to operate within the same test chamber as the NIRCam instrument. We discuss NOTES' current design status and on-going development activities.

Kubalak, David↗

Electric field dependence of the Curie temperature of ferroelectric poly(vinylidenefluoride-trifluoroethylene) co-polymers for pyroelectric energy harvesting

We experimentally study pyroelectric energy harvesting in a ferroelectric co-polymer thin film, with a particular focus on the electric field dependence of its Curie temperature. Liquid-based switchable thermal interfaces are employed to achieve fast thermal cycling and reduce potential measurement errors resulting from leakage currents. Our work confirms that pyroelectric energy harvesting is most effective around the Curie temperature and that the Curie temperature does not depend strongly on electric fields, at least up to 500 kV cm(-1). These results are consistent with a recent study of the electrocaloric effect in co-polymer films of a similar composition.

Cha, G↗

Evaluation of the Relative Contribution of Observing Systems in Reanalyses: Aircraft Temperature Bias and Analysis Innovations

Reanalyses have become important sources of data in weather and climate research. While observations are the most crucial component of the systems, few research projects consider carefully the multitudes of assimilated observations and their impact on the results. This is partly due to the diversity of observations and their individual complexity, but also due to the unfriendly nature of the data formats. Here, we discuss the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) and a companion dataset, the Gridded Innovations and Observations (GIO). GIO is simply a post-processing of the assimilated observations and their innovations (forecast error and analysis error) to a common spatio-temporal grid, following that of the MERRA analysis fields. This data includes in situ, retrieved and radiance observations that are assimilated and used in the reanalysis. While all these disparate observations and statistics are in a uniform easily accessible format, there are some limitations. Similar observations are binned to the grid, so that multiple observations are combined in the gridding process. The data is then implicitly thinned. Some details in the meta data may also be lost (e.g. aircraft or station ID). Nonetheless, the gridded observations should provide easy access to all the observations input to the reanalysis. To provide an example of the GIO data, a case study evaluating observing systems over the United States and statistics is presented, and demonstrates the evaluation of the observations and the data assimilation. The GIO data is used to collocate 200mb Radiosonde and Aircraft temperature measurements from 1979-2009. A known warm bias of the aircraft measurements is apparent compared to the radiosonde data. However, when larger quantities of aircraft data are available, they dominate the analysis and the radiosonde data become biased against the forecast. When AMSU radiances become available the radiosonde and aircraft analysis and forecast error take on an annual cycle. While this supports results of previous work that recommend bias corrections for the aircraft measurements, the interactions with AMSU radiances will also require further investigation. This also provides an example for reanalysis users in examining the available observations and their impact on the analysis. GIO data is presently available alongside the MERRA reanalysis.

Bosilovich, Michael G.↗

Error and Correction Analysis for the FFA@CEBAF Energy Upgrade

An energy upgrade design for the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) is under development, using fixed field alternating gradient (FFA) return arcs to recirculate electron beam up to an additional five times through the accelerating structures at CEBAF. A necessary component of any large accelerator is a beam steering and optical correction system. Small environmental changes and system errors can lower beam quality or even shut down the machine; and in pursuit of the scientific mission of JLab, high quality electron beams must be delivered to the experimental halls on a predictable schedule. Correction in the novel FFA arcs of the current upgrade design is complicated by several factors. These complexities inform the choice of correction algorithm structure and parameter values. A baseline algorithm in addition to diagnostic and correction hardware configuration is presented. The effect of this correction protocol is shown with respect to estimated errors, and several possible extensions of the algorithm are discussed. This work presents an important proof of concept for the FFA@CEBAF design effort, and provides a functional correction strategy which may be simply adjusted and optimized for future design changes.

Coxe, Alex [Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA (Unite↗

Evaluation of pressure reconstruction techniques for Model Order Reduction in incompressible convective heat transfer

This paper compares pressure reconstruction strategies in Model Order Reduction for incompressible flows with convective heat transfer. The Navier-Stokes equation are reduced along with the passive scalar transport equation for the temperature using the POD-Galerkin technique. Six different pressure reconstruction methods are evaluated, two of which are novel to the best of the authors’ knowledge. Accurate pressure reconstruction is key to avoid error buildup in when solving for the conservation of linear momentum at the reduced level. The six approaches are compared using Direct Numerical Simulations of convective heat exchange processes in a 3D Backward Facing Step with a heated cylinder. Additionally, when comparing time-averaged metrics, we observe that the reconstruction methods that approximate the reduced pressure field using techniques borrowed from full order models (mechanical analogy, pressure Poisson, and velocity supremizers) yield higher errors than the methods that seek to stabilize the reduced systems (reduced residual stabilization, artificial divergence, and Uzawa operator).

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

SU-F-T-158: Experimental Characterization of Field Size Dependence of Dose and Lateral Beam Profiles of Scanning Proton and Carbon Ion Beams for Empirical Model in Air

Purpose: The Gaussian model for the lateral profiles in air is crucial for an accurate treatment planning system. The field size dependence of dose and the lateral beam profiles of scanning proton and carbon ion beams are due mainly to particles undergoing multiple Coulomb scattering in the beam line components and secondary particles produced by nuclear interactions in the target, both of which depend upon the energy and species of the beam. In this work, lateral profile shape parameters were fitted to measurements of field size dependence dose at the center of field size in air. Methods: Previous studies have employed empirical fits to measured profile data to significantly reduce the QA time required for measurements. From this approach to derive the weight and sigma of lateral profiles in air, empirical model formulations were simulated for three selected energies for both proton and carbon beams. Results: The 20%–80% lateral penumbras predicted by the double model for proton and single model for carbon with the error functions agreed with the measurements within 1 mm. The standard deviation between measured and fitted field size dependence of dose for empirical model in air has a maximum accuracy of 0.74% for proton with double Gaussian, and of 0.57% for carbon with single Gaussian. Conclusion: We have demonstrated that the double Gaussian model of lateral beam profiles is significantly better than the single Gaussian model for proton while a single Gaussian model is sufficient for carbon. The empirical equation may be used to double check the separately obtained model that is currently used by the planning system. The empirical model in air for dose of spot scanning proton and carbon ion beams cannot be directly used for irregular shaped patient fields, but can be to provide reference values for clinical use and quality assurance.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗