SEARCH · Search NASA
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.
Thermal accommodation of rare gases on clean metal surfaces, computing energy interaction with linear nearest-neighbor lattice
The OGO 4 and 6 (POGO) magnetic field results for the equatorial electrojet indicate that while the present models are approximately correct, the possibility of a westward component must be incorporated. The scatter diagrams of POGO amplitudes and surface data show a correlation. The ratios between the amplitudes estimated from surface data and those at 400 km altitude are as follows: India 5 to 8, East Africa (Addis Ababa) 4, Central Africa 3, West Africa (Nigeria) 3, South America (Huancayo) 5, and Philippines 5. The variation in the ratio is due to the conductivity structure of the earth in various zones.
Descriptions are given of the experimental methods used in determining Al-26 and Mn-53 activities and of the possible improvements that can be expected in the near future. The results obtained for the seven lunar core sections where both Al-26 and Mn-53 are measured with good depth definition are discussed. It is then shown how meteoritic impacts and the secondary effects they induce modify the Al-26 and Mn-53 activities in a core. Using a Monte Carlo method, 150 possible depositional histories for a core are generated; from these the resulting activity profiles for both Al-26 and Mn-53 are computed, using several possible SCR energy spectra. These model-generated profiles are then compared with the experimental profiles in the seven cores, and plausible scenarios for the depositional history of each of the cores are tentatively inferred.
Enlargements of Lunar-Orbiter photography were used in conjunction with a digitizing tablet to collect the locations and dimensions of blocks surrounding the Surveyor 1, 3, 6, and 7 landing sites. Data were reduced to the location and the major axis of the visible portion of each block. Shadows sometimes made it difficult to assess whether the visible major axis corresponded with the actual principal dimension. These data were then correlated with the locations of major craters in the study areas, thus subdividing the data set into blocks obviously associated with craters and those in intercrater areas. A block was arbitrarily defined to be associated with a crater when its location was within 1.1 crater radii of the crater's center. Since this study was commissioned for the ultimate purpose of determining hazards to landing spacecraft, such a definition was deemed appropriate in defining block-related hazards associated with craters. Size distributions of smaller fragments as determined from Surveyor photography were obtained as measurements from graphical data. Basic comparisons were performed through use of cumulative frequency distributions identical to those applied to studies of crater-count data.
Among the hazards that must be negotiated by lunar-landing spacecraft are blocks on the surface of the Moon. Unfortunately, few data exist that can be used to evaluate the threat posed by such blocks to landing spacecraft. Perhaps the best information is that obtained from Surveyor photographs, but those data do not extend to the dimensions of the large blocks that would pose the greatest hazards. Block distributions in the vicinities of the Surveyor 1, 3, 6, and 7 sites have been determined from Lunar Orbiter photography and are presented here. Only large (i.e., greater than or equal to 2.5 m) blocks are measurable in these pictures, resulting in a size gap between the Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter distributions. Nevertheless, the orbital data are self-consistent, a claim supported by the similarity in behavior between the subsets of data from the Surveyor 1, 3, and 6 sites and by the good agreement in position (if not slopes) between the data obtained from the Surveyor 3 photography and those derived from the Lunar Orbiter photographs. Confidence in the results is also justified by the well-behaved distribution of large blocks at the surveyor site. Comparisons between the Surveyor distributions and those derived from the orbital photography permit these observations: (1) in all cases but that for Surveyor 3, the density of large blocks is overestimated by extrapolation of the Surveyor-derived trends; (2) the slopes of the Surveyor-derived distributions are consistently lower than those determined for the large blocks; and (3) these apparent disagreements could be mitigated if the overall shapes of the cumulative lunar block populations were nonlinear, allowing for different slopes over different size intervals. The relatively large gaps between the Surveyor-derived and Orbiter-derived data sets, however, do not permit a determination of those shapes.
Comparison of cord loads with aircraft tire on grooved and smooth runway surfaces
A comparison of surface brightness measurements of the night sky from the OAO-2 and OSO-6 satellites with ground observations shows good agreement between the space experiments but a systematic error in the zero point of the ground observations, indicating an additional atmospheric source of radiation.
Using data from collocated satellite pixel measurements obtained during the Earth Radiation Budget Experiement and near-surface measurements carried out at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory Tower, the shortwave (SW) surface radiation from broadband satellite measurements for clear-sky conditions was compared with surface measurements. Results demonstrate that the surface-SW absorption is a more meaningful quantity for climate studies than is surface insolation. It is also shown that a direct evaluation of the surface-SW absorption can be more accurately obtained from satellite measurements than can be surface insolation. An algorithm is presented for transferring satellite SW measurements to surface-SW absorption.
Analysis and Comparison of Surface Roughness Effects on Pressure Data from SLS Wind Tunnel Test was conducted during Summer 2019 internship at Fluid Mechanics Lab. Student has been requested by academic adviser to present final presentation to aerospace department at university.
Comparison of thermionic tungsten /110/ converter performances with niobium collectors and nickel collectors at various emitter, collector and cesium reservoir temperatures
Surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat over a tall-grass prairie in central Kansas, as measured by 22 surface stations during FIFE 1987, are compared with values gained indirectly by linear extrapolation of aircraft-measured flux profiles to the surface. The results of 33 such comparisons covering the period 26 June to 13 October 1987 indicate that the sensible heat flux profiles were generally more linear with less scatter in the measurements at each level than were the latent heat flux profiles, the profile extrapolations of sensible heat flux in general underestimate the surface averages by about 30 percent, with slightly better agreement during periods of small flux, and the profile extrapolations of latent heat flux in general underestimate the surface averages by about 15 percent, with overestimates during periods of small fluxes (dry conditions) and overestimates during periods of large fluxes (moist conditions). Possible origins of the differences between the two sets of measurements are discussed, as directions for further research.
Surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat over a tall-grass prairie in central Kansas, as measured by 22 surface stations during FIFE 1987, are compared with values gained indirectly by linear extrapolation of aircraft-measured flux profiles to the surface. The results of 33 such comparisons covering the period 26 June to 13 October 1987 indicate that the sensible heat flux profiles were generally more linear with less scatter in the measurements at each level than were the latent heat flux profiles, the profile extrapolations of sensible heat flux in general underestimate the surface averages by about 30 percent, with slightly better agreement during periods of small flux, and the profile extrapolations of latent heat flux in general underestimate the surface averages by about 15 percent, with overestimates during periods of small fluxes (dry conditions) and overestimates during periods of large fluxes (moist conditions). Possible origins of the differences between the two sets of measurements are discussed, as directions for further research.
During March 1979, field operations were carried out in the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) of the Bering Sea. The field measurements which included oceanographic, meteorological and sea ice observations were made nearly coincident with a number of Nimbus-7 and Tiros-N satellite observations. The results of a comparison between surface and aircraft observations, and images from the Tiros-N satellite, with ice concentrations derived from the microwave radiances of the Nimbus-7 Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) are given. Following a brief discussion of the field operations, including a summary of the meteorological conditions during the experiment, the satellite data is described with emphasis on the Nimbus-7 SMMR and the physical basis of the algorithm used to retrieve ice concentrations.
Comprehensive global comparisons have been made between two satellite-based sea surface temperature (SST) products and related blended satellite/in situ SST products.
From a broad point of view, we will be concerned with studying global ocean circulation patterns on the basis of ocean surface determinations with geoid undulation information. In addition, we will study local variations of the gravity field implied by the altimeter data. These general goals are reflected in the title of our investigation. To meet our general goal, we have defined a number of specific objectives: (1) sea surface topography representation; (2) mean sea surface determination; (3) development of local geoid models; (4) mean sea surface comparisons; (5) sea surface topographic files; and (6) gravity anomaly determination.
Transonic and supersonic wind-tunnel test of scaled-models are used to predict the surface pressure fluctuations on aerospace vehicles. An outstanding question is how good are such tests? The present paper attempts to answer this question for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle by comparing data from the Ascent Abort-2 (AA2) flight test with those measured in two different scaled-model wind tunnel tests (WTT) 51AS and 134AS. A sensor by sensor and a Mach by Mach comparisons of spectra of surface pressure fluctuations are presented for nominal ascent part of flight. Spectra measured over a large part of the vehicle surface were found to be dominated by the wake vortices shed from the four Abort Motor nozzles situated on the upper part of the Launch Abort System. It was found that the shapes of the scaled-up spectra from WTTs were very close to those measured in the flight, but the levels, for the most part, were found to be lower than the flight data. The highest differences were from the regions of complex flows where wakes from the adjacent nozzles interacted with the free-stream flow. There the WTT predicted levels were consistently 2dB to 6dB lower than the flight data, across all spectral bands. Another region of significant under-prediction was the local separated flow region at the Fillet-Ogive junction. The accuracy of the sharp spectral peaks from regions along a nozzle axis was found to be dependent on the fidelity of the model. The model in the 51AS WTT used a simplified contour, which resulted in a large under prediction of the spectral peak by 1dB to 10dB. A limited number of data from 134AS, where the model accurately captured all features of the nozzles of the flight vehicle, however; showed that the under prediction was lower: 1-2dB. The fluctuation spectra on the large protuberance of the Umbilical Cover was found to be reasonably well-predicted by 134AS WTT, which meticulously reproduced a scaled-down shape of this protuberance. Such information will help to determine the margins to be applied to wind-tunnel data to create flight environments.
Satellite remote sensing is increasingly being used to monitor air quality over localized sources such as the Canadian oil sands. Following an initial study, significantly low biases have been identified in current NO2 and SO2 retrieval products from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) satellite sensor over this location resulting from a combination of its rapid development and small spatial scale. Air mass factors (AMFs) used to convert line-of-sight "slant" columns to vertical columns were re-calculated for this region based on updated and higher resolution input information including absorber profiles from a regional-scale (15 km × 15 km resolution) air quality model, higher spatial and temporal resolution surface reflectivity, and an improved treatment of snow. The overall impact of these new Environment Canada (EC) AMFs led to substantial increases in the peak NO2 and SO2 average vertical column density (VCD), occurring over an area of intensive surface mining, by factors of 2 and 1.4, respectively, relative to estimates made with previous AMFs. Comparisons are made with long-term averages of NO2 and SO2 (2005-2011) from in situ surface monitors by using the air quality model to map the OMI VCDs to surface concentrations. This new OMI-EC product is able to capture the spatial distribution of the in situ instruments (slopes of 0.65 to 1.0, correlation coefficients of greater than 0.9). The concentration absolute values from surface network observations were in reasonable agreement, with OMI-EC NO2 and SO2 biased low by roughly 30%. Several complications were addressed including correction for the interference effect in the surface NO2 instruments and smoothing and clear-sky biases in the OMI measurements. Overall these results highlight the importance of using input information that accounts for the spatial and temporal variability of the location of interest when performing retrievals.
The proposed paper compares predicted turbine vane heat transfer for a rough surface over a wide range of test conditions with experimental data. Predictions were made for the entire vane surface. However, measurements were made only over the suction surface of the vane, and the leading edge region of the pressure surface. Comparisons are shown for a wide range of test conditions. Inlet pressures varied between 3 and 15 psia, and exit Mach numbers ranged between 0.3 and 0.9. Thus, while a single roughened vane was used for the tests, the effective rougness,(k(sup +)), varied by more than a factor of ten. Results were obtained for freestream turbulence levels of 1 and 10%. Heat transfer predictions were obtained using the Navier-Stokes computer code RVCQ3D. Two turbulence models, suitable for rough surface analysis, are incorporated in this code. The Cebeci-Chang roughness model is part of the algebraic turbulence model. The k-omega turbulence model accounts for the effect of roughness in the application of the boundary condition. Roughness causes turbulent flow over the vane surface. Even after accounting for transition, surface roughness significantly increased heat transfer compared to a smooth surface. The k-omega results agreed better with the data than the Cebeci-Chang model. However, the low Reynolds number k-omega model did not accurately account for roughness when the freestream turbulence level was low. The high Reynolds number version of this model was more suitable when the freestream turbulence was low.