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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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Analysis of Interactive Conflict Resolution Tool Usage in a Mixed Equipage Environment

A human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted that examined separation assurance concepts in varying levels of traffic density with mixtures of aircraft equipage and automation. This paper's analysis focuses on one of the experimental conditions in which traffic levels were approximately fifty percent higher than today, and approximately fifty percent of the traffic within the test area were equipped with data communications (data comm) capabilities. The other fifty percent of the aircraft required control by voice much like today. Within this environment, the air traffic controller participants were provided access to tools and automation designed to support the primary task of separation assurance that are currently unavailable. Two tools were selected for analysis in this paper: 1) a pre-probed altitude fly-out menu that provided instant feedback of conflict probe results for a range of altitudes, and 2) an interactive auto resolver that provided on-demand access to an automation-generated conflict resolution trajectory. Although encouraged, use of the support tools was not required; the participants were free to use the tools as they saw fit, and they were also free to accept, reject, or modify the resolutions offered by the automation. This mode of interaction provided a unique opportunity to examine exactly when and how these tools were used, as well as how acceptable the resolutions were. Results showed that the participants used the pre-probed altitude fly-out menu in 14% of conflict cases and preferred to use it in a strategic timeframe on data comm equipped and level flight aircraft. The interactive auto resolver was also used in a primarily strategic timeframe on 22% of conflicts and that their preference was to use it on conflicts involving data comm equipped aircraft as well. Of the 258 resolutions displayed, 46% were implemented and 54% were not. The auto resolver was rated highly by participants in terms of confidence and preference. Factors such as aircraft equipage, ownership, and location of predicted separation loss appeared to play a role in the decision of controllers to accept or reject the auto resolver's resolutions.

auto resolver↗

Rapid Prediction of Installed Jet Noise from RANS

A new method of computing jet noise, called mSrc, was developed on the general principles of acoustic analogies. In the method, the problem of translating turbulent flow energy into acoustic energy at a far-field observer is broken into two parts, a calculation of acoustic source strengths and then their propagation. The acoustic sources are related to turbulent quantities in the jet plume in a robust manner. The propagation, which is more properly computed using a Green's function accounting for nonuniform speed of sound and solid surfaces, is instead modeled using commonly observed features of jet acoustic far field directivity, and by diffraction barrier theory for surfaces. The mSrc method does not require gradients of the predicted flow field, allowing it to make use of robust unstructured RANS CFD methods, including embedded boundary codes. Such codes do not require specification of surface meshes, and auto-refine their grid to resolve flow gradients, putting resolution where it is required without a priori user input. The ability of mSrc to use such radically unstructured flow input results in an efficient method of estimating noise from jet flows from complex nozzles installed on aircraft. Many validation cases are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and range of applicability of the mSrc method for representative jet noise applications.

Bridges, James↗

Rapid Prediction of Installed Jet Noise From RANS

A new method of computing jet noise, called mSrc, was developed on the general principles of acoustic analogies. In the method, the problem of translating turbulent flow energy into acoustic energy at a far-field observer is broken into two parts, a calculation of acoustic source strengths and then their propagation. The acoustic sources are related to turbulent quantities in the jet plume in a robust manner. The propagation, which is more properly computed using a Green's function accounting for nonuniform speed of sound and solid surfaces, is instead modeled using commonly observed features of jet acoustic far field directivity, and by diffraction barrier theory for surfaces. The mSrc method does not require gradients of the predicted flow field, allowing it to make use of robust unstructured RANS CFD methods, including embedded boundary codes. Such codes do not require specification of surface meshes, and auto-refine their grid to resolve flow gradients, putting resolution where it is required without a priori user input. The ability of mSrc to use such radically unstructured flow input results in an efficient method of estimating noise from jet flows from complex nozzles installed on aircraft. Many validation cases are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and range of applicability of the mSrc method for representative jet noise applications.

Bridges, James↗

Analysis of Automated Aircraft Conflict Resolution and Weather Avoidance

This paper describes an analysis of using trajectory-based automation to resolve both aircraft and weather constraints for near-term air traffic management decision making. The auto resolution algorithm developed and tested at NASA-Ames to resolve aircraft to aircraft conflicts has been modified to mitigate convective weather constraints. Modifications include adding information about the size of a gap between weather constraints to the routing solution. Routes that traverse gaps that are smaller than a specific size are not used. An evaluation of the performance of the modified autoresolver to resolve both conflicts with aircraft and weather was performed. Integration with the Center-TRACON Traffic Management System was completed to evaluate the effect of weather routing on schedule delays.

Love, John F.↗

Pin Load Control Applied to Retractable Pin Tool Technology and Its Characterization

Until the development of retractable pin tool (RPT) technology, friction stir welding (FSW) was limited to constant thickness joining of aluminum materials and the choices of keyhole elimination focused on traditional fusion and plug weld repair techniques. An invention, US Patent Number 5,893,507, "Auto-Adjustable Pin Tool for Friction Stir Welding" assigned to NASA, demonstrated an approach to resolve these serious drawbacks. This approach brings forth a technique that allows the crater, or keyhole, to be closed out automatically at the end of the weld joint without adding any additional equipment or material. Also the probe length can be varied automatically in the weld joint to compensate for material thickness changes, such as, in a tapered joint. This paper reports the effects of pin extension and retraction rates in the weld joint and its correlation to weld quality. The investigation utilized a pin load-detecting device that was integrated in the Phase IIA RPT designed by Boeing for NASA/MSFC. The RPT modification provided pin load data that was accessed and used to eliminate root side indications and determine pin manipulation rates necessary to produce consistence homogeneous joints.

Olegoetz, P.↗

Pin Load Control Applied to Retractable Pin Tool Technology and its Characterization

Until the development of retractable pin tool (RPT) technology, friction stir welding (FSW) was limited to constant thickness joining of aluminum materials and the choices of keyhole elimination focused on traditional fusion and plug weld repair techniques. An invention, US Patent Number 5,893,507, "Auto-Adjustable Pin Tool for Friction Stir Welding" assigned to NASA, demonstrated an approach to resolve these serious drawbacks. This approach brings forth a technique that allows the crater, or keyhole, to be closed out automatically at the end of the weld joint without adding any additional equipment or material. Also the probe length can be varied automatically in the weld joint to compensate for material thickness changes, such as, in a tapered joint. This paper reports the effects of pin extension and retraction rates in the weld joint and its correlation to weld quality. The investigation utilized a pin load-detecting device that was integrated in the Phase 2A RPT designed by Boeing for NASA/MSFC. The RPT modification provided pin load data that was accessed and used to eliminate root side indications and determine pin manipulation rates necessary to produce consistence homogeneous joints.

Oelgoetz, Peter A.↗

Pin Load Control Applied to Retractable Pin Tool Technology and its Characterization

Until the development of retractable pin tool (RPT) technology, friction stir welding (FSW) was limited to constant thickness joining of aluminum materials and the choices of keyhole elimination focused on traditional fusion and plug weld repair techniques. An invention, US Patent Number 5,893.507, "Auto-Adjustable Pin Tool for Friction Stir Welding" assigned to NASA, demonstrated an approach to resolve these serious drawbacks. This approach brings forth a technique that allows the crater, or keyhole, to be closed out automatically at the end of the weld joint without adding any additional equipment or material. Also the probe length can be varied automatically in the weld joint to compensate for material thickness changes, such as, in a tapered joint. This paper reports the effects of pin extension and retraction rates in the weld joint and its correlation to weld quality. The investigation utilized a pin load-detecting device that was integrated in the Phase 2A RPT designed by Boeing for NASA/MSFC. The RPT modification provided pin load data that was accessed and used to eliminate root side indications and determine pin manipulation rates necessary to produce consistence homogeneous joints.

Oelgoetz, Peter↗

Data Services Upgrade: Perfecting the ISIS-I Topside Digital Ionogram Database

The ionospheric topside sounders of the International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies (ISIS) program were designed as analog systems. More than 16,000 of the original telemetry tapes from three satellites were used to produce topside digital ionograms, via an analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion process, suitable for modern analysis techniques. Unfortunately, many of the resulting digital topside ionogram files could not be auto-processed to produce topside Ne(h) profiles because of problems encountered during the A/D process. Software has been written to resolve these problems and here we report on (1) the first application of this software to a significant portion of the ISIS-1 digital topside-ionogram database, (2) software improvements motivated by this activity, (3) N(sub e)(h) profiles automatically produced from these corrected ISIS-1 digital ionogram files, and (4) the availability via the Virtual Wave Observatory (VWO) of the corrected ISIS-1 digital topside ionogram files for research. We will also demonstrate the use of these N(sub e)(h) profiles for making refinements in the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) and in the determination of transition heights from Oxygen ion to Hydrogen ion.

topside ionosphere↗

Study of photon correlation techniques for processing of laser velocimeter signals

The objective was to provide the theory and a system design for a new type of photon counting processor for low level dual scatter laser velocimeter (LV) signals which would be capable of both the first order measurements of mean flow and turbulence intensity and also the second order time statistics: cross correlation auto correlation, and related spectra. A general Poisson process model for low level LV signals and noise which is valid from the photon-resolved regime all the way to the limiting case of nonstationary Gaussian noise was used. Computer simulation algorithms and higher order statistical moment analysis of Poisson processes were derived and applied to the analysis of photon correlation techniques. A system design using a unique dual correlate and subtract frequency discriminator technique is postulated and analyzed. Expectation analysis indicates that the objective measurements are feasible.

Mayo, W. T., Jr.↗

Image applications for coastal resource planning: Elkhorn Slough Pilot Project

The purpose of this project has been to evaluate the utility of digital spectral imagery at two levels of resolution for large scale, accurate, auto-classification of land cover along the Central California Coast. Although remote sensing technology offers obvious advantages over on-the-ground mapping, there are substantial trade-offs that must be made between resolving power and costs. Higher resolution images can theoretically be used to identify smaller habitat patches, but they usually require more scenes to cover a given area and processing these images is computationally intense requiring much more computer time and memory. Lower resolution images can cover much larger areas, are less costly to store, process, and manipulate, but due to their larger pixel size can lack the resolving power of the denser images. This lack of resolving power can be critical in regions such as the Central California Coast where important habitat change often occurs on a scale of 10 meters. Our approach has been to compare vegetation and habitat classification results from two aircraft-based spectral scenes covering the same study area but at different levels of resolution with a previously produced ground-truthed land cover base map of the area. Both of the spectral images used for this project were of significantly higher resolution than the satellite-based LandSat scenes used in the C-CAP program. The lower reaches of the Elkhorn Slough watershed was chosen as an ideal study site because it encompasses a suite of important vegetation types and habitat loss processes characteristic of the central coast region. Dramatic habitat alterations have and are occurring within the Elkhorn Slough drainage area, including erosion and sedimentation, land use conversion, wetland loss, and incremental loss due to development and encroachnnent by agriculture. Additonally, much attention has already been focused on the Elkhorn Slough due to its status as a National Marine Education and Research Reserve and as part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. These destinations have resulted in a rich collection of prior spatial and temporal habitat data.

Kvitek, Rikk G.↗

Clouds in GEOS-5

The GEOS-5 atmospheric model is being developed as a weather-and-climate capable model. It must perform well in assimilation mode as well as in weather and climate simulations and forecasts and in coupled chemistry-climate simulations. In developing GEOS-5, attention has focused on the representation of moist processes. The moist physics package uses a single phase prognostic condensate and a prognostic cloud fraction. Two separate cloud types are distinguished by their source: "anvil" cloud originates in detraining convection, and large-scale cloud originates in a PDF-based condensation calculation. Ice and liquid phases for each cloud type are considered. Once created, condensate and fraction from the anvil and statistical cloud types experience the same loss processes: evaporation of condensate and fraction, auto-conversion of liquid or mixed phase condensate, sedimentation of frozen condensate, and accretion of condensate by falling precipitation. The convective parameterization scheme is the Relaxed Arakawa-Schubert, or RAS, scheme. Satellite data are used to evaluate the performance of the moist physics packages and help in their tuning. In addition, analysis of and comparisons to cloud-resolving models such as the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble model are used to help improve the PDFs used in the moist physics. The presentation will show some of our evaluations including precipitation diagnostics.

Bacmeister, Julio↗

Measurements of the unsteady flow field within the stator row of a transonic axial-flow fan. 1: Measurement and analysis technique

This two-part paper presents laser anemometer measurements of the unsteady velocity field within the stator row of a transonic axial-flow fan. The objective is to provide additional insight into unsteady blade-row interactions within high speed compressors which affect stage efficiency, energy transfer, and other design considerations. Part 1 describes the measurement and analysis techniques used for resolving the unsteady flow field features. The ensemble-average and variance of the measured velocities are used to identify the rotor wake generated and unresolved unsteadiness, respectively. (Rotor wake generated unsteadiness refers to the unsteadiness generated by the rotor wake velocity deficit and the term unresolved unsteadiness refers to all remaining contributions to unsteadiness such as vortex shedding, turbulence, mass flow fluctuations, etc.). A procedure for calculating auto and cross correlations of the rotor wake generated and unresolved unsteady velocity fluctuations is described. These unsteady-velocity correlations have significance since they also result from a decomposition of the Navier-Stokes equations. This decomposition of the Navier-Stokes equations resulting in the velocity correlations used to describe the unsteady velocity field will also be outlined in this paper.

Suder, K. L.↗

Measurements of the unsteady flow field within the stator row of a transonic axial-flow fan. I - Measurement and analysis technique

This two-part paper presents laser anemometer measurements of the unsteady velocity field within the stator row of a transonic axial-flow fan. The objective is to provide additional insight into unsteady blade-row interactions within highspeed compressors which affect stage efficiency, energy transfer, and other design considerations. Part 1 describes the measurement and analysis techniques used for resolving the unsteady flow field features. The ensemble-average and variance of the measured velocities are used to identify the rotor wake generated and unresolved unsteadiness, respectively. (Rotor wake generated unsteadiness refers to the unsteadiness generated by the rotor wake velocity deficit and the term unresolved unsteadiness refers to all remaining contributions to unsteadiness such as vortex shedding, turbulence, mass flow fluctutions, etc.). A procedure for calculating auto and cross correlations of the rotor wake generated and unresolved unsteady velocity fluctuations is described. These unsteady-velocity correlations have significance since they also result from a decomposition of the Navier-Stokes equations. This decomposition of the Navier-Stokes equations resulting in the velocity correlations used to describe the unsteady velocity field will also be outlined in this paper.

Suder, K. L.↗

Surface-Height Determination of Crevassed Glaciers-Mathematical Principles of an Autoadaptive Density-Dimension Algorithm and Validation Using ICESat-2 Simulator (SIMPL) Data

Glacial acceleration is a main source of uncertainty in sea-level-change assessment. Measurement of ice-surface heights with a spatial and temporal resolution that not only allows elevation-change calculation, but also captures ice-surface morphology and its changes is required to aid in investigations of the geophysical processes associated with glacial acceleration.The Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System aboard NASAs future ICESat-2 Mission (launch 2017) will implement multibeam micropulse photon-counting lidar altimetry aimed at measuring ice-surface heights at 0.7-m along-track spacing. The instrument is designed to resolve spatial and temporal variability of rapidly changing glaciers and ice sheets and the Arctic sea ice. The new technology requires the development of a new mathematical algorithm for the retrieval of height information.We introduce the density-dimension algorithm (DDA) that utilizes the radial basis function to calculate a weighted density as a form of data aggregation in the photon cloud and considers density an additional dimension as an aid in auto-adaptive threshold determination. The auto-adaptive capability of the algorithm is necessary to separate returns from noise and signal photons under changing environmental conditions. The algorithm is evaluated using data collected with an ICESat-2 simulator instrument, the Slope Imaging Multi-polarization Photon-counting Lidar, over the heavily crevassed Giesecke Braer in Northwestern Greenland in summer 2015. Results demonstrate that ICESat-2 may be expected to provide ice-surface height measurements over crevassed glaciers and other complex ice surfaces. The DDA is generally applicable for the analysis of airborne and spaceborne micropulse photon-counting lidar data over complex and simple surfaces.

Herzfeld, Ute C.↗

Global Analysis of Nonlinear Second-Mode Development in a Mach-6 Boundary Layer From High-Speed Schlieren Data

The second-mode instability on a 7◦ half-angle sharp cone at Mach 6 is analyzed using high-speed calibrated schlieren imagery at a frame rate near the expected fundamental frequency. Experiments were conducted in the NASA Langley 20-Inch Mach 6 facility at unit Reynolds number between 6.56×106 and 9.71×106 m−1. Time-resolved pixel intensity signals throughout the boundary layer are reconstructed using spatially available data in the schlieren images to recover an effective sampling rate of over 10 MHz; these are then converted to quantitative density gradients using a thin-lens-based calibration technique. A global analysis is performed on the schlieren data to investigate the nonlinear growth of the second-mode fundamental and harmonic content. Point-wise measures of the auto-bicoherence are used to identify specific triadic interactions and the locations of their highest levels of quadratic phase coupling. Significant resonance interactions between the second-mode fundamental and harmonic instabilities were found along with interactions between these and the mean flow. Bispectral mode decomposition is employed to educe the flow structures associated with these interactions. A similar analysis is performed for the power spectrum, with power spectral densities computed for each pixel’s time-series and spectral proper orthogonal decomposition employed to derive the modal structure and energy of the flow at specific frequencies. Comparisons between the bispectral quantities and second-mode power show that nonlinear interactions, particularly resonance interactions, are closely correlated with space-time modulation of disturbances during the nonlinear stage of transition.

boundary layer transition↗

Comparison of AGE and Spectral Methods for the Simulation of Far-Wakes

Turbulent flow simulation methods based on finite differences are attractive for their simplicity, flexibility and efficiency, but not always for accuracy or stability. This report demonstrates that a good compromise is possible with the Advected Grid Explicit (AGE) method. AGE has proven to be both efficient and accurate for simulating turbulent free-shear flows, including planar mixing layers and planar jets. Its efficiency results from its localized fully explicit finite difference formulation (Bisset 1998a,b) that is very straightforward to compute, outweighing the need for a fairly small timestep. Also, most of the successful simulations were slightly under-resolved, and therefore they were, in effect, large-eddy simulations (LES) without a sub-grid-scale (SGS) model, rather than direct numerical simulations (DNS). The principle is that the role of the smallest scales of turbulent motion (when the Reynolds number is not too low) is to dissipate turbulent energy, and therefore they do not have to be simulated when the numerical method is inherently dissipative at its resolution limits. Such simulations are termed 'auto-LES' (LES with automatic SGS modeling) in this report.

Bisset, D. K.↗

Analysis of nystagmus response to a pseudorandom velocity input

Space motion sickness was not reported during the first Apollo missions; however, since Apollo 8 through the current Shuttle and Skylab missions, approximately 50% of the crewmembers have experienced instances of space motion sickness. Space motion sickness, renamed space adaptation syndrome, occurs primarily during the initial period of a mission until habilation takes place. One of NASA's efforts to resolve the space adaptation syndrome is to model the individual's vestibular response for basis knowledge and as a possible predictor of an individual's susceptibility to the disorder. This report describes a method to analyse the vestibular system when subjected to a pseudorandom angular velocity input. A sum of sinusoids (pseudorandom) input lends itself to analysis by linear frequency methods. Resultant horizontal ocular movements were digitized, filtered and transformed into the frequency domain. Programs were developed and evaluated to obtain the (1) auto spectra of input stimulus and resultant ocular resonse, (2) cross spectra, (3) the estimated vestibular-ocular system transfer function gain and phase, and (4) coherence function between stimulus and response functions.

Lessard, C. S.↗

Unsteady Flow Field in a Multistage Axial Flow Compressor

The flow field in a multistage compressor is three-dimensional, unsteady, and turbulent with substantial viscous effects. Some of the specific phenomena that has eluded designers include the effects of rotor-stator and rotor-rotor interactions and the physics of mixing of velocity, pressure, temperature and velocity fields. An attempt was made, to resolve experimentally, the unsteady pressure and temperature fields downstream of the second stator of a multistage axial flow compressor which will provide information on rotor-stator interaction effects and the nature of the unsteadiness in an embedded stator of a three stage axial flow compressor. Detailed area traverse measurements using pneumatic five hole probe, thermocouple probe, semi-conductor total pressure probe (Kulite) and an aspirating probe downstream of the second stator were conducted at the peak efficiency operating condition. The unsteady data was then reduced through an ensemble averaging technique which splits the signal into deterministic and unresolved components. Auto and cross correlation techniques were used to correlate the deterministic total temperature and velocity components (acquired using a slanted hot-film probe at the same measurement locations) and the gradients, distributions and relative weights of each of the terms of the average passage equation were then determined. Based on these measurements it was observed that the stator wakes, hub leakage flow region, casing endwall suction surface corner region, and the casing endwall region away from the blade surfaces were the regions of highest losses in total pressure, lowest efficiency and highest levels of unresolved unsteadiness. The deterministic unsteadiness was found to be high in the hub and casing endwall regions as well as on the pressure side of the stator wake. The spectral distribution of hot-wire and kulite voltages shows that at least eight harmonics of all three rotor blade passing frequencies are present at this measurement location. In addition to the basic three rotor blade passing frequencies (R1, R2 and R3) and their harmonics, various difference frequencies such as (2R1 -R2) and (2R3-R2) and their harmonics are also observed. These difference frequencies are due to viscous and potential interactions between rotors 1, 2 and 3 which are sensed by both the total pressure and aspirating probes at this location. Significant changes occur to the stator exit flow features with passage of the rotor upstream of the stator. Because of higher convection speeds of the rotor wake on the suction surface of the downstream stator than on the pressure side, the chopped rotor wake was found to be arriving at different times on either side of the stator wake. As the rotor passes across the stator.

Suryavamshi, N.↗