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At least 199 records · Page 11

Experimental investigation of two nonaxisymmetric wedge nozzles at free stream Mach numbers up to 1.20

Forces and pressures on two nonaxisymmetric wedge nozzles were measured in a 16 foot transonic tunnel. Tests were conducted at static conditions and at free stream Mach numbers of 0.60, 0.80, 0.90, 0.94, and 1.20. The range of nozzle pressure ratios varied with configuration and Mach number. The internal and external geometry of the nozzles and the test model are defined in detail. Nozzle performance data are presented as discharge coefficients, internal thrust ratios, thrust minus nozzle drag ratios, and ideal thrust coefficients. Extensive internal and external pressure measurements are presented.

Mason, M. L.↗

On the instability of shock waves attached to wedges and cones

A numerical study is made of the stability of weak and strong shocks attached to wedges and cones. The stability is shown to depend on the boundary conditions imposed, in good agreement with the experimental observations and the principle of minimum entropy. The behavior of the solutions is explained by quasi-static considerations.

Salas, M. D.↗

Equatorial plasma bubbles - Vertically elongated wedges from the bottomside F layer

The possible depletion of plasma bubbles associated with the equatorial spread-F phenomenon was examined in terms of plumes mapped with the ALTAIR radar and bubbles measured by ion-drift meter on board the Explorer E satellite. The meter measured the east-west spatial relationship of ion-density depletions. The plasma bubbles were found to be vertically elongated depletions extending downward from the bottom side of the F layer in the form of tilted wedges. The electrodynamics of the bubbles correspond with observations of large eastward drift velocities of plumes comparable to the F region drift measurements. It was also determined that the west wall of large scale altitude modulations of the bottomside F layer becomes structured and evolves with the generation of secondary plumes and bubbles.

Tsunoda, R. T.↗

Characterization of CNRS Fizeau wedge laser tuner

A fringe detection and measurement system was constructed for use with the CNRS Fizeau wedge laser tuner, consisting of three circuit boards. The first board is a standard Reticon RC-100 B motherboard which is used to provide the timing, video processing, and housekeeping functions required by the Reticon RL-512 G photodiode array used in the system. The sampled and held video signal from the motherboard is processed by a second, custom fabricated circuit board which contains a high speed fringe detection and locating circuit. This board includes a dc level discriminator type fringe detector, a counter circuit to determine fringe center, a pulsed laser triggering circuit, and a control circuit to operate the shutter for the He-Ne reference laser beam. The fringe center information is supplied to the third board, a commercial single board computer, which governs the data collection process and interprets the results.

Source record↗

On Bartky's method for evaluation of integrals of elliptic type with application to round-nosed wedges

Bartky's method for the numerical evluation of integrals of the complete elliptic type is modified to improve its accuracy. The resulting modified method is then applied to integrals involving complex arithmetic which map the upper half of one plane onto either the interior or exterior of round-nosed wedges. These solutions have engineering applications to such problems as the design of magnets and the flow of fluids in and around corners.

Rossow, V. J.↗

Precision pointing using a dual-wedge scanner

A system was developed for calibrating and precisely pointing a germanium dual-wedge scanner for a CO2 Doppler lidar from an airborne platform. The equations implemented in pointing the scanner and those in the iterative calibration program, which combines available data with estimated parameters of the scanner orientation relative to the axes of the aircraft's inertial navigation system to arrive at corrected scanner parameters are described. The effect of specific error conditions on program performance and the results of the program when used on 1981 test data are investigated.

Amirault, C. T.↗

Operational characteristics of Wedge and Strip image readout systems

Application of the Wedge and Strip readout system in microchannel plate detectors for the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer and FAUST space astronomy programs is discussed. Anode designs with high resolution (greater than 600 x 600 pixels) in imaging and spectroscopy applications have been developed. Extension of these designs to larger formats (100 mm) with higher resolution (3000 x 3000 pixels) are considered. It is shown that the resolution and imaging are highly stable, and that the flat field performance is essentially limited by photon statistics. Very high speed event response has also been achieved with output pulses having durations of less than 10 nanoseconds.

Siegmund, O. H. W.↗

Wedge and strip image readout systems for photon-counting detectors in space astronomy

EUV and far UV applications of wedge and strip anodes in photon-counting microchannel plate detector systems are discussed in light of performance data obtained as a result of EUV Explorer spacecraft open face detector and FAUST-Spacelab far UV sealed tube sensor calibrations. CsI quantum detection efficiencies of about 80 percent at 114 A and about 40 percent at 600 and 1300 A have been achieved; a position sensitivity of less than 10 microns is demonstrated, and the position resolution, image linearity, background rate, and flat-field characteristics are discussed.

Siegmund, O. H. W.↗

Application of wedge and strip image readout systems to detectors for astronomy

Microchannel plate (MCP) detector systems that use wedge and strip anodes for imaging radiation in the range 50 A to 8000 A are described. Test data, obtained from the calibration of the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer Satellite detectors and the ARIA EUV aeronomy sensor is presented. The long-term performance characteristics of Z-stack microchannel plates are investigated and it is shown that stable operation is achieved after an initial settling period. Conventional and new anode designs and their potential for increasing the position resolution are discussed. Position resolution of better than 80 microns FWHM has been attained for 50 mm devices, and this is shown to be essentially independent of event location. Image nonlinearity of less than 0.3 percent has been achieved with stability to better than 0.1 percent. Differential nonlinearity of less than 1 percent and stability to better than 1 percent have been obtained. Measurements of the quantum efficiency of a CsI photocathode on an MCP are presented, demonstrating efficiencies as high as 47 percent.

Siegmund, O. H. W.↗

Comparison of compliance results for the wedge-loaded compact specimen

Results of the ratio of stress intensity factor to crack-mouth displacement as a function of crack length are presented for the wedge-loaded compact specimen. Comparisons are made between experimental compliance results, numerical results from collocation methods, and deep-crack limit-solution results. Applications are for crack-arrest and stress-corrosion-cracking tests for metals and other materials under predominantly linear elastic conditions.

Underwood, J. H.↗

On the instability of hypersonic flow past a wedge

The instability of a compressible flow past a wedge is investigated in the hypersonic limit. Particular attention is given to the Tollmien-Schlichting waves governed by triple-deck theory though some discussion of inviscid modes is given. It is shown that the attached shock has a significant effect on the growth rates of Tollmien-Schlichting waves. Moreover, the presence of the shock allows for more than one unstable Tollmien-Schlichting wave. Indeed, an infinite discrete spectrum of unstable waves is induced by the shock, but these modes are unstable over relatively small but high frequency ranges. The shock is shown to have little effect on the inviscid modes considered by previous authors and an asymptotic description of inviscid modes in the hypersonic limit is given.

Cowley, Stephen↗

Development of the RAIDS extreme ultraviolet wedge and strip detector

In the next few years the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detector System (RAIDS) package will be flown on a Tiros spacecraft. The EUV spectrometer experiment contains a position-sensitive detector based on wedge and strip anode technology. A detector design has been implemented in brazed alumina and kovar to provide a rugged bakeable housing and anode. A stack of three 80:1 microchannel plates is operated at 3500-4100 V. to achieve a gain of about 10 to the 7th. The top MCP is to be coated with MgF for increased quantum efficiency in the range of 50-115 nm. A summary of fabrication techniques and detector performance characteristics is presented.

Kayser, D. C.↗

Mosaic wedge-and-strip arrays for large format microchannel plate detectors

The authors present a novel method for joining wedge-and-strip patterns on single anodes in a mosaic array. With only a modest increase in complexity over three-conductor anodes currently in use, the ultimate detector position resolution can be significantly improved, and large-format microchannel plate detectors with pore-size-limited resolution are made possible. The problem of the transition from one anode to the next has been solved with a novel linear encoding scheme, which exhibits essentially distortionless behavior at boundaries parallel to the conducting elements and only slight distortion at the orthogonal boundaries. The ultimate resolution for two anode designs, one designed for large-format imaging and the other for high-resolution spectroscopy, is also predicted.

Martin, Christopher↗

On the instability of hypersonic flow past a wedge

The instability of a compressible flow past a wedge is investigated in the hypersonic limit. Particular attention is paid to Tollmien-Schlichting waves governed by triple-deck theory though some discussion of inviscid modes is given. It is shown that the attached shock can have a significant effect on the growth rates of Tollmien-Schlichting waves. Moreover, the presence of the shock allows for more than one unstable Tollmien-Schlichting wave. Indeed an infinite discrete spectrum of unstable waves is induced by the shock, but these modes are unstable over relatively small but high frequency ranges. The shock is shown to have little effect on the inviscid modes considered by previous authors and an asymptotic description of inviscid modes in the hypersonic limit is given.

Cowley, Stephen↗

Development and testing of a prototype mosaic wedge-and-strip anode detector

A preliminary laboratory study of a prototype mosaic wedge-and-strip anode, a new class of readout system that will furnish large format, high resolution microchannel plate detectors with comparatively simple readout electronics is described. The goals of this study were to demonstrate the linearity of the mosaic anode algorithm, and to verify the predicted resolution performance in a realistic detector configuration. It is found that the nonlinearity introduced at the boundary between two anodes is limited to 50-100 microns. It is also shown that the spatial resolution of the detector is limited mainly by partition noise to about 35 microns (FWHM) at a gain of 2 x 10 to the 7th. A systematic investigation of the charge distribution arriving at the anode is also described. Using the relative charges arriving on the two anodes of the mosaic pattern, the detailed shape of the distribution and its dependence on MCP-anode voltage, MCP voltage, and pulse height are determined. A significant dependence of the profile on pulse height, which can introduce a pulse height dependence to the centroid calculation, particularly near the anode edges is found. Improved anode designs which will achieve the optimal performance are discussed.

Rasmussen, A.↗

Nonlinear Instability of Hypersonic Flow past a Wedge

The nonlinear stability of a compressible flow past a wedge is investigated in the hypersonic limit. The analysis follows the ideas of a weakly nonlinear approach. Interest is focussed on Tollmien-Schlichting waves governed by a triple deck structure and it is found that the attached shock can profoundly affect the stability characteristics of the flow. In particular, it is shown that nonlinearity tends to have a stabilizing influence. The nonlinear evolution of the Tollmien-Schlichting mode is described in a number of asymptotic limits.

Seddougui, Sharon O.↗

Measurement of birefringence of optical materials using a wedged plate interferometer

A nondestructive technique for measuring the birefringence of optical materials such as calcite using wedged plate interferometer is presented. The sample needed for measuring the refractive index must be polished in the form of a parallel plate. The method is based on the measurement of the longitudinal displacement of the focus when the parallel plate is inserted in a converging beam of light. The displacement of the focus is a measure of the refractive index of the optical material. In the case of a uniaxial crystal, the displacement of the focus for the extraordinary ray is different from the displacement of the focus for the ordinary ray. Hence the birefringence of the crystal is determined by measuring the difference between the two focii. It is possible to obtain an accuracy up to 0.0002 in the measurement of birefringence depending on the sample thickness. The method should find its application for the characterization of new crystals in various material research and crystal growth laboratories.

Shukla, R. P.↗

The substorm current wedge and field-aligned currents in MHD simulations of magnetotail reconnection

Results are reported from a three-dimensional MHD simulation of magnetotail reconnection, which, in contrast to earlier ones, starts from an equilibrium configuration that contains a region 1 type field-aligned current system at the plasma sheet/lobe boundary. This current system is found from equilibrium theory as the consequence of boundary conditions, which require that field lines at large distances from the earth become aligned-with the tail axis, consistent with observations and the expected consequences of the interaction with the solar wind. As in earlier simulations, the dynamic evolution develops from a slow diffusion to the fast growth of a three-dimensional tearing mode, initiated by the sudden occurrence or increase of resistivity, leading again to the formation and subsequent tailward ejection of a plasmoid, associated with fast plasma flows. In addition there are changes of the electric current system which are consistent with the substorm current wedge picture inferred from observations.

Birn, J.↗