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At least 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1986

Interdisciplinary and multilevel optimum design

Interactions among engineering disciplines and subsystems in engineering system design are surveyed and specific instances of such interactions are described. Examination of the interactions that a traditional design process in which the numerical values of major design variables are decided consecutively is likely to lead to a suboptimal design. Supporting numerical examples are a glider and a space antenna. Under an alternative approach introduced, the design and its sensitivity data from the subsystems and disciplines are generated concurrently and then made available to the system designer enabling him to modify the system design so as to improve its performance. Examples of a framework structure and an airliner wing illustrate that approach.

Sobieszczanski-Sobieski, Jaroslaw↗
NASA NTRS1988

Multilevel calculation of the Ne IV solar spectrum

A calculation of the atomic parameters of the seven-electron ion Ne IV yields radiative rates A(ki) and distorted-wave collision strengths Omega (ki) between 72 levels of the six configurations 2s2 2p3, 2s2p4, 2p5, 2p2 3s, 2p2 3p, and 2p2 3d. These are used to obtain expected line intensities for quiet, active, and flare solar conditions. Comparisons are made with available solar observations. Good agreement is found, including observed density-sensitivity in the case of the multiplet at 469.8 A. The atomic radiative rates are separately compared with laboratory beam-foil measurements and are shown to be in reasonable agreement with the latter.

Bhatia, A. K.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Interdisciplinary and multilevel optimum design

Interactions among engineering disciplines and subsystems in engineering system design are surveyed and specific instances of such interactions are described. Examination of the interactions that a traditional design process in which the numerical values of major design variables are decided consecutively is likely to lead to a suboptimal design. Supporting numerical examples are a glider and a space antenna. Under an alternative approach introduced, the design and its sensitivity data from the subsystems and disciplines are generated concurrently and then made available to the system designer enabling him to modify the system design so as to improve its performance. Examples of a framework structure and an airliner wing illustrate that approach.

Sobieszczanski-Sobieski, Jaroslaw↗
NASA NTRS1990

Multilevel decomposition approach to the preliminary sizing of a transport aircraft wing

A multilevel/multidisciplinary optimization scheme for sizing an aircraft wing structure is described. A methodology using nonlinear programming in application to a very large engineering problem is presented. This capability is due to the decomposition approach. Over 1300 design variables are considered for this nonlinear optimization task. In addition, a mathematical link is established coupling the detail of structural sizing to the overall system performance objective, such as fuel consumption. The scheme is implemented as a three level system analyzing aircraft mission performance at the top level, the total aircraft structure as the middle level, and individual stiffened wing skin cover panels at the bottom level. Numerical show effectiveness of the method and its good convergence characteristics.

Wrenn, Gregory A.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Asynchronous multilevel adaptive methods for solving partial differential equations on multiprocessors - Performance results

The fast adaptive composite grid method (FAC) is an algorithm that uses various levels of uniform grids (global and local) to provide adaptive resolution and fast solution of PDEs. Like all such methods, it offers parallelism by using possibly many disconnected patches per level, but is hindered by the need to handle these levels sequentially. The finest levels must therefore wait for processing to be essentially completed on all the coarser ones. A recently developed asynchronous version of FAC, called AFAC, completely eliminates this bottleneck to parallelism. This paper describes timing results for AFAC, coupled with a simple load balancing scheme, applied to the solution of elliptic PDEs on an Intel iPSC hypercube. These tests include performance of certain processes necessary in adaptive methods, including moving grids and changing refinement. A companion paper reports on numerical and analytical results for estimating convergence factors of AFAC applied to very large scale examples.

Mccormick, S.↗
NASA NTRS1990

CS in nearby galaxies: Distribution, kinematics, and multilevel studies

As a result of observations at the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range (IRAM) 30-m telescope, maps of the distribution of the J = 2-1 transition of CS toward the galaxies IC 342 and NGC 253 are presented. The distribution of the CS emission from NGC 253 is consistent with the CO 1-0 line. The distribution of the CS emission from IC 342, however, resembles more that seen in the CO 3-2 line. For the first time, the detection of the isotopic substitution C-34S is reported toward an external galaxy: The C-34S 2-1 line has been detected toward NGC 253 and M 82 and the C-34S line has been detected tentatively toward M 82. Also for the first time, extragalactic CS has been observed in the 3-2 (toward NGC 253, IC 342 and M 82) and 5-4 (NGC 253 and IC 342) transitions.

Mauersberger, R.↗
NASA NTRS1992

New multilevel codes over GF(q)

Set partitioning to multi-dimensional signal spaces over GF(q), particularly GF sup q-1(q) and GF sup q (q), and show how to construct both multi-level block codes and multi-level trellis codes over GF(q). Two classes of multi-level (n, k, d) block codes over GF(q) with block length n, number of information symbols k, and minimum distance d sub min greater than or = d, are presented. These two classes of codes use Reed-Solomon codes as component codes. They can be easily decoded as block length q-1 Reed-Solomon codes or block length q or q + 1 extended Reed-Solomon codes using multi-stage decoding. Many of these codes have larger distances than comparable q-ary block codes, as component codes. Low rate q-ary convolutional codes, work error correcting convolutional codes, and binary-to-q-ary convolutional codes can also be used to construct multi-level trellis codes over GF(q) or binary-to-q-ary trellis codes, some of which have better performance than the above block codes. All of the new codes have simple decoding algorithms based on hard decision multi-stage decoding.

Wu, Jiantian↗
NASA NTRS1993

Multilevel methods for transport equations in diffusive regimes

We consider the numerical solution of the single-group, steady state, isotropic transport equation. An analysis by means of the moment equations shows that a discrete ordinate S(sub N) discretization in direction (angle) with a least squares finite element discretization in space does not behave properly in the diffusion limit. A scaling of the S(sub N) equations is introduced so that the least squares discretization has the correct diffusion limit. For the resulting discrete system a full multigrid algorithm was developed.

Manteuffel, Thomas A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Remote sensing of multilevel clouds during FIRE IFO 2

An unresolved difficulty in the remote sensing of clouds concerns the inability of the cloud retrieval algorithms to adequately recognize and analyze scenes containing overlapping cloud layers. Most cloud retrieval schemes, such as that used by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) assume that each picture element (pixel) contains a single cloud layer. The current study begins to address the complexities of multilayered cloud property retrieval through the application of a modified multispectral, multiresolution (MSMR) method, first detailed in Baum et al. (1992), which merges 1.1 -km (at nadir) spectral data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) with 17.4-km (at nadir) High Resolution Infrared Radiometer Sounder (HIRS/2, henceforth HIRS). Both instruments are flown aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting platforms. An ideal case study for this investigation is provided by the NOAA-11 overpass at 20:48 UTC on November 28, 1991. At this time, a large-scale cirrostratus veil overlaid a low-level stratus deck over much of the IFO region. There were both surface lidar and radar observations of the clouds as well as University of North Dakota (UND) Citation aircraft measurements. The presence of overlapping cloud layers within a HIRS FOV is determined from colocated AVHRR spectral data through the use of a fuzzy logic expert system. Conventional algorithms such as spatial coherence and CO2 slicing are used to retrieve cloud pressure and height for each identified cloud layer. The results from the satellite cloud retrieval analysis are compared to results from both surface- and aircraft-based measurements.

Baum, Bryan A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Implementing abstract multigrid or multilevel methods

Multigrid methods can be formulated as an algorithm for an abstract problem that is independent of the partial differential equation, domain, and discretization method. In such an abstract setting, problems not arising from partial differential equations can be treated. A general theory exists for linear problems. The general theory was motivated by a series of abstract solvers (Madpack). The latest version was motivated by the theory. Madpack now allows for a wide variety of iterative and direct solvers, preconditioners, and interpolation and projection schemes, including user callback ones. It allows for sparse, dense, and stencil matrices. Mildly nonlinear problems can be handled. Also, there is a fast, multigrid Poisson solver (two and three dimensions). The type of solvers and design decisions (including language, data structures, external library support, and callbacks) are discussed. Based on the author's experiences with two versions of Madpack, a better approach is proposed. This is based on a mixed language formulation (C and FORTRAN + preprocessor). Reasons for not using FORTRAN, C, or C++ (individually) are given. Implementing the proposed strategy is not difficult.

Douglas, Craig C.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Multilevel elliptic smoothing of large three-dimensional grids

Elliptic grid generation methods have been used for many years to smooth and improve grids generated by algebraic interpolation schemes. However, the elliptic system that must be solved is nonlinear and convergence is generally very slow for large grids. In an attempt to make elliptic methods practical for large three-dimensional grids, a two-stage implementation is developed where the overall grid point locations are set using a coarse grid generated by the elliptic system. The coarse grid is then interpolated to generate a finer grid which is smoothed using only a few iterations of the elliptic system.

Mastin, C. Wayne↗
NASA NTRS1994

Multilevel cloud retrieval using multispectral HIRS and AVHRR data: Nighttime oceanic analysis

A multispectral, multiresolution (MSMR) method is developed for analyzing scenes of overlapping cloud layers. The MSMR method is applied to data from the NOAA 11 advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) and the high-resolution infrared radiometer sounder (HIRS-2). The data are from a nighttime oceanic scene in which a semitransparent cirrus veil overlays a large-scale stratus cloud. Low-cloud and clear-sky radiances are determined using a spatial coherence technique. Middle to upper level cloud pressures and radiances are estimated from HIRS-2 15 micrometer CO2 band radiometric data. The MSMR method improves the interpretation of a nighttime, oceanic scene containing thin cirrus over a large-scale stratiform cloud. If, for example, the same scene is analyzed using only the AVHRR 10.8 micrometer channel, the accompanying retrieved cloud heights are found to be between the cirrus and stratus cloud heights and are incorrectly identified as midlevel altostratus clouds. Theoretical radiative transfer model results for both water droplet spheres and randomly oriented hexagonal ice crystals are compared to observed AVHRR brightness temperature differences (BTD) between the 3.7- and 10.8 micrometer channels (BTD(sup 34)) and between the 10.8- and 12- micrometer channels (BTD(sup 45)) to distinguish among the effects of cloud optical depth, particle size, and phase for both single-layer clouds and overlapping two-layer clouds. Theoretical BTD calculations are used to estimate the range of effective particle sizes for eac h cloud layer. The data for the cirrus in the case study region near Bermuda are consistent with theoretical results for relatively small randomly oriented hexagonal ice crystals. The observed BTD(sup 34) and BTD(sup 45) values are lower for the cirrus above a lower-level cloud than for single-level cirrus with no underlying cloud. In certain cases the BTD analysis provides a way to distinguish between clouds composed of supercooled water droplets rather than ice particles. Analysis of nighttime data permits determination of stratus infrared optical depths smaller than 4.

Baum, Bryan A.↗