The opacity due to Compton scattering at relativistic temperatures in a semidegenerate electron gas.
Opacity due to Compton scattering at relativistic temperatures in semidegenerate electron gas
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Opacity due to Compton scattering at relativistic temperatures in semidegenerate electron gas
Coupling calculations of differential, integral, and momentum transfer cross sections for pure elastic scattering and rotational excitation of CO by electron impact are reported. The calculations are based on a static charge distribution that has correct dipole and quadrupole moments, has cusps at the nuclei, and is augmented by an SCF treatment of charge polarization and a local approximation for exchange. The rotationally summed cross sections, with no adjustable parameters in the scattering calculation, are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental cross sections but are somewhat larger at small scattering angles.
This report describes the development of a tunable electromechanical Helmholtz resonator (EMHR) for engine nacelles using smart materials technology. This effort addresses both near-term and long-term goals for tunable electromechanical acoustic liner technology for the Quiet Aircraft Technology (QAT) Program. Analytical models, i.e. lumped element model (LEM) and transfer matrix (TM) representation of the EMHR, have been developed to predict the acoustic behavior of the EMHR. The models have been implemented in a MATLAB program and used to compare with measurement results. Moreover, the prediction performance of models is further improved with the aid of parameter extraction of the piezoelectric backplate. The EMHR has been experimentally investigated using standard two-microphone method (TMM). The measurement results validated both the LEM and TM models of the EMHR. Good agreement between predicted and measured impedance is obtained. Short- and open circuit loads define the limits of the tuning range using resistive and capacitive loads. There is approximately a 9% tuning limit under these conditions for the non-optimized resonator configuration studied. Inductive shunt loads result in a 3 degree-of-freedom DOF) system and an enhanced tuning range of over 20% that is not restricted by the short- and open-circuit limits. Damping coefficient ' measurements for piezoelectric backplates in a vacuum chamber are also performed and indicate that the damping is dominated by the structural damping losses, such as compliant boundaries, and other intrinsic loss mechanisms. Based on models of the EMHR, a Pareto optimization design of the EMHR has been performed for the EMHR with non-inductive loads. The EMHR with non-inductive loads is a 2DOF system with two resonant fiequencies. The tuning ranges of the two resonant frequencies of the EMHR with non-inductive loads cannot be optimized simultaneously; a trade-off (i.e., a Pareto solution) must be reached. The Pareto solution provides the information for a designer that shows how design trade-offs can be used to satisfy specific design requirements. The optimization design of the EMHR with inductive loads aims at optimal tuning of these three resonant fiequencies. The results indicate that it is possible to keep the acoustic reactance of the resonator close to a constant over a given frequency range. An effort to mimic the second layer of the NASA 2DOF liner using a piezoelectric composite diaphragm has been made. The optimal acoustic reactance of the second layer of the NASA 2DOF liner is achieved using a thin PVDF composite diaphragm, but matching the acoustic resistance requires further investigation. Acoustic energy harvesting is achieved by connecting the EMHR to an energy reclamation circuit that converts the ac voltage signal across the piezoceramic to a conditioned dc signal. Energy harvesting experiment yields 16 m W continuous power for an incident SPL of 153 dB. Such a level is sufficient to power a variety of low power electronic devices. Finally, technology transfer has been achieved by converting the original NASA ZKTL FORTRAN code to a MATLAB code while incorporating the models of the EMHR. Initial studies indicate that the EMHR is a promising technology that may enable lowpower, light weight, tunable engine nacelle liners. This technology, however, is very immature, and additional developments are required. Recommendations for future work include testing of sample EMHR liner designs in NASA Langley s normal incidence dual-waveguide and the grazing-incidence flow facility to evaluating both the impedance characteristics as well as the energy reclamation abilities. Additional design work is required for more complex tuning circuits with greater performance. Poor electromechanical coupling limited the electromechanical tuning capabilities of the proof of concept EMHR. Different materials than those studies and perhaps novel composite material systems may dramatically improvehe electromechanical coupling. Such improvements are essential to improved mimicking of existing double layer liners.
The results of a thermal design definition study for the GSFC Explorer Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) were documented. A thermal computer model of EGRET with 241 nodes was developed and used to analyze the thermal performance of the experiment for a range of orbits, payload orientations and internal power dissipations. The recommended thermal design utilizes a small radiator with an area of 1.78 square foot on the anti-sun side of the mission adaptor and circumferential heat pipes on the interior of the same adaptor to transfer heat from the electronics compartments to the single radiator. Fifty watts of thermostatically controlled heater power are used to control the temperature level to 10 C + or - 20 C inside the insulated dome structure.
Cosmic gamma rays, the physical processes responsible for their production and the astrophysical sites from which they were seen are reported. The bulk of the observed gamma ray emission is in the photon energy range from about 0.1 MeV to 1 GeV, where observations are carried out above the atmosphere. There are also, however, gamma ray observations at higher energies obtained by detecting the Cerenkov light produced by the high energy photons in the atmosphere. Gamma ray emission was observed from sources as close as the Sun and the Moon and as distant as the quasar 3C273, as well as from various other galactic and extragalactic sites. The radiation processes also range from the well understood, e.g. energetic particle interactions with matter, to the still incompletely researched, such as radiation transfer in optically thick electron positron plasmas in intense neutron star magnetic fields.
Optical saturation is the phenomenon in which the laser-induced rates of absorption and spontaneous emission between two levels, induced by a laser, become comparable to or greater than the spontaneous emission and collision rates connecting these levels. This results in the excited state population N(u) acquiring a value of similar magnitude to that of the ground state, N(e). Under these conditions the observed fluorescence signal, which is proportional to N(u), is no longer linearly dependent on laser intensity I, but increases at a slower rate, and in principle ultimately becomes independent of I. A conceptual picture of optical saturation using a two-level picture is described. This is, however, inadequate for the description of a real experiment involving a molecule, such as OH, for several reasons, which will be explained briefly; these are the multi-level nature of the electronic states and energy transfer among them and effects due to spatial, spectral, and temporal fluctuations in the laser pulse.
The concepts and computational tools of theortical chemistry are used to investigate molecular properties needed in direct solar-pumped lasers. Compounds of the type RR'CXY, with R and R' organic groups, and X and Y halide atoms were identified as likely candidates because of their highly enhanced absorption coefficients over compounds with a single halide atom. The use of a combination of vibrational excitation followed by electronic excitation to enhance quantum yields at certain wavelengths is indicated. A self-consistent eikonal approximation to state-to-state transitions was tested for CH3I and is useful for other problems involving electronic energy and charge transfer. An approach to calculate potential energy surfaces and transition dipoles was developed which is based on the generation of eigenstates of the nonrelativisitc Hamiltonian followed by incorporation of the spin-orbit coupling by configuration interaction.
A one-dimensional model of the Venus thermosphere has been constructed which includes computation of the heating efficiency of solar ultraviolet radiation, heat loss by radiation to space of infrared-active species, thermal transport by molecular and eddy conduction, and viscous dissipation. By comparing model predictions with results obtained from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter spacecraft, the results indicate that energy transport parameterized by eddy heat conduction plays a dominant role in determining thermospheric temperature. It is suggested that there exists a feedback mechanism linking heating and thermospheric circulation such that eddy cooling maintains an asymptotic temperature of about 300 K for both solar-maximum and solar-minimum conditions. The variation in thermospheric temperature with solar zenith angle, atomic oxygen-mixing ratio, rate of vibrational excitation of CO2 by ground-state O atoms, and the assumed transfer of O(1D) electronic energy to CO2 vibrational energy are also studied.
The main objectives were to select an advanced low heat rejection diesel reference engine (ADRE) and to carry out systems analysis and design. The ADRE concept selection consisted of: (1) rated point performance optimization; (2) study of various exhaust energy recovery scenarios; (3) components, systems and engine configuration studies; and (4) life cycle cost estimates of the ADRE economic worth. The resulting ADRE design proposed a reciprocator with many advanced features for the 1995 technology demonstration time frame. These included ceramic air gap insulated hot section structural components, high temperature tribology treatments, nonmechanical (camless) valve actuation systems, and elimination of the cylinder head gasket. ADRE system analysis and design resulted in more definition of the engine systems. These systems include: (1) electro-hydraulic valve actuation, (2) electronic common rail injection system; (3) engine electronic control; (4) power transfer for accessory drives and exhaust energy recovery systems; and (5) truck installation. Tribology and performance assessments were also carried out. Finite element and probability of survival analyses were undertaken for the ceramic low heat rejection component.
Proper assessment of the hypothesis which correlates polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with the unidentified infrared emission bands requires additional experimental laboratory data. In order to address this need, thermal infrared emission studies were performed on a subset of PAHs suggested to be of astrophysical importance. It was proposed that infrared emission from interstellar PAHs occurs following absorption of an ultraviolet photon. Since energy transfer to the ground electronic state can be rapid for a species in which intersystem crossing is negligible, the emission spectrum may be viewed as resulting from an equilibrium vibrational temperature (Leger and d'Hendecourt, 1987). This has been the basis for using infrared absorption spectra to calculate the corresponding emission spectra at various temperatures. These calculations were made using room temperature infrared absorption coefficients instead of those at the temperature of interest because of the latter's unavailability. The present studies are designed to address the differences between the calculated and experimental thermal emission spectra and to provide information which will be useful in future ultraviolet induced infrared fluorescence studies. The emission spectra have been obtained for temperatures up to 825K using an emission cell designed to mount against an external port of an FT-IR spectrometer. These spectra provide information concerning relative band intensities and peak positions which is unavailable from previous calculations.
Proposed heat switch transfers heat from source to sink in regular cycles. Self-sustaining; actuated by transferred heat, contains no moving parts, and needs no external heaters or electronic circuitry to synchronize heat-transfer periods or control heat-transfer rates. Intended for use in gas-sorption refrigerator.
Depressed Collector Design The microwave traveling wave tube (TWT) is used widely for space communications and high-power airborne transmitting sources. One of the most important features in designing a TWT is overall efficiency. Yet, overall TWT efficiency is strongly dependent on the efficiency of the electron beam collector, particularly for high values of collector efficiency. For these reasons, the NASA Glenn Research Center developed an optimization algorithm based on simulated annealing to quickly design highly efficient multistage depressed collectors (MDC's). Simulated annealing is a strategy for solving highly nonlinear combinatorial optimization problems. Its major advantage over other methods is its ability to avoid becoming trapped in local minima. Simulated annealing is based on an analogy to statistical thermodynamics, specifically the physical process of annealing: heating a material to a temperature that permits many atomic rearrangements and then cooling it carefully and slowly, until it freezes into a strong, minimum-energy crystalline structure. This minimum energy crystal corresponds to the optimal solution of a mathematical optimization problem. The TWT used as a baseline for optimization was the 32-GHz, 10-W, helical TWT developed for the Cassini mission to Saturn. The method of collector analysis and design used was a 2-1/2-dimensional computational procedure that employs two types of codes, a large signal analysis code and an electron trajectory code. The large signal analysis code produces the spatial, energetic, and temporal distributions of the spent beam entering the MDC. An electron trajectory code uses the resultant data to perform the actual collector analysis. The MDC was optimized for maximum MDC efficiency and minimum final kinetic energy of all collected electrons (to reduce heat transfer). The preceding figure shows the geometric and electrical configuration of an optimized collector with an efficiency of 93.8 percent. The results show the improvement in collector efficiency from 89.7 to 93.8 percent, resulting in an increase of three overall efficiency points. In addition, the time to design a highly efficient MDC was reduced from a month to a few days. All work was done in-house at Glenn for the High Rate Data Delivery Program. Future plans include optimizing the MDC and TWT interaction circuit in tandem to further improve overall TWT efficiency.
This paper describes a study of the effects of unstable magnetosheath distributions on the cusp ionosphere. An end-to-end numerical model was used to study, first, the evolved distributions from precipitation due to reconnection and, secondly, the energy transfer into the high latitude ionosphere based on these solar wind/magnetosheath inputs. Using inputs of several representative examples of magnetosheath injections, waves were generated at the lower hybrid frequency and energy transferred to the ionospheric electrons and ions. The resulting wave spectra and ion and electron particle heating was analyzed. Keywords: Ion heating: Magnetosheath/Ionosphere coupling: Particle/Wave Interactions. Simulations
The further development of a self-consistent theoretical model of interacting ring current ions and electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves [Khazanov et al., 2003] is presented. In order to adequately take into account the wave propagation and refraction in a multi-ion plasmasphere, we explicitly include the ray tracing equations in our previous self-consistent model and use the general form of the wave kinetic equation. This is a major new feature of the present model and, to the best of our knowledge, the ray tracing equations for the first time are explicitly employed on a global magnetospheric scale in order to self-consistently simulate spatial, temporal, and spectral evolutions of the ring current and electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves. To demonstrate the effects of EMIC wave propagation and refraction on the EMIC wave energy distributions and evolution we simulate the May 1998 storm. The main findings of our simulation can be summarized as follows. First, due to the density gradient at the plasmapause, the net wave refraction is suppressed, and He(+)-mode grows preferably at plasmapause. This result is in a total agreement with the previous ray tracing studies, and very clear observed in presented B-field spectrograms. Second, comparison the global wave distributions with the results from other ring current model [Kozyra et al., 1997] reveals that our model provides more intense and higher plasmapause organized distributions during the May, 1998 storm period. Finally, the found He(+)-mode energy distributions are not Gaussian distributions, and most important that wave energy can occupy not only the region of generation, i. e. the region of small wave normal angles, but the entire wave normal angle region and even only the region near 90 degrees. The latter is extremely crucial for energy transfer to thermal plasmaspheric electrons by resonant Landau damping, and subsequent downward heat transport and excitation of stable auroral red arcs.
As the aviation industry moves towards higher efficiency electrical power generation, all electric aircraft, or zero emissions and more quiet aircraft, fuel cells are sought as the technology that can deliver on these high expectations. The Hybrid Solid Oxide Fuel Cell system combines the fuel cell with a microturbine to obtain up to 70 percent cycle efficiency, and then distributes the electrical power to the loads via a power distribution system. The challenge is to understand the dynamics of this complex multi-discipline system, and design distributed controls that take the system through its operating conditions in a stable and safe manner while maintaining the system performance. This particular system is a power generation and distribution system and the fuel cell and microturbine model fidelity should be compatible with the dynamics of the power distribution system in order to allow proper stability and distributed controls design. A novel modeling approach is proposed for the fuel cell that will allow the fuel cell and the power system to be integrated and designed for stability, distributed controls, and other interface specifications. This investigation shows that for the fuel cell, the voltage characteristic should be modeled, but in addition, conservation equation dynamics, ion diffusion, charge transfer kinetics, and the electron flow inherent impedance should also be included.
The further development of a self-consistent theoretical model of interacting ring current ions and electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves (Khazanov et al., 2003) is presented In order to adequately take into account wave propagation and refraction in a multi-ion magnetosphere, we explicitly include the ray tracing equations in our previous self-consistent model and use the general form of the wave kinetic equation. This is a major new feature of the present model and, to the best of our knowledge, the ray tracing equations for the first time are explicitly employed on a global magnetospheric scale in order to self-consistently simulate the spatial, temporal, and spectral evolution of the ring current and of electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves To demonstrate the effects of EMIC wave propagation and refraction on the wave energy distribution and evolution, we simulate the May 1998 storm. The main findings of our simulation can be summarized as follows. First, owing to the density gradient at the plasmapause, the net wave refraction is suppressed, and He+-mode grows preferably at the plasmapause. This result is in total agreement with previous ray tracing studies and is very clearly found in presented B field spectrograms. Second, comparison of global wave distributions with the results from another ring current model (Kozyra et al., 1997) reveals that this new model provides more intense and more highly plasmapause-organized wave distributions during the May 1998 storm period Finally, it is found that He(+)-mode energy distributions are not Gaussian distributions and most important that wave energy can occupy not only the region of generation, i.e., the region of small wave normal angles, but all wave normal angles, including those to near 90 . The latter is extremely crucial for energy transfer to thermal plasmaspheric electrons by resonant Landau damping and subsequent downward heat transport and excitation of stable auroral red arcs.
As the aviation industry moves toward higher efficiency electrical power generation, all electric aircraft, or zero emissions and more quiet aircraft, fuel cells are sought as the technology that can deliver on these high expectations. The hybrid solid oxide fuel cell system combines the fuel cell with a micro-turbine to obtain up to 70% cycle efficiency, and then distributes the electrical power to the loads via a power distribution system. The challenge is to understand the dynamics of this complex multidiscipline system and the design distributed controls that take the system through its operating conditions in a stable and safe manner while maintaining the system performance. This particular system is a power generation and a distribution system, and the fuel cell and micro-turbine model fidelity should be compatible with the dynamics of the power distribution system in order to allow proper stability and distributed controls design. The novelty in this paper is that, first, the case is made why a high fidelity fuel cell mode is needed for systems control and stability designs. Second, a novel modeling approach is proposed for the fuel cell that will allow the fuel cell and the power system to be integrated and designed for stability, distributed controls, and other interface specifications. This investigation shows that for the fuel cell, the voltage characteristic should be modeled but in addition, conservation equation dynamics, ion diffusion, charge transfer kinetics, and the electron flow inherent impedance should also be included.
Techniques for an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using pipeline architecture includes a linearization technique for a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) over 80 deciBels. In some embodiments, sampling rates exceed a megahertz. According to a second approach, a switched-capacitor circuit is configured for correct operation in a high radiation environment. In one embodiment, the combination yields high fidelity ADC (>88 deciBel SFDR) while sampling at 5 megahertz sampling rates and consuming <60 milliWatts. Furthermore, even though it is manufactured in a commercial 0.25-.mu.m CMOS technology (1 .mu.m=12.sup.-6 meters), it maintains this performance in harsh radiation environments. Specifically, the stated performance is sustained through a highest tested 2 megarad(Si) total dose, and the ADC displays no latchup up to a highest tested linear energy transfer of 63 million electron Volts square centimeters per milligram at elevated temperature (131 degrees C.) and supply (2.7 Volts, versus 2.5 Volts nominal).