Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “model order reduction”

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.

At least 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1983

Validation methods for flight crucial systems

Research to develop techniques that can aid in determining the reliability and performance of digital electronic fault-tolerant systems, that have probability of catastrophic system failure on the order of 10 to the -9th at 10 hours, is reviewed. The computer-aided reliability estimation program (CARE III) provides general-purpose reliability analysis and a design tool for fault-tolerant systems; large reduction of state size; and a fault-handling model based on probabilistic description of detection, isolation, and recovery mechanisms. The application of design proof techniques as part of the design and development of the software implemented fault-tolerance computer is mentioned. Emulation techniques and experimental procedures are verified using specimens of fault-tolerant computers and the capabilities of the validation research laboratory, AIRLAB.

Holt, H. M.↗
NASA NTRS1988

A computational strategy for making complicated structural problems simple

An effective computational strategy is presented for the analysis of large and complex structures. The strategy is based on generating the response of the complex structure using large perturbations from that of a lower-order (simpler) model associated with a simpler structure (or a simpler mathematical/discrete model of the original structure). The three key elements of the strategy are: (a) mixed (or primitive variable) formulation with the fundamental unknowns consisting of generalized displacements and stress parameters; (2) operator splitting, or a reduction method to relate the arrays and degrees of freedom of the original complex structure ot those of the simpler system; and (3) efficient iterative process for the generation of the response of the complex structure starting from that of the simpler system. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is demonstrated by means of two numerical examples.

Noor, Ahmed K.↗
NASA NTRS1992

An investigation into the causes of stratospheric ozone loss in the southern Australasian region

Measurements of total ozone at Macquarie Island (55 deg S, 159 deg E) reveal statistically significant reductions of approximately twelve percent during July to September when comparing the mean levels for 1987-90 with those in the seventies. In order to investigate the possibility that these ozone changes may not be a result of dynamic variability of the stratosphere, a simple linear model of ozone was created from statistical analysis of tropopause height and isentropic transient eddy heat flux, which were assumed representative of the dominant dynamic influences. Comparison of measured and modeled ozone indicates that the recent downward trend in ozone at Macquarie Island is not related to stratospheric dynamic variability and therefore suggests another mechanism, possibly changes in photochemical destruction of ozone.

Lehmann, P.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Microphysical, Macrophysical and Radiative Signatures of Volcanic Aerosols in Trade Wind Cumulus Observed by the A-Train

Increased aerosol concentrations can raise planetary albedo not only by reflecting sunlight and increasing cloud albedo, but also by changing cloud amount. However, detecting aerosol effect on cloud amount has been elusive to both observations and modeling due to potential buffering mechanisms and convolution of meteorology. Here through a natural experiment provided by long-tem1 degassing of a low-lying volcano and use of A-Train satellite observations, we show modifications of trade cumulus cloud fields including decreased droplet size, decreased precipitation efficiency and increased cloud amount are associated with volcanic aerosols. In addition we find significantly higher cloud tops for polluted clouds. We demonstrate that the observed microphysical and macrophysical changes cannot be explained by synoptic meteorology or the orographic effect of the Hawaiian Islands. The "total shortwave aerosol forcin", resulting from direct and indirect forcings including both cloud albedo and cloud amount. is almost an order of magnitude higher than aerosol direct forcing alone. Furthermore, the precipitation reduction associated with enhanced aerosol leads to large changes in the energetics of air-sea exchange and trade wind boundary layer. Our results represent the first observational evidence of large-scale increase of cloud amount due to aerosols in a trade cumulus regime, which can be used to constrain the representation of aerosol-cloud interactions in climate models. The findings also have implications for volcano-climate interactions and climate mitigation research.

Yuan, T.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Application of CFD to aerothermal heating problems

Numerical solutions of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations by an alternating direction implicit scheme, applied to two experimental investigations are presented. The first is cooling by injection of a gas jet through the nose of an ogive-cone, and the second is the aerothermal environment in the gap formed by the wing and elevon section of a test model of the space shuttle. The simulations demonstrate that accurate pressure calculations are easily obtained on a coarse grid, while convergence is obtained after the residual reduces by four orders of magnitude. Accurate heating rates, however, require a fine grid solution, with convergence requiring at least a reduction of six orders of magnitude in the residual. The effect of artificial dissipation on numerical results is also assessed.

Macaraeg, M. G.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Application of CFD to aerothermal heating problems

Numerical solutions of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations by an Alternating Direction Implicit scheme, applied to two experimental investigations at NASA Langley Research Center are presented. The first is cooling by injection of a gas jet through the nose of an ogive-cone, and the second is the aerothermal environment in the gap formed by the wing and elevon section of a test model of the Space Shuttle. The simulations demonstrate that accurate pressure calculations are easily obtained on a coarse grid, witih convergence being obtained after the residual reduces by four orders of magnitude. However, accurate heating rates require a fine grid solution, with convergence requiring at least a reduction of six orders of magnitude in the residual. The effect of artificial dissipation on numerical results is also assessed.

Macaraeg, M. G.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Hot, diamagnetic cavities upstream from the earth's bow shock

On eight occasions the ISEE 1 and 2 spacecraft registered peculiar plasma structures upstream of the earth's bow shock. The events exhibit a temporary, strong reduction in the magnitude of the magnetic field and strong enhancements of the field strength bordering the reduction zone. The low field strength regions featured temperatures from 1-10 million k and pressure an order of magnitude greater than the solar wind. The pressure gradients exceeded the magnetic tension around the structures, although the field of the cavities may be a closed structure. A model is proposed of hot, expanding diamagnetic plasma cavities with scales on the order of a few earth radii. Speculations on the interaction and origin or impetus for the cavities within the bow shock, foreshock, the magnetosphere and the solar wind are discussed. Similarities between the phenomena detected and signatures obtained with the AMPTE releases of chemicals in the solar wind are noted.

Thomsen, M. F.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Finite-dimensional approximation for optimal fixed-order compensation of distributed parameter systems

In controlling distributed parameter systems it is often desirable to obtain low-order, finite-dimensional controllers in order to minimize real-time computational requirements. Standard approaches to this problem employ model/controller reduction techniques in conjunction with LQG theory. In this paper we consider the finite-dimensional approximation of the infinite-dimensional Bernstein/Hyland optimal projection theory. This approach yields fixed-finite-order controllers which are optimal with respect to high-order, approximating, finite-dimensional plant models. The technique is illustrated by computing a sequence of first-order controllers for one-dimensional, single-input/single-output, parabolic (heat/diffusion) and hereditary systems using spline-based, Ritz-Galerkin, finite element approximation. Numerical studies indicate convergence of the feedback gains with less than 2 percent performance degradation over full-order LQG controllers for the parabolic system and 10 percent degradation for the hereditary system.

Bernstein, Dennis S.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Measurements of Turbulence Attenuation by a Dilute Dispersion of Solid Particles in Homogeneous Isotropic Turbulence

This research addresses turbulent gas flows laden with fine solid particles at sufficiently large mass loading that strong two-way coupling occurs. By two-way coupling we mean that the particle motion is governed largely by the flow, while the particles affect the gas-phase mean flow and the turbulence properties. Our main interest is in understanding how the particles affect the turbulence. Computational techniques have been developed which can accurately predict flows carrying particles that are much smaller than the smallest scales of turbulence. Also, advanced computational techniques and burgeoning computer resources make it feasible to fully resolve very large particles moving through turbulent flows. However, flows with particle diameters of the same order as the Kolmogorov scale of the turbulence are notoriously difficult to predict. Some simple flows show strong turbulence attenuation with reductions in the turbulent kinetic energy by up to a factor of five. On the other hand, some seemingly similar flows show almost no modification. No model has been proposed that allows prediction of when the strong attenuation will occur. Unfortunately, many technological and natural two-phase flows fall into this regime, so there is a strong need for new physical understanding and modeling capability. Our objective is to study the simplest possible turbulent particle-laden flow, namely homogeneous, isotropic turbulence with a uniform dispersion of monodisperse particles. We chose such a simple flow for two reasons. First, the simplicity allows us to probe the interaction in more detail and offers analytical simplicity in interpreting the results. Secondly, this flow can be addressed by numerical simulation, and many research groups are already working on calculating the flow. Our detailed data can help guide some of these efforts. By using microgravity, we can further simplify the flow to the case of no mean velocity for either the turbulence or the particles. In fact the addition of gravity as a variable parameter may help us to better understand the physics of turbulence attenuation. The experiments are conducted in a turbulence chamber capable of producing stationary or decaying isotropic turbulence with nearly zero mean flow and Taylor microscale Reynolds numbers up to nearly 500. The chamber is a 410 mm cubic box with the corners cut off to make it approximately spherical. Synthetic jet turbulence generators are mounted in each of the eight corners of the box. Each generator consists of a loudspeaker forcing a plenum and producing a pulsed jet through a 20 mm diameter orifice. These synthetic jets are directed into ejector tubes pointing towards the chamber center. The ejector tubes increase the jet mass flow and decrease the velocity. The jets then pass through a turbulence grid. Each of the eight loudspeakers is forced with a random phase and frequency. The resulting turbulence is highly Isotropic and matches typical behavior of grid turbulence. Measurements of both phases are acquired using particle image velocimetry (PIV). The gas is seeded with approximately 1 micron diameter seeding particles while the solid phase is typically 150 micron diameter spherical glass particles. A double-pulsed YAG laser and a Kodak ES-1.0 10-bit PIV camera provide the PIV images. Custom software is used to separate the images into individual images containing either gas-phase tracers or large particles. Modern high-resolution PIV algorithms are then used to calculate the velocity field. A large set of image pairs are acquired for each case, then the results are averaged both spatially and over the ensemble of acquired images. The entire apparatus is mounted in two racks which are carried aboard NASA's KC-135 Flying Microgravity Laboratory. The rack containing the turbulence chamber, the laser head, and the camera floats freely in the airplane cabin (constrained by competent NASA personnel) to minimize g-jitter.

Eaton, John↗
NASA NTRS1985

Interactive software for spectral assignment

A new interactive computer software package for eigenvalue/eigenvector assignment using constant state feedback is described. The package consists of ten subprograms, each associated with a specific design objective, accessible from a main control program. Using this package, primary design objectives of assigning eigenvalues and approximating eigenvectors are first achieved. Then secondary design objectives, including modification of specific eigenvector components, reduction in specified elements of the feedback gain matrix, and reduction in eigensystem sensitivity to changes in plant parameters, are addressed. These secondary objectives are achieved by a systematic modification of the assigned eigenvectors in a small region about the initial assignment. In addition, the program implements the use of spectral assignment procedures with reduced-order system models. Program modes are described and illustrated by numerical examples.

Mielke, R. R.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Reliability-based failure analysis of brittle materials

The reliability of brittle materials under a generalized state of stress is analyzed using the Batdorf model. The model is modified to include the reduction in shear due to the effect of the compressive stress on the microscopic crack faces. The combined effect of both surface and volume flaws is included. Due to the nature of fracture of brittle materials under compressive loading, the component is modeled as a series system in order to establish bounds on the probability of failure. A computer program was written to determine the probability of failure employing data from a finite element analysis. The analysis showed that for tensile loading a single crack will be the cause of total failure but under compressive loading a series of microscopic cracks must join together to form a dominant crack.

Powers, Lynn M.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Computational Study of NASA's Quadrotor Urban Air Taxi Concept

High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations have been carried out in order to analyze NASA's quadrotor urban air taxi concept for urban air mobility, also know as on-demand mobility applications. High-order accurate schemes, dual-time stepping, and the delayed detached-eddy simulation model have been employed. The ow solver has been loosely coupled with a rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code. The vehicle simulated is a six-passenger quadrotor for air taxi operations. A study of power reduction as a function of the rear-rotor to front-rotors vertical separation has been performed, for a quad-rotor without the airframe, in cruise flight conditions. Then, the quadrotor without the airframe has been simulated in hover. The airloads and wake geometries are analyzed. To finish the study the complete quadrotor vehicle is presented. NASA's quadrotor air taxi concept is one of the many concepts being developed by NASA in support of aircraft development for vertical take-o and landing air taxi operations.

Ventura Diaz, Patricia↗
NASA NTRS2020

Nonbinary Systems: Looking Towards the Future of Gender Equity in Planetary Science

Gender equity remains a major issue facing the field of planetary science, and there is broad interest in addressing gender disparities within space science and related disciplines. Many studies of these topics have been performed by professional planetary scientists who are relatively unfamiliar with research in fields such as gender studies and sociology. As a result, they adopt a normative view of gender as a binary choice of ‘male’ or ‘female,’ leaving planetary scientists whose genders do not fit within that model out of such research entirely. Reductive frameworks of gender and an overemphasis on quantification as an indicator of gendered phenomena are harmful to people of marginalized genders, especially those who live at the intersections of multiple axes of marginalization such as race, disability, and socioeconomic status. In order for the planetary science community to best serve its marginalized members as we move into the next decade, a new paradigm must be established. This paper aims to address the future of gender equity in planetary science by recommending better survey practices and institutional policies based on a more profound approach to gender.

Beck E Strauss↗
NASA NTRS1980

Geophysical and astronomical models applied in the analysis of very long baseline interferometry

Very long baseline interferometry presents an opportunity to measure at the centimeter level such geodetic parameters as baseline length and instantaneous pole position. In order to achieve such precision, the geophysical and astronomical models used in data analysis must be as accurate as possible. The Mark-3 interactive data analysis system includes a number of refinements beyond conventional practice in modeling precession, nutation, diurnal polar motion, UT1, solid Earth tides, relativistic light deflection, and reduction to solar system barycentric coordinates. The algorithms and their effects on the recovered geodetic, geophysical, and astrometric parameters are discussed.

Ma, C.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Energy Transfer in Rotating Turbulence

The influence or rotation on the spectral energy transfer of homogeneous turbulence is investigated in this paper. Given the fact that linear dynamics, e.g. the inertial waves regime tackled in an RDT (Rapid Distortion Theory) fashion, cannot Affect st homogeneous isotropic turbulent flow, the study of nonlinear dynamics is of prime importance in the case of rotating flows. Previous theoretical (including both weakly nonlinear and EDQNM theories), experimental and DNS (Direct Numerical Simulation) results are gathered here and compared in order to give a self-consistent picture of the nonlinear effects of rotation on tile turbulence. The inhibition of the energy cascade, which is linked to a reduction of the dissipation rate, is shown to be related to a damping due to rotation of the energy transfer. A model for this effect is quantified by a model equation for the derivative-skewness factor, which only involves a micro-Rossby number Ro(sup omega) = omega'/(2(OMEGA))-ratio of rms vorticity and background vorticity as the relevant rotation parameter, in accordance with DNS and EDQNM results fit addition, anisotropy is shown also to develop through nonlinear interactions modified by rotation, in an intermediate range of Rossby numbers (Ro(omega) = (omega)' and Ro(omega)w greater than 1), which is characterized by a marco-Rossby number Ro(sup L) less than 1 and Ro(omega) greater than 1 which is characterized by a macro-Rossby number based on an integral lengthscale L and the micro-Rossby number previously defined. This anisotropy is mainly an angular drain of spectral energy which tends to concentrate energy in tile wave-plane normal to the rotation axis, which is exactly both the slow and the two-dimensional manifold. In Addition, a polarization of the energy distribution in this slow 2D manifold enhances horizontal (normal to the rotation axis) velocity components, and underlies the anisotropic structure of the integral lengthscales. Finally is demonstrated the ability of a generalized EDQNM (Eddy Damped Quasi-Normal Markovian) model to predict the underlying spectral transfer structure and all the subsequent developments of classic anisotropy indicators in physical space, when compared to recent LES results. Even if the applications mainly concern developed strong turbulence, a particular emphasis is given to the strong formal analogy of this EDQNM2 model with recent weakly nonlinear approaches to wave-turbulence.

Cambon, Claude↗
NASA NTRS1976

Interior structure of Jupiter - Theory of gravity sounding

Using relatively simple interior models and a fourth-order theory of figures, it is found that there are basically two extremes of interior structure which agree with current gravity data. One extreme is a 'solar'-composition envelope with 10 to 15 earth masses of heavy material in a core; the other extreme has nearly uniform 'solar' composition but with approximately an additional 30 earth masses of heavy material distributed essentially uniformly. Thus, Jupiter is not of 'solar' composition. It is shown how additional gravity data and improvement in knowledge of the molecular hydrogen equation of state will permit a significant reduction in the number of possible models.

Hubbard, W. B.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Airframe noise measurements by acoustic imaging

Studies of the noise produced by flow past wind tunnel models are presented. The central objective of these is to find the specific locations within a flow which are noisy, and to identify the fluid dynamic processes responsible, with the expectation that noise reduction principles will be discovered. The models tested are mostly simple shapes which result in types of flow that are similar to those occurring on, for example, aircraft landing gear and wheel cavities. A model landing gear and a flap were also tested. Turbulence has been intentionally induced as appropriate in order to simulate full-scale effects more closely. The principal technique involves use of a highly directional microphone system which is scanned about the flow field to be analyzed. The data so acquired are presented as a pictorial image of the noise source distribution. An important finding is that the noise production is highly variable within a flow field and that sources can be attributed to various fluid dynamic features of the flow. Flow separation was not noisy, but separation closure usually was.

Kendall, J. M.↗
NASA NTRS1983

The first dedicated life sciences mission - Spacelab 4

The details of the payload and the experiments in Spacelab 4, the first Spacelab mission dedicated entirely to the life sciences, are discussed. The payload of Spacelab 4, carried in the bay of the Shuttle Orbiter, consists of 25 tentatively selected investigations combined into a comprehensive integrated exploration of the effects of acute weightlessness on living systems. The payload contains complementary designs in the human and animal investigations in order to validate animal models of human physiology in weightlessness. Animals used as experimental subjects will include squirrel monkeys, laboratory rats, several species of plants, and frog eggs. The main scientific objectives of the investigations include the study of the acute cephalic fluid shift, cardiovascular adaptation to weightlessness, including postflight reductions in orthostatic tolerance and exercise capacity, and changes in vestibular function, including space motion sickness, associated with weightlessness. Other scientific objective include the study of red cell mass reduction, negative nitrogen balance, altered calcium metabolism, suppressed in vitro lymphocyte reactivity, gravitropism and photropism in plants, and fertilization and early development in frog eggs.

Cramer, D. R.↗