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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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At least 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1975

Phenomenological treatments of cross-sections for proton and hydrogen impact below 1 keV on molecular nitrogen

An analytic independent-particle model is used to construct static potentials to describe the interaction of hydrogen-like ions with atoms and molecules. Parameters of the ion-atom potential are determined from ab initio total energy minimization procedure. The elastic scattering of He(+) from Ne and Ar is investigated as a test case and comparison is made with experiment. The model is then used in conjunction with low energy H(+)-N2 experimental data to construct differential and total cross-sections for the scattering of protons and hydrogen in the energy range of 10 eV to 1 keV from molecular nitrogen. Analytic forms are used to parametrize these cross-sections to facilitate their use in the calculation of energy deposition by protons and hydrogen atoms in atmospheric gases.

Porter, H. S.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Time variation of galactic cosmic rays

Time variations in the flux of galactic cosmic rays are the result of changing conditions in the solar wind. Maximum cosmic ray fluxes, which occur when solar activity is at a minimum, are well defined. Reductions from this maximum level are typically systematic and predictable but on occasion are rapid and unexpected. Models relating the flux level at lower energy to that at neutron monitor energy are typically accurate to 20 percent of the total excursion at that energy. Other models, relating flux to observables such as sunspot number, flare frequency, and current sheet tilt are phenomenological but nevertheless can be quite accurate.

Evenson, Paul↗
NASA NTRS2011

Three-Fluid Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling of the Solar Wind in the Outer Heliosphere

We have developed a three-fluid, fully three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic model of the solar wind plasma in the outer heliosphere as a co-moving system of solar wind protons, electrons, and interstellar pickup protons, with separate energy equations for each species. Our approach takes into account the effects of electron heat conduction and dissipation of Alfvenic turbulence on the spatial evolution of the solar wind plasma and interplanetary magnetic fields. The turbulence transport model is based on the Reynolds decomposition of physical variables into mean and fluctuating components and uses the turbulent phenomenologies that describe the conversion of fluctuation energy into heat due to a turbulent cascade. We solve the coupled set of the three-fluid equations for the mean-field solar wind and the turbulence equations for the turbulence energy, cross helicity, and correlation length. The equations are written in the rotating frame of reference and include heating by turbulent dissipation, energy transfer from interstellar pickup protons to solar wind protons, and solar wind deceleration due to the interaction with the interstellar hydrogen. The numerical solution is constructed by the time relaxation method in the region from 0.3 to 100 AU. Initial results from the novel model are presented.

Usmanov, Arcadi V.↗
NASA NTRS2001

General Multimechanism Reversible-Irreversible Time-Dependent Constitutive Deformation Model Being Developed

Since most advanced material systems (for example metallic-, polymer-, and ceramic-based systems) being currently researched and evaluated are for high-temperature airframe and propulsion system applications, the required constitutive models must account for both reversible and irreversible time-dependent deformations. Furthermore, since an integral part of continuum-based computational methodologies (be they microscale- or macroscale-based) is an accurate and computationally efficient constitutive model to describe the deformation behavior of the materials of interest, extensive research efforts have been made over the years on the phenomenological representations of constitutive material behavior in the inelastic analysis of structures. From a more recent and comprehensive perspective, the NASA Glenn Research Center in conjunction with the University of Akron has emphasized concurrently addressing three important and related areas: that is, 1) Mathematical formulation; 2) Algorithmic developments for updating (integrating) the external (e.g., stress) and internal state variables; 3) Parameter estimation for characterizing the model. This concurrent perspective to constitutive modeling has enabled the overcoming of the two major obstacles to fully utilizing these sophisticated time-dependent (hereditary) constitutive models in practical engineering analysis. These obstacles are: 1) Lack of efficient and robust integration algorithms; 2) Difficulties associated with characterizing the large number of required material parameters, particularly when many of these parameters lack obvious or direct physical interpretations.

Saleeb, A. F.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Analysis of the hadron component in E.A.S.

Hadrons in extensive air showers (E.A.S.) provide direct information about high energy interactions. As a rule the biases pertaining to different shower array arrangements have a relative large influence for the basic phenomenological characteristics of the E.A.S. hadron component. In this situation, the problem of the correct comparison between model calculated and experimental characteristics is of great importance for the reliability of the derived conclusions about the high energy interaction characteristics.

Procureur, J.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Cosmic Ray Telescope Experiment (CRT), Pioneer 10/11 Program

In May 1996 the electrical power on Pioneer 10 was no longer adequate to support the Cosmic Ray Telescope Experiment (CRT). In March 1997 ground based operations for the mission were terminated. The 25 years of Pioneer 10 were a remarkable voyage of discovery as it ventured into a vast new unexplored region of space. These observations by the Pioneer experiments led in the development of a new discipline of space science - heliospheric physics. For cosmic ray studies it was an incredible era, leading to the identification of new energetic particle populations and processes and initiating the study of the dynamics and large-scale structure and began the study of the dynamics and large-scale structure of the outer heliosphere. A summary of some of the principal scientific findings of the CRT experiment over this period is given in the next section. Even with the cessation of data from the Pioneer 10/11 mission there remained a great deal of scientific analysis and data archiving that required on the order of an additional three years of effort on the part of the CRT team. We have tried to select those tasks where the P10/11 CRT data have an important role to play. Special emphasis is placed on long-term synoptic studies that make use of the extended temporal and spatial coverage of the missions and the full capabilities of the CRT experiment. The major scientific objectives of this study are: (1) A phenomenological study of the modulation process in the heliosphere, thereby laying the foundation for developing a unified model of cosmic ray modulation over a complete 22 year heliomagnetic cycle; (2) These modulation studies and the temporal changes in the cosmic ray intensities also provide information on the large-scale structure and dynamics of the outer heliosphere; (3) use the galactic and anomalous cosmic ray data from Pioneer 10 to obtain a more accurate estimate of the distance to the modulation boundary and to the termination shock; (4) Use the results from (2) and from temporal variations to determine whether significant modulation occurs in the region of the heliosphere; (5)study the acceleration and transport of low energy solar interplanetary energetic particles and their relation to solar activity and interplanetary phenomena.

McDonald, Frank B.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Focused interplanetary transport of approximately 1 MeV solar energetic protons through self-generated Alfven waves

We present a model of the focused transport of approximately 1 MeV solar energetic protons through interplanetary Alfven waves that the protons themselves amplify or damp. It is based on the quasi-linear theory but with a phenomenological pitch angle diffusion coefficient in the 'resonance gap.' For initial Alfven wave distributions that give mean free paths greater than approximately 0.5 AU for approximately 1 MeV protons in the inner heliosphere, the model predicts greater than roughly an order of magnitude amplification (damping) in the outward (inward) propagating resonant Alfven waves at less than or approximately equal to o.3 AU heliocentric distance. As the strength of proton source is increased, the peak differential proton intensity at approximately 1 MeV at 1 AU increases to a maximum of approximately 250 particles (/(sq cm)(s)(sr)(MeV)) and then decreases slowly. It may be attenuated by a factor of 5 or more relative to the case without wave evolution, provided that the proton source is sufficiently intense that the resulting peak differential intensity of approximately 1 MeV protons at 1 AU exceeds approximately 200 particles (/(sq cm)(s)(sr)(MeV)). Therefore, in large solar proton events, (1) one may have to take into account self-amplified waves in studying solar particle propagation, (2) the number of accelerated protons escaping from a flare or interplanetary shock may have been underestimated in past studies by a significant factor, and (3) accelerated protons escaping from a traveling interplanetary shock at r less than or approximately equal to 0.3 AU should amplify the ambient hydromagnetic waves siginificantly to make the shock an efficient accelerator, even if initially the mean free path is greater than or approximately equal to 1 AU.

Ng, C. K.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Development of a CFD code for casting simulation

Because of high rejection rates for large structural castings (e.g., the Space Shuttle Main Engine Alternate Turbopump Design Program), a reliable casting simulation computer code is very desirable. This code would reduce both the development time and life cycle costs by allowing accurate modeling of the entire casting process. While this code could be used for other types of castings, the most significant reductions of time and cost would probably be realized in complex investment castings, where any reduction in the number of development castings would be of significant benefit. The casting process is conveniently divided into three distinct phases: (1) mold filling, where the melt is poured or forced into the mold cavity; (2) solidification, where the melt undergoes a phase change to the solid state; and (3) cool down, where the solidified part continues to cool to ambient conditions. While these phases may appear to be separate and distinct, temporal overlaps do exist between phases (e.g., local solidification occurring during mold filling), and some phenomenological events are affected by others (e.g., residual stresses depend on solidification and cooling rates). Therefore, a reliable code must accurately model all three phases and the interactions between each. While many codes have been developed (to various stages of complexity) to model the solidification and cool down phases, only a few codes have been developed to model mold filling.

Murph, Jesse E.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Phenomenology of non-Alfvenic turbulence in a uniformly expanding medium

Transport and decay of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in a weakly inhomogeneous uniformly expanding medium involves a fairly complex formalism, even for the case where no spectral information is required. Here we argue that the phenomenology for decay simplifies greatly if: (1) the cross helicity (Alfvenicity) is small, (2) the dynamical influence of the large scale magnetic field is negligible either because of spectral anisotropy or because the expansion speed is much greater than the corresponding Alfven speed, and (3) the ratio of kinetic energy to magnetic energy for the fluctuations is either unity or some other constant. These conditions are acceptable as an approximation to solar wind turbulence in the outer heliosphere. In these circumstances a reasonable MHD energy-containing phenomenology is essentially that of locally homogeneous Kolmogoroff turbulence in a uniformly expanding medium. Analytical solutions for this model are presented for both undriven and driven cases.

Matthaeus, W. H.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Phenomenology of soft hadron interactions and the relevant EAS data

The interpretation of the experimental data in superhigh energy cosmic rays requires the calculations using various models of elementary hadron interaction. One should prefer the models justified by accelerator data and giving definite predictions for superhigh energies. The model of quark-gluon pomeron strings (the QGPS models) satisfies this requirement.

Kalmykov, N. N.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Catastrophic event modeling

A mathematical model for the catastrophic failures (venting or explosion of the cell) in lithium thionyl chloride batteries is presented. The phenomenology of the various processes leading to cell failure is reviewed.

Frank, H. A.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Comments to Irreversibility in Thermodynamics

The problem of irreversibility in thermodynamics was revisited and analyzed on the microscopic, stochastic, and macroscopic levels of description. It was demonstrated that Newtonian dynamics can be represented in the Reynolds form, a new phenomenological force with non-Lipschitz properties was introduced, and additional non- Lipschitz thermodynamical forces were incorporated into macroscopic models of transport phenomena.

thermodynamics irreversibility↗
NASA NTRS2007

The Empirical Low Energy Ion Flux Model for the Terrestrial Magnetosphere

This document includes a viewgraph presentation plus the full paper presented at the conference. The Living With a Star Ion Flux Model (IFM) is a radiation environment risk mitigation tool that provides magnetospheric ion flux values for varying geomagnetic disturbance levels in the geospace environment. IFM incorporates flux observations from the Polar and Geotail spacecraft in a single statistical flux model. IFM is an engineering environment model which predicts the proton flux not only in the magnetosphere, but also in the solar wind and magnetosheath phenomenological regions. This paper describes the ion flux databases that allows for IFM output to be correlated with the geomagnetic activity level, as represented by the Kp index.

Blackwell, William C.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Charged Particle Environment Definition for NGST: Model Development

NGST will operate in a halo orbit about the L2 point, 1.5 million km from the Earth, where the spacecraft will periodically travel through the magnetotail region. There are a number of tools available to calculate the high energy, ionizing radiation particle environment from galactic cosmic rays and from solar disturbances. However, space environment tools are not generally available to provide assessments of charged particle environment and its variations in the solar wind, magnetosheath, and magnetotail at L2 distances. An engineering-level phenomenology code (LRAD) was therefore developed to facilitate the definition of charged particle environments in the vicinity of the L2 point in support of the NGST program. LRAD contains models tied to satellite measurement data of the solar wind and magnetotail regions. The model provides particle flux and fluence calculations necessary to predict spacecraft charging conditions and the degradation of materials used in the construction of NGST. This paper describes the LRAD environment models for the deep magnetotail (XGSE < -100 Re) and solar wind, and presents predictions of the charged particle environment for NGST.

Blackwell, William C.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Seasonal-scale Observational Data Analysis and Atmospheric Phenomenology for the Cold Land Processes Experiment

The Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX) experiment emphasized the development of a strong synergism between process-oriented understanding, land surface models and microwave remote sensing. Our work sought to investigate which topographically- generated atmospheric phenomena are most relevant to the CLPX MSA's for the purpose of evaluating their climatic importance to net local moisture fluxes and snow transport through the use of high-resolution data assimilation/atmospheric numerical modeling techniques. Our task was to create three long-term, scientific quality atmospheric datasets for quantitative analysis (for all CLPX researchers) and provide a summary of the meteorologically-relevant phenomena of the three MSAs (see Figure) over northern Colorado. Our efforts required the ingest of a variety of CLPX datasets and the execution an atmospheric and land surface data assimilation system based on the Navier-Stokes equations (the Local Analysis and Prediction System, LAPS, and an atmospheric numerical weather prediction model, as required) at topographically- relevant grid spacing (approx. 500 m). The resulting dataset will be analyzed by the CLPX community as a part of their larger research goals to determine the relative influence of various atmospheric phenomena on processes relevant to CLPX scientific goals.

Poulos, Gregory S.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Physics of the Jovian magnetosphere

Jupiter's magnetic field and magnetosphere are considered along with the ionosphere, the low-energy plasma in the Jovian magnetosphere, the low-energy particle population, high-energy particles, and spectrophotometric studies of the Io torus. Other topics explored are related to the phenomenology of magnetospheric radio emissions, plasma waves in the Jovian magnetosphere, theories of radio emissions and plasma waves, and magnetospheric models. Attention is also given to aspects of plasma distribution and flow, microscopic plasma processes in the Jovian magnetosphere, symbols and acronyms, coordinate systems, and selected physical parameters of Jupiter and Io.

Dessler, A. J.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Extension of a noninteractive reliability model for ceramic matrix composites

Developments in the processing of high temperature ceramic composites demand innovative and progressive design protocols that adequately predict the thermal and mechanical behavior of these materials. The focus here is the extension of a reliability model for orthotropic ceramic composites. The approach chosen to describe failures leads to a noninteractive formulation of reliability that is phenomenological. This particular criterion, which was constructed using tensorial invariant theory, allows six potential failure modes to emerge.

Duffy, Stephen F.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Dust formation around M-type stars

IRAS LRS spectra of M Mira variable have shown variation in the appearance of the 9.7 micron silicate feature, which is correlated with the shape of light curve. The LRS spectra of 100 Mira variables have been studied using simple dust shell models containing mixtures of silicate and aluminum oxide dust grains. It has been shown that the aluminum oxide grains account for the observed broad feature around 12 microns and that the variation of the spectra can be interpreted in terms of the variation of the temperature at the inner boundary of silicate dust shell. It has been proposed that silicate mantle growth on aluminum oxide grains is a possible explanation for the results. In this report, the model spectra are calculated taking account of silicate mantle growth, and the physical parameters which may determine the appearance of the 9.7 micron feature in M Mira variables are investigated. In the model calculation it is assumed that aluminum oxide grains are already formed at the bottom of the circumstellar envelope because of their high condensation temperature. The growth of silicate mantle and the motion of gas and grains from r=r(sub 0), where the mantle growth starts, are investigated. Sticking and sputtering processes due to the relative motion of grain to the ambient gas are taken into account. The thermal velocity is assumed to be negligible to the drift velocity. Acceleration by radiation pressure is considered in the gas motion equation. The formal solution is integrated to obtain the emergent spectra. Physical conditions inside r(sub 0) are regarded as boundary conditions. Observed spectra are compared to model spectra to investigate the conditions at the bottom of circumstellar envelope. In modeling the envelope, a parameter C(sub l) is introduced to take account of the density fluctuation of the envelope phenomenologically.

Onaka, Takashi↗