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At least 397 records · Page 22

Program in acoustics

Relevant research projects conducted by faculty and graduate students in the general area of aeroacoustics to further the understanding of noise generation by aircraft and to aid in the development of practical methods for noise suppression are listed. Special activities summarized relate to the nonlinear acoustic wave theory and its application to several cases including that of the acoustic source located at the throat of a near-sonic duct, a computer program developed to compute the nonlinear wave theory, and a parabolic approximation for propagation of sounding in moving stratified media.

Source record↗

Concepts for reducing exhaust emissions and fuel consumption of the aircraft piston engine

A study was made to reduce exhaust emissions and fuel consumption of a general aviation aircraft piston engine by applying known technology. Fourteen promising concepts such as stratified charge combustion chambers, cooling cylinder head improvements, and ignition system changes were evaluated for emission reduction and cost effectiveness. A combination of three concepts, improved fuel injection system, improved cylinder head with exhaust port liners and exhaust air injection was projected as the most cost effective and safe means of meeting the EPA standards for CO, HC and NO. The fuel economy improvement of 4.6% over a typical single engine aircraft flight profile does not though justify the added cost of the three concepts, and significant reductions in fuel consumption must be applied to the cruise mode where most of the fuel is used. The use of exhaust air injection in combination with exhaust port liners reduces exhaust valve stem temperatures which can result in longer valve guide life. The use of exhaust port liners alone can reduce engine cooling air requirements by 11% which is the equivalent of a 1.5% increase in propulsive power. The EPA standards for CO, HC and NO can be met in the IO-520 engine using air injection alone or the Simmonds improved fuel injection system.

Rezy, B. J.↗

Origin of longitudinal grooving in Tiu Vallis, Mars - Isolation of responsible fluid-types

Fluid instability analysis developed for the growth or decay of large, longitudinal roller vortex perturbations imposed at the base of fluids of exponentially stratified viscosities is presented. The origin of longitudinal grooving and fluting in a region of converging flow in Tiu Vallis, Mars, is analyzed, and the propensity of fluids, such as water, mudflow/debris flow, and lava, to develop longitudinal roll patterns as part of their flow field is tested. It is found that the grooving pattern in Tiu Vallis was probably formed by vortex motion in a mudflow or debris-laden slurry, but exact representation of sediment/debris concentration or sediment transport machanism is not yet possible. It is concluded that longitudinal vortex motion modelled in this analysis can develop in water, lava, or ice, but that the specific flow characteristics of these models which include the vortex motion are unreasonable for flow in Tiu Vallis.

Thompson, D. E.↗

Signature extension methods in crop area estimation

The Procedure B multispectral processing system is both multisegment and multistratum. It uses data from several LACIE-sized segments together and makes a proportion estimate for the entire group of segments as well as for the individual segments. In the clustering of data features, Procedure B produces multiple classes or strata rather than just two strata (as in Procedure 1), and performs stratified sampling on each of these mutliple strata in order to make a proportion estimate. Tests results for the components and for the overall performance of Procedure B are presented, and conclusions that can be drawn from these tests are discussed. The rationale for signature extension for crop area estimation is summarized.

Kauth, R. J.↗

Advanced rotary engine studies

A review of rotary engine developments relevant to a stratified charge rotary aircraft engine is presented. Advantages in module size and weight, fuel efficiency, reliability, and multi-fuel capability are discussed along with developments in turbocharging, increased mean effective pressure, improved apex seal/trochoid wear surfacing materials, and high strength and temperature aluminum casting alloys. A carbureted prototype aircraft engine is also described.

Jones, C.↗

A radiative transfer model for remote sensing of laser induced fluorescence of phytoplankton in non-homogeneous turbid water

A radiative transfer computer model was developed to characterize the total flux of chlorophyll a fluoresced or backscattered photons when laser radiation is incident on turbid water that contains a non-homogeneous suspension of inorganic sediments and phytoplankton. The radiative transfer model is based on the Monte Carlo technique and assumes that: (1) the aquatic medium can be represented by a stratified concentration profile; and (2) that appropriate optical parameters can be defined for each layer. The model was designed to minimize the required computer resources and run time. Results are presented for an anacystis marinus culture.

Venable, D. D.↗

Three Dimensional Thermal Pollution Models: Rigid-Lid Models - Volume 2

Three versions of rigid lid programs are presented: one for near field simulation; the second for far field unstratified situations; and the third for stratified basins, far field simulation. The near field simulates thermal plume areas, and the far field version simulates larger receiving aquatic ecosystems. Since these versions have many common subroutines, a unified testing is provided, with main programs for the three possible conditions listed.

Lee, S. S.↗

A high performance porous flat-plate solar collector

A solar collector employing a porous matrix as a solar absorber and heat exchanger is presented and its application in solar air heaters is discussed. The collector is composed of a metallic matrix with a porous surface which acts as a large set of cavity radiators; cold air flows through the matrix plate and exchanges heat with the thermally stratified layers of the matrix. A steady-state thermal analysis of the collector is used to determine collector temperature distributions for the cases of an opaque surface matrix with total absorption of solar energy at the surface, and a diathermanous matrix with successive solar energy absorption at each depth. The theoretical performance of the porous flat plate collector is shown to exceed greatly that of a solid flat plate collector using air as the working medium for any given set of operational conditions. An experimental collector constructed using commercially available, low cost steel wool as the matrix has been found to have thermal efficiencies from 73 to 86%.

Lansing, F. L.↗

Machine processing of Landsat MSS data and DMA topographic data for forest cover type mapping

A study with the objective of developing and testing techniques which utilize both digital topographic data and Landsat MSS spectral data to map forest cover types is examined. Emphasis is given to the topographic distribution model (TDM), which combines point-by-point information about forest species, elevation, slope, and aspect to quantitatively describe topographic positions. Results show the stratified random sample approach to be very effective for developing the TDM, while the use of topographic data significantly improved the overall classification accuracy of forest cover types as compared to using spectral data alone.

Fleming, M. D.↗

Nonlinear axially symmetric circulations in a nearly inviscid atmosphere

The structure of certain axially symmetric circulations in a stably stratified, differentially heated, rotating Boussinesq fluid on a sphere is analyzed. A simple approximate theory (similar to that introduced by Schneider (1977)) is developed for the case in which the fluid is sufficiently inviscid that the poleward flow in the Hadley cell is nearly angular momentum conserving. The theory predicts the width of the Hadley cell, the total poleward heat flux, the latitude of the upper level jet in the zonal wind, and the distribution of surface easterlies and westerlies. Fundamental differences between such nearly inviscid circulations and the more commonly studied viscous axisymmetric flows are emphasized. The theory is checked against numerical solutions to the model equations.

Held, I. M.↗

Influence of soils on Landsat spectral signatures of corn

Landsat data have been investigated extensively to determine crop types and acreage. However, confounding site factors have been found to reduce accuracy. Soils data in a small, contiguous area in southeast South Dakota were used to stratify Landsat data. A June 5 and July 29 CCT were used in a statistical analysis of corn training data. Significant soil parameters causing differences in study area soils were slope and parent material. Implication of the results is that, in this region, stratification of CCT data along parent material boundaries would improve corn classification accuracy. Research expanding on the interaction of soils and crops is both in progress and scheduled for additional studies in east central South Dakota.

Dalsted, K. J.↗

Stability of the stratifield cylindrical annulus flow

The linear stability analysis for the stratified flow between two rotating circular cylinders is formulated. Two approaches for the stability analysis are presented. The first approach results in an algebraic eigenvalue problem, while the second results in an initial value problem for the perturbation function. The advantages and disadvantages of both approaches are discussed and a preferable numerical solution technique is outlined.

Antar, B. N.↗

Advanced Technology Spark-Ignition Aircraft Piston Engine Design Study

The advanced technology, spark ignition, aircraft piston engine design study was conducted to determine the improvements that could be made by taking advantage of technology that could reasonably be expected to be made available for an engine intended for production by January 1, 1990. Two engines were proposed to account for levels of technology considered to be moderate risk and high risk. The moderate risk technology engine is a homogeneous charge engine operating on avgas and offers a 40% improvement in transportation efficiency over present designs. The high risk technology engine, with a stratified charge combustion system using kerosene-based jet fuel, projects a 65% improvement in transportation efficiency. Technology enablement program plans are proposed herein to set a timetable for the successful integration of each item of required advanced technology into the engine design.

Stuckas, K. J.↗

An overview of general aviation propulsion research programs at NASA Lewis Research Center

The review covers near-term improvements for current-type piston engines, as well as studies and limited corroborative research on several advanced g/a engine concepts, including diesels, small turboprops and both piston and rotary stratified-charge engines. Also described is basic combustion research, cycle modeling and diagnostic instrumentation work that is required to make new engines a reality.

Willis, E. A.↗

A stochastic-dynamic model for global atmospheric mass field statistics

A model that yields the spatial correlation structure of atmospheric mass field forecast errors was developed. The model is governed by the potential vorticity equation forced by random noise. Expansion in spherical harmonics and correlation function was computed analytically using the expansion coefficients. The finite difference equivalent was solved using a fast Poisson solver and the correlation function was computed using stratified sampling of the individual realization of F(omega) and hence of phi(omega). A higher order equation for gamma was derived and solved directly in finite differences by two successive applications of the fast Poisson solver. The methods were compared for accuracy and efficiency and the third method was chosen as clearly superior. The results agree well with the latitude dependence of observed atmospheric correlation data. The value of the parameter c sub o which gives the best fit to the data is close to the value expected from dynamical considerations.

Ghil, M.↗

Evaluating LANDSAT wildland classification accuracies

Procedures to evaluate the accuracy of LANDSAT derived wildland cover classifications are described. The evaluation procedures include: (1) implementing a stratified random sample for obtaining unbiased verification data; (2) performing area by area comparisons between verification and LANDSAT data for both heterogeneous and homogeneous fields; (3) providing overall and individual classification accuracies with confidence limits; (4) displaying results within contingency tables for analysis of confusion between classes; and (5) quantifying the amount of information (bits/square kilometer) conveyed in the LANDSAT classification.

Toll, D. L.↗

The multicategory case of the sequential Bayesian pixel selection and estimation procedure

A Bayesian technique for stratified proportion estimation and a sampling based on minimizing the mean squared error of this estimator were developed and tested on LANDSAT multispectral scanner data using the beta density function to model the prior distribution in the two-class case. An extention of this procedure to the k-class case is considered. A generalization of the beta function is shown to be a density function for the general case which allows the procedure to be extended.

Pore, M. D.↗