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At least 433 records · Page 24

Analysis of data from a wind tunnel investigation of a large-scale model of a highly maneuverable supersonic V/STOL fighter - STOL configuration

The surface pressure and thermal characteristics of a large-scale model of a highly maneuverable supersonic fighter with STOL capability are described. The 7.28 m span model is powered by two J-97 turbojets, operated at 9340 N thrust. It combines upper-surface and spanwise blowing to augment the lift characteristics over a wide angle-of-attack range. The most significant feature of the fighter's flow field is the leading edge vortex that forms at low alphas, grows stronger, and moves inboard as alpha is increased. Upper surface blowing enhanced the lift on the wing in both stalled and unstalled areas significantly, while generating only a modest aft shift in the center of pressure. Lift gains were greatest at high alphas and with the flap deflected. Spanwise blowing was most significant at angles-of-attack greater than 8 deg, when the jet strengthened the vortex. The 1100 F spanwise blowing jet mixed very rapidly with the wing flow field, creating a maximum temperature rise of only 300-350 F. A comparison of small-scale and large-scale model wing pressure characteristics showed similar trends created by upper surface blowing, while spanwise blowing characteristics differed considerably. Force data correlated well with semi-empirical predictions for gross thrust coefficients less than 1.0.

Falarski, M. D.↗

Shape Effect Analysis of Aluminum Projectile Impact on Whipple Shields

The informed design with respect to hypervelocity collisions involving micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) is influential to the success of space missions. For an orbit comparable to that of the International Space Station, velocities for MMOD can range from 1 to 15 km/s, with an average velocity around 10 km/cu s. The high energy released during collisions at these speeds can result in damage to a spacecraft, or worst-case, loss of the spacecraft, thus outlining the importance of methods to predict the likelihood and extent of damage due to an impact. Through experimental testing and numerical simulations, substantial work has been conducted to better understand the effects of hypervelocity impacts (HVI) on spacecraft systems and shields; however, much of the work has been focused on spherical impacting particles. To improve environment models for the analysis of MMOD, a large-scale satellite break-up test was performed at the Arnold Engineering and Development Complex to better understand the varied impactor geometries that could be generated from a large impact. As a part of the post-experiment analysis, an undertaking to characterize the irregular fragments generated is currently being performed by the University of Florida under the management of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at Johnson Space Center (JSC). DebriSat was a representative, modern LEO satellite that was catastrophically broken up in a HVI test. The test chamber was lined with a soft-catch system of foam panels that captured the fragments after impact. Initial predictions put the number of fragments larger than 2mm generated from the HVI at roughly 85,000. The number of fragments thus far extracted from the foam panels has exceeded 100,000, with that number continuously increasing. The shapes of the fragments vary dependent upon the material. Carbon-fiber reinforced polymer pieces, for instance, are abundantly found as thin, flat slivers. The characterization of these fragments with respect to their mass, size, and material composition needs to be summarized in a form that can be used in MMOD analysis. The mechanism that brings these fragment traits into MMOD analysis is through ballistic limit equations (BLE) that have been developed largely for a few types of materials1. As a BLE provides the failure threshold for a shield or spacecraft component based on parameters such as the projectile impact velocity and size, and the target's materials, thickness, and configuration, it is used to design protective shields for spacecraft such as Whipple shields (WS) to an acceptable risk level. The majority of experiments and simulations to test shields and validate BLEs have, heretofore, largely used spheres as the impactor, not properly reflecting the irregular shapes of MMOD. This shortfall has motivated a numerical impact analysis study of HVI involving non-spherical geometries to identify key parameters that environment models should provide.

Carrasquilla, Maria J.↗

Analytical Voltage Sensitivity Analysis for Unbalanced Power Distribution System

Large scale integration of distributed energy resources and electric vehicles in a transactive energy environment present new challenges in terms of voltage stability and fluctuations in a power distribution system. The impact of different level of DER/EV penetration on the voltages across the network is typically quantified through voltage sensitivity analyses. Existing methods of voltage sensitivity analysis are computationally expensive and prior efforts to develop analytical approximation lacks generality and have not been effectively validated. The objective of this work is to provide a new analytical method of voltage sensitivity analysis that has low computational cost and also allows for stochastic analysis of voltage change. This paper first derives an analytical approximation of change in voltage at a particular bus due to change in power consumption at other bus in a radial three phase unbalanced power distribution system. Then, the proposed method is shown to be valid for different load configurations, which demonstrates its generality. The results from our analytical approach is validated via classical load flow simulation of the test system based on IEEE 37 bus network. The proposed method is shown to have good accuracy, and computation complexity is of order O(1), compared to O(n3) in classical sensitivity analysis approaches.

Munikoti, Sai↗

Visualization and Analysis of Multi-scale Land Surface Products via Giovanni Portals

Large volumes of MODIS land data products at multiple spatial resolutions have been integrated into the Giovanni online analysis system to support studies on land cover and land use changes,focused on the Northern Eurasia and Monsoon Asia regions through the LCLUC program. Giovanni (Goddard Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure) is a Web-based application developed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), providing a simple and intuitive way to visualize, analyze, and access Earth science remotely-sensed and modeled data.Customized Giovanni Web portals (Giovanni-NEESPI andGiovanni-MAIRS) have been created to integrate land, atmospheric,cryospheric, and societal products, enabling researchers to do quick exploration and basic analyses of land surface changes, and their relationships to climate, at global and regional scales. This presentation shows a sample Giovanni portal page, lists selected data products in the system, and illustrates potential analyses with imagesand time-series at global and regional scales, focusing on climatology and anomaly analysis. More information is available at the GES DISCMAIRS data support project portal: http:disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.govmairs.

Shen, Suhung↗

Sampling and Representativeness for a Spaceborne Wind Lidar

The capability of an Earth-orbiting lidar to produce a reliable windfield sampling with an error of 1-3 ms(exp -1) and that is relevant to numerical forecasting and climate studies is discussed. The spatial and temporal resolutions range from 100 km to 1000 km and 3 hr to 1 month respectively. In this respect cloud obstruction is of great concern, as it can prevent the lidar probing whole parts of the atmosphere, for both short and long periods of time. A worldwide analysis of cloudiness from either visual observations made from the ground or else from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) instrument, has shown that the average cloud cover is 60 percent. This analysis is only valid at large scales (time and space) compatible with the currently operating satellites. However, a lidar footprint is only about a hundred meters or less, and it was observed from ground based lidars that, even when the cloudiness is 100 percent, some lidar shots get through. A complete analysis of the probability of probing through clouds by a spaceborne lidar is presently beyond our capacities. Hence, no small scale cloudiness data set is yet available representing all kinds of meteorological situations at all latitudes.

Lieutaud, F.↗

IMAGE-EUV Observation of Large Scale Standing Wave Pattern in the Nightside Plasmasphere

We present analyses of a nightside plasmaspheric pattern of bifurcated, filamentary He(+) 30.4-nm emission enhancements observed by IMAGE EUV between approximately 19:40-22:13 UT on 28 June 2000 that indicate the presence of a large-scale, global ULF standing wave pattern. Analysis of coincident IMAGE magnetometer chain data reveals that these ULF waves extend across the magnetic latitude-longitude range of the chain and possess multiple spectral features between 0.6-5-mHz (3-30 minute period). Additionally, analysis of ACE SWE data reveals similarly structured spectral components in the solar wind. Collectively, these analyses lead to the conclusion that the observed large-scale ULF wave pattern is the result of solar wind pressure pulses 'ringing' the inner-magnetosphere.

Six, N. Frank↗

Modeling of Grid-Forming and Grid-Following Inverters for Dynamic Simulation of Large-Scale Distribution Systems

Historically, distribution system planning studies mainly focused on steady state and quasi-steady state analysis, with limited attention paid to dynamic analysis. This paper develops three-phase, electromechanical models for both grid-forming and grid-following inverters, and integrates them into an open source, three-phase distribution network solver, thereby enabling dynamic simulation of large-scale, three-phase unbalanced distribution systems with high penetration of inverter-based DERs. The proposed inverter models are validated against electromagnetic simulation and field test data from the CERTS/AEP microgrid testbed, and simulated in an islanded 5252 node distribution system in the GridLAB-D simulation environment. Simulation verifies the effectiveness of the proposed inverter models for large-scale distribution system analysis. Finally, study results show that compared to traditional grid-following inverters, the high penetration of grid-forming inverters can improve the voltage and frequency stability of islanded distribution systems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Estimates of crater size for large-body impact Gravity-scaling results

A scaling analysis based upon dimensional invariance is used in conjunction with centrifuge experiments to estimate cratering efficiency as a function of impact velocity for kilometer-sized impactors. Complementing earlier, conventional small-scale impact experiments, centrifuge experiments were performed to substantiate these scaling laws in a scaled-size regime of interest. This technique provided empirical scaling laws used to estimate crater size for large bodies impacting the earth. From these scaling laws a 10-km-diameter body impacting at 25 km/s would be expected to produce a 66-km-diameter crater and to inject approximately 12 times its mass into the atmosphere.

Schmidt, R. M.↗

Meteorological environments associated with California wildfires and their potential roles in wildfire changes during 1984-2017

California has been seeing more wildfires in recent years, resulting in huge economic losses and threatening human health. Clarifying the meteorological environments of wildfires is foundational to improving the understanding and prediction of wildfires and their impacts. Here, 1535 California wildfires during 1984-2017 are systematically investigated. Based on two key meteorological factors - temperature and moisture anomalies - all wildfires are classified into four groups: hot-dry, hot-wet, cold-dry, cold-wet. Most (~60%) wildfires occurred on hot-dry days. Compositing the large-scale environments of the four groups shows that persistent high pressure and strong northeasterly wind descending from inland favor hot-dry conditions for wildfires. This analysis also reveals an important role of anomalies in southerly onshore flow that supports stronger convection, accompanied by more lightning flashes that provide a triggering mechanism for wildfires under hot-wet conditions. Self-organizing map analysis lends confidence in the large-scale meteorological pattern for dominating hot-dry wildfires in California. Besides wildfire occurrence, wildfire size is also influenced by meteorological anomalies through their magnitudes. Among them, moisture anomaly explains the largest fraction (~69%) of variability in wildfire sizes. Large-scale meteorological anomalies are found to play an important role in the devastating 2018 wildfire season in California. During 1984-2017, wildfire burned area has significantly increased by ~3.6% per year, indicating a doubling of burned area in 2017 relative to 1984, with the trend dominated by hot-dry wildfires in summer. Drying and warming in conjunction with strengthening of the high pressure in summer support more frequent and larger wildfires in California.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Stochastic Gradients for Large-Scale Tensor Decomposition

Tensor decomposition is a well-known tool for multiway data analysis. This work proposes using stochastic gradients for efficient generalized canonical polyadic (GCP) tensor decomposition of large-scale tensors. GCP tensor decomposition is a recently proposed version of tensor decomposition that allows for a variety of loss functions such as Bernoulli loss for binary data or Huber loss for robust estimation. Here, the stochastic gradient is formed from randomly sampled elements of the tensor and is efficient because it can be computed using the sparse matricized-tensor times Khatri--Rao product tensor kernel. For dense tensors, we simply use uniform sampling. For sparse tensors, we propose two types of stratified sampling that give precedence to sampling nonzeros. Numerical results demonstrate the advantages of the proposed approach and its scalability to large-scale problems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Probing the limits of cosmological information from the Lyman- α forest 2-point correlation functions

The standard cosmological analysis with the Lyα forest relies on a continuum fitting procedure that suppresses information on large scales and distorts the three-dimensional correlation function on all scales. In this work, we present the first cosmological forecasts without continuum fitting distortion in the Lyα forest, focusing on the recovery of large-scale information. Using idealized synthetic data, we compare the constraining power of the full shape of the Lyα forest auto-correlation and its cross-correlation with quasars using the baseline continuum fitting analysis versus the true continuum. We find that knowledge of the true continuum enables a ∼ 10% reduction in uncertainties on the Alcock-Paczyński (AP) parameter and the matter density, Ω m . We also explore the impact of large-scale information by extending the analysis up to separations of 240 h -1 Mpc along and across the line of sight. The combination of these analysis choices can recover significant large-scale information, yielding up to a ∼ 15% improvement in AP constraints. This improvement is analogous to extending the Lyα forest survey area by ∼ 40%.

Lyman alpha forest↗

Gaussian processes for autonomous data acquisition at large-scale synchrotron and neutron facilities

The execution and analysis of complex experiments are challenged by the vast dimensionality of the underlying parameter spaces. Although an increase in data-acquisition rates should allow broader querying of the parameter space, the complexity of experiments and the subtle dependence of the model function on input parameters remains daunting owing to the sheer number of variables. New strategies for autonomous data acquisition are being developed, with one promising direction being the use of Gaussian process regression (GPR). GPR is a quick, non-parametric and robust approximation and uncertainty quantification method that can be applied directly to autonomous data acquisition. We review GPR-driven autonomous experimentation and illustrate its functionality using real-world examples from large experimental facilities in the USA and France. We introduce the basics of a GPR-driven autonomous loop with a focus on Gaussian processes, and then shift the focus to the infrastructure that needs to be built around GPR to create a closed loop. Finally, the case studies we discuss show that Gaussian-process-based autonomous data acquisition is a widely applicable method that can facilitate the optimal use of instruments and facilities by enabling the efficient acquisition of high-value datasets.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Numerical Analysis of Combustion Dynamics in a Full-Scale Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine using Large Eddy Simulations

Large eddy simulations (LES) using detailed chemistry and leveraging adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) are performed to gain insights into the combustion dynamics within a full-scale methane-oxygen non-premixed rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) employing impinging discrete injection schemes. In particular, a comparative analysis of two operating conditions corresponding to the same global equivalence ratio but different mass flow rates is carried out to investigate the resultant impact on detonation wave characteristics and RDRE global performance. Multiple co-rotating detonation waves with spatially-distributed wave structure and preferential alignment with the inner wall of the annulus (due to asymmetry in fuel distribution) are encountered under both conditions. Both cases exhibit pre-detonation deflagrative burning in the fill region, while one of the cases shows higher susceptibility to backflow into the feed plenums due to lower plenum pressures. Furthermore, heat release analysis shows that the thrust obtained from the RDRE is closely linked to the distribution of total heat release between detonative and deflagrative combustion. On the other hand, combustion efficiency is associated with the fraction of heat release occurring in fuel-rich versus fuel-lean regions within the RDRE.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Concurrent electromagnetic scattering analysis

The computational power of the hypercube parallel computing architecture is applied to the solution of large-scale electromagnetic scattering and radiation problems. Three analysis codes have been implemented. A Hypercube Electromagnetic Interactive Analysis Workstation was developed to aid in the design and analysis of metallic structures such as antennas and to facilitate the use of these analysis codes. The workstation provides a general user environment for specification of the structure to be analyzed and graphical representations of the results.

Patterson, Jean E.↗

Architectural Optimization of Digital Libraries

This work investigates performance and scaling issues relevant to large scale distributed digital libraries. Presently, performance and scaling studies focus on specific implementations of production or prototype digital libraries. Although useful information is gained to aid these designers and other researchers with insights to performance and scaling issues, the broader issues relevant to very large scale distributed libraries are not addressed. Specifically, no current studies look at the extreme or worst case possibilities in digital library implementations. A survey of digital library research issues is presented. Scaling and performance issues are mentioned frequently in the digital library literature but are generally not the focus of much of the current research. In this thesis a model for a Generic Distributed Digital Library (GDDL) and nine cases of typical user activities are defined. This model is used to facilitate some basic analysis of scaling issues. Specifically, the calculation of Internet traffic generated for different configurations of the study parameters and an estimate of the future bandwidth needed for a large scale distributed digital library implementation. This analysis demonstrates the potential impact a future distributed digital library implementation would have on the Internet traffic load and raises questions concerning the architecture decisions being made for future distributed digital library designs.

Biser, Aileen O.↗

Exploratory Analysis of the Airspace Throughput and Sensitivities of an Urban Air Mobility System

The use of small, vertical-takeoff and landing aircraft to provide efficient, high-speed, ondemand passenger transportation within a metropolitan area (e.g. intra-city transportation) is a topic of increasing interest and investment within the aerospace and transportation communities. Preliminary, mostly vehicle-level analysis suggests that passenger-carrying “Urban Air Mobility” has the potential to provide meaningful door-to-door trip time savings compared to identical trips taken solely by automobile, even for relatively short trips of a few tens of miles. Subsequent analysis has shown that if such trips can be conducted at costs competitive with ground transportation, the demand for such flight operations, not surprisingly, becomes unprecedented by historical airspace operations counts, raising fundamental questions regarding feasibility, practicality, capacity and basic system attributes such as separation criteria. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary assessment of vertipad requirements and en route separation minima relative to the feasibility of large-scale urban aviation operations. This analysis is acknowledged as being far from comprehensive and is intended to help define the initial boundaries of an airspace system compatible with enabling high-volume operations.

Goodrich, Kenneth H.↗