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NASA NTRS2002

Interannual Variability of Martian Global Dust Storms: Simulations with a Low-Order Model of the General Circulation

We present simulations of the interannual variability of martian global dust storms (GDSs) with a simplified low-order model (LOM) of the general circulation. The simplified model allows one to conduct computationally fast long-term simulations of the martian climate system. The LOM is constructed by Galerkin projection of a 2D (zonally averaged) general circulation model (GCM) onto a truncated set of basis functions. The resulting LOM consists of 12 coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations describing atmospheric dynamics and dust transport within the Hadley cell. The forcing of the model is described by simplified physics based on Newtonian cooling and Rayleigh friction. The atmosphere and surface are coupled: atmospheric heating depends on the dustiness of the atmosphere, and the surface dust source depends on the strength of the atmospheric winds. Parameters of the model are tuned to fit the output of the NASA AMES GCM and the fit is generally very good. Interannual variability of GDSs is possible in the IBM, but only when stochastic forcing is added to the model. The stochastic forcing could be provided by transient weather systems or some surface process such as redistribution of the sand particles in storm generating zones on the surface. The results are sensitive to the value of the saltation threshold, which hints at a possible feedback between saltation threshold and dust storm activity. According to this hypothesis, erodable material builds up its a result of a local process, whose effect is to lower the saltation threshold until a GDS occurs. The saltation threshold adjusts its value so that dust storms are barely able to occur.

Pankine, A. A.↗

NASA NTRS1973

Modeling a particular class of multiple-input/multiple-output black boxes with stochastic integral equations and identifying the required parameters

A method is given for obtaining a mathematical model of a class of black boxes having multiple inputs and multiple outputs in terms of Ito stochastic integral equations. This method is applicable to the class of black boxes having ergodic correlation functions when there is zero applied input. The point of view adopted in this paper is phenomenological in that it is desired that calculations made using the mathematical model should be close to what is actually observed at the output of the black box. How close is defined in the problem statement.

Eyman, E. D.↗

NASA NTRS2005

Cosmic Ray Propagation through the Magnetic Fields of the Galaxy with Extended Halo

In this project we perform theoretical studies of 3-dimensional cosmic ray propagation in magnetic field configurations of the Galaxy with an extended halo. We employ our newly developed Markov stochastic process methods to solve the diffusive cosmic ray transport equation. We seek to understand observations of cosmic ray spectra, composition under the constraints of the observations of diffuse gamma ray and radio emission from the Galaxy. The model parameters are directly are related to properties of our Galaxy, such as the size of the Galactic halo, particle transport in Galactic magnetic fields, distribution of interstellar gas, primary cosmic ray source distribution and their confinement in the Galaxy. The core of this investigation is the development of software for cosmic ray propagation models with the Markov stochastic process approach. Values of important model parameters for the halo diffusion model are examined in comparison with observations of cosmic ray spectra, composition and the diffuse gamma-ray background. This report summarizes our achievement in the grant period at the Florida Institute of Technology. Work at the co-investigator's institution, the University of New Hampshire, under a companion grant, will be covered in detail by a separate report.

Zhang, Ming↗

NASA NTRS1994

The dust in the hydrogen-poor ejecta of Abell 30

We present new optical and near-infrared images of the hydrogen-poor planetary nebula Abell 30 and produce detailed models that account for the major observed morphological and IR properties. By imaging the nebula in the K band, we confirm the presence of hot dust in an expanding equatorial ring of H-poor gas. No emission was detected from the H-poor polar knots, suggesting a dust deficiency htere relative to the equatorial ring. The near-IR emission is attributed to small carbonaceous dust grains which are stochastically heated by stellar ultraviolet photons. Using an adaptive version of a matrix method devised by Guhathakurta & Draine (1989) to model stochastic heating, we find that the near-IR spectrum observed by Dinerstein & Lester (1984) requires the presence of dust grains down to approximately 0.0007 microns in radius. This minimum grain radius is in excellent agreement with our calculations of the grain destruction by energetic stellar UV photons: we find that carbon clusters with less than approximately 140 atoms (0.0007 microns in radius) are destroyed by stellar UV photons in approximately 1000 yr, the kinematic age of H-poor ejecta. Modeling of the far-IR dust emission implies that the bulk of the dust mass in A30 must reside at distances several times greater than the distance of the equatorial ring from the central star. This spatial dust distribution is attributed to the interaction of the stellar wind with the inhomogeneous H-poor ejecta. Most of the H-poor gas and dust has been apparently carried outward by the stellar wind, leaving behing dense, H-poor knots with prominent wind-blown tails in the equatorial ring and in the polar knots. This picture is supported by the presence of a stellar wind-blown bubble within the H-rich envelope in our optical images.

Borkowski, Kazimierz J.↗

NASA NTRS2005

Numerical Model for Cosmic Rays Species Production and Propagation in the Galaxy

In recent years, considerable progress has been made in studying the propagation and origin of cosmic rays, as new and more accurate data have become available. Many models have been developed to study cosmic ray interactions and propagation showed flexibility in resembling various astrophysical conditions and good agreement with observational data. However, some astrophysical problems cannot be addressed using these models, such as the stochastic nature of the cosmic rays source, small-scale structures and inhomogeneities in the interstellar gas that can affect radioactive secondary abundance in cosmic rays. We have developed a new model and a corresponding computer code that can address some of these limitations. The model depends on the expansion of the backward stochastic solution of the general diffusion transport equation (Zhang 1999) starting from an observer position to solve a group of diffusion transport equations each of which represents a particular element or isotope of cosmic ray nuclei. In this paper we are focusing on key abundance ratios such as B/C, sub-Fe/Fe, (10)Be/(9)Be, (26)Al/(27)Al, (36)Cl/(37)Cl and (54)Mn/(55)Mn, which all have well established cross sections, to evaluate our model. The effect of inhomogeneity in the interstellar medium is investigated. The contribution of certain cosmic ray nuclei to the production of other nuclei is addressed. The contribution of various galactic locations to the production of cosmic ray nuclei observed at solar system is also investigated.

Farahat, Ashraf↗

NASA NTRS1986

Fluctuation and rotation in diffusion-influenced monomolecular reactions

Models of partially absorbing boundaries for calculating diffusion-influenced chemical reactions are examined analytically. The limitations of diffusion-equation and random-walk models are indicated; the presence of an ambiguous length parameter in a standard radiation-boundary-condition (RBC) model is demonstrated; the RBC model for a boundary with oscillation (at a rate much faster than the rate of thermal collisions) between absorbing and nonabsorbing states is considered; an alternative stochastically switching absorber (SSA) model is introduced and shown to be physically consistent; the equivalence of one-dimensional RBC and SSA models under some conditions is shown; one time passage is calculated for an axially symmetric three-dimensional SSA model with anisotropic absorption; and the analogy between rotation and stochastic switching is explored.

Bashford, Donald↗

NASA NTRS2013

Developing an Accurate CFD Based Gust Model for the Truss Braced Wing Aircraft

The increased flexibility of long endurance aircraft having high aspect ratio wings necessitates attention to gust response and perhaps the incorporation of gust load alleviation. The design of civil transport aircraft with a strut or truss-braced high aspect ratio wing furthermore requires gust response analysis in the transonic cruise range. This requirement motivates the use of high fidelity nonlinear computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for gust response analysis. This paper presents the development of a CFD based gust model for the truss braced wing aircraft. A sharp-edged gust provides the gust system identification. The result of the system identification is several thousand time steps of instantaneous pressure coefficients over the entire vehicle. This data is filtered and downsampled to provide the snapshot data set from which a reduced order model is developed. A stochastic singular value decomposition algorithm is used to obtain a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The POD model is combined with a convolution integral to predict the time varying pressure coefficient distribution due to a novel gust profile. Finally the unsteady surface pressure response of the truss braced wing vehicle to a one-minus-cosine gust, simulated using the reduced order model, is compared with the full CFD.

Bartels, Robert E.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Analysis of subgrid models using direct and large-eddy simulations of isotropic turbulence

Direct and large eddy simulations of forced and decaying isotropic turbulence have been performed using a pseudospectral and a finite-difference code. Subgrid models that include a one-equation subgrid kinetic energy model with and without a stochastic backscatter forcing term and a new scale similarity model have been analyzed in both Fourier space and physical space. The Fourier space analysis showed that the energy transfer across the cutoff wavenumber k(sub c) is dominated by local interaction. The correlation between the exact and the modeled (by a spectral eddy viscosity) nonlinear terms and the subgrid energy transfer in physical space was found to be quite low. In physical space, a similar correlation analysis was carried out using top hat filtering. Results show that the subgrid stress and the energy flux predicted by the subgrid models correlates very well with the exact data. The scale similarity model showed very high correlation for reasonable grid resolution. However, with decrease in grid resolution, the scale similarity model became more uncorrelated, when compared to the kinetic energy subgrid model. The subgrid models were then used for large-eddy simulations for a range of Reynolds number. It was determined that the dissipation was modeled poorly and that the correlation with the exact results was quite low for all the models. In general, for coarse grid resolution, the scale similarity model consistently showed very low correlation while the kinetic energy model showed a relatively higher correlation. These results suggest that to use the scale similarity model relatively fine grid resolution may be required, whereas, the kinetic energy model could be used even in coarse grid.

Menon, S.↗

NASA NTRS1972

Bounding filter - A simple solution to lack of exact a priori statistics.

Wiener and Kalman-Bucy estimation problems assume that models describing the signal and noise stochastic processes are exactly known. When this modeling information, i.e., the signal and noise spectral densities for Wiener filter and the signal and noise dynamic system and disturbing noise representations for Kalman-Bucy filtering, is inexactly known, then the filter's performance is suboptimal and may even exhibit apparent divergence. In this paper a system is designed whereby the actual estimation error covariance is bounded by the covariance calculated by the estimator. Therefore, the estimator obtains a bound on the actual error covariance which is not available, and also prevents its apparent divergence.

Nahi, N. E.↗

NASA NTRS1983

The structure of particle-laden jets and nonevaporating sprays

Mean and fluctuating gas velocities, liquid mass fluxes and drop sizes were in nonevaporating sprays. These results, as well as existing measurements in solid particle-laden jets, were used to evaluate models of these processes. The following models were considered: (1) a locally homogeneous flow (LHF) model, where slip between the phases was neglected; (2) a deterministic separated flow (DSF) model, where slip was considered but effects of particle dispersion by turbulence were ignored; and (3) a stochastic separated flow (SSF) model, where effects of interphase slip and turbulent dispersion were considered using random-walk computations for particle motion. The LHF and DSF models did not provide very satisfactory predictions over the present data base. In contrast, the SSF model performed reasonably well - including conditions in nonevaporating sprays where enhanced dispersion of particles by turbulence caused the spray to spread more rapidly than single-phase jets for comparable conditions. While these results are encouraging, uncertainties in initial conditions limit the reliability of the evaluation. Current work is seeking to eliminate this deficiency.

Shuen, J. S.↗

NASA NTRS1983

A theoretical and experimental study of turbulent particle-laden jets

Mean and fluctuating velocities of both phases, particle mass fluxes, particle size distributions in turbulent particle-laden jets were measured. The following models are considered: (1) a locally homogeneous flow (LHF) model, where slip between the phases was neglected; (2) a deterministic separated flow (DSF) model, where slip was considered but effects of particle dispersion by turbulence were ignored; and (3) a stochastic separated flow (SSF) model. The SSF model performed reasonably well with no modifications in the prescriptions for eddy properties from its original calibration. A modified k- model, incorporating direct contributions of interphase transport on turbulence properties (turbulence modulation), was developed within the framework of the SSF model.

Shuen, J. S.↗

NASA NTRS1984

A theoretical and experimental study of turbulent nonevaporating sprays

Measurements and analysis limited to the dilute portions of turbulent nonevaporating sprays injected into a still air environment were completed. Mean and fluctuating velocities and Reynolds stress were measured in the continuous phase. Liquid phase measurements included liquid mass fluxes, drop sizes and drop size and velocity correlation. Initial conditions needed for model evaluation were measured at a location as close to the injector exit as possible. The test sprays showed significant effects of slip and turbulent dispersion of the discrete phase. The measurements were used to evaluate three typical models of these processes: (1) a locally homogenous flow (LHF) model, where slip between the phases were neglected; (2) a deterministic separated flow (DSF) model, where slip was considered but effects of drop dispersion by turbulence were ignored; and (3) a stochastic separated flow (SSF) model, where effects of interphase slip and turbulent dispersion were considered using random-walk computations for drop motion. The LHF and DSF models did not provide very satisfactory predictions for the present measurements. In contrast, the SSF model performed reasonably well with no modifications in the prescription of eddy properties from its original calibration. Some effects of drops on turbulence properties were observed near the dense regions of the sprays.

Solomon, A. S. P.↗

NASA NTRS1984

A theoretical and experimental study of turbulent evaporating sprays

Measurements and analysis limited to the dilute portions of turbulent evaporating sprays, injected into a still air environment were completed. Mean and fluctuating velocities and Reynolds stress were measured in the continuous phase. Liquid phase measurements included liquid mass fluxes, drop sizes and drop size and velocity correlation. Initial conditions needed for model evaluation were measured at a location as close to the injector exit as possible. The test sprays showed significant effects of slip and turbulent dispersion of the discrete phase. The measurements were used to evaluate three typical models of these processes: (1) a locally homogeneous flow (LHF) model, where slip between the phases were neglected; (2) a deterministic separated flow (DSF) model, where slip was considered but effects of drop dispersion by turbulence were ignored; and (3) a stochastic separated flow (SSF) model, where effects of interphase slip and turbulent dispersion were considered using random-walk computations for drop motion. For all three models, a k-epsilon model as used to find the properties of the continuous phase. The LHF and DSF models did not provide very satisfactory predictions for the present measurements. In contrast, the SSF model performed reasonably well--with no modifications in the prescription of eddy properties from its original calibration.

Solomon, A. S. P.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Prediction of the structure of fuel sprays in gas turbine combustors

The structure of fuel sprays in a combustion chamber is theoretically investigated using computer models of current interest. Three representative spray models are considered: (1) a locally homogeneous flow (LHF) model, which assumes infinitely fast interphase transport rates; (2) a deterministic separated flow (DSF) model, which considers finite rates of interphase transport but ignores effects of droplet/turbulence interactions; and (3) a stochastic separated flow (SSF) model, which considers droplet/turbulence interactions using random sampling for turbulence properties in conjunction with random-walk computations for droplet motion and transport. Two flow conditions are studied to investigate the influence of swirl on droplet life histories and the effects of droplet/turbulence interactions on flow properties. Comparison of computed results with the experimental data show that general features of the flow structure can be predicted with reasonable accuracy using the two separated flow models. In contrast, the LHF model overpredicts the rate of development of the flow. While the SSF model provides better agreement with measurements than the DSF model, definitive evaluation of the significance of droplet/turbulence interaction is not achieved due to uncertainties in the spray initial conditions.

Shuen, J. S.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Prediction of the structure of fuel sprays in gas turbine combustors

Shuen, J.-S.↗

NASA NTRS1978

Heating of coronal plasma by anomalous current dissipation

It is shown that there exist heating mechanisms which connect the observed radiative properties of the inner corona in a simple way to the underlying solar magnetic field. The mechanisms considered involve the generation and consequent dissipation of coronal currents. It is argued that the spatially and temporally inhomogeneous nature of the erupting solar magnetic field is an essential element of coronal heating. Unlike heating theories conceived in the context of the 'homogeneous' corona, this class of current heating models incorporates the observed stochastic coronal structuring at the onset, and does not view it as a complication of an otherwise straightforward model. Attention is given to the generation of coronal currents, the flux-tube emergence, the gradual growth and decay of active regions, the energetics of current dissipation, current sheath geometry and heat transport, and anomalous current dissipation.

Rosner, R.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Structure of nonevaporating sprays - Measurements and predictions

Structure measurements were completed within the dilute portion of axisymmetric nonevaporating sprays (SMD of 30 and 87 microns) injected into a still air environment, including: mean and fluctuating gas velocities and Reynolds stress using laser-Doppler anemometry; mean liquid fluxes using isokinetic sampling; drop sizes using slide impaction; and drop sizes and velocities using multiflash photography. The new measurements were used to evaluate three representative models of sprays: (1) a locally homogeneous flow (LHF) model, where slip between the phases was neglected; (2) a deterministic separated flow (DSF) model, where slip was considered but effects of drop interaction with turbulent fluctuations were ignored; and (3) a stochastic separated flow (SSF) model, where effects of both interphase slip and turbulent fluctuations were considered using random sampling for turbulence properties in conjunction with random-walk computations for drop motion. The LHF and DSF models were unsatisfactory for present test conditions-both underestimating flow widths and the rate of spread of drops. In contrast, the SSF model provided reasonably accurate predictions, including effects of enhanced spreading rates of sprays due to drop dispersion by turbulence, with all empirical parameters fixed from earlier work.

Solomon, A. S. P.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Simulations of DSB Yields and Radiation-induced Chromosomal Aberrations in Human Cells Based on the Stochastic Track Structure Induced by HZE Particles

The formation of double‐strand breaks (DSBs) and chromosomal aberrations (CAs) is of great importance in radiation research and, specifically, in space applications. We are presenting a new particle track and DNA damage model, in which the particle stochastic track structure is combined with the random walk (RW) structure of chromosomes in a cell nucleus. The motivation for this effort stems from the fact that the model with the RW chromosomes, NASARTI (NASA radiation track image) previously relied on amorphous track structure, while the stochastic track structure model RITRACKS (Relativistic Ion Tracks) was focused on more microscopic targets than the entire genome. We have combined chromosomes simulated by RWs with stochastic track structure, which uses nanoscopic dose calculations performed with the Monte‐Carlo simulation by RITRACKS in a voxelized space. The new simulations produce the number of DSBs as function of dose and particle fluence for high‐energy particles, including iron, carbon and protons, using voxels of 20 nm dimension. The combined model also calculates yields of radiation‐induced CAs and unrejoined chromosome breaks in normal and repair deficient cells. The joined computational model is calibrated using the relative frequencies and distributions of chromosomal aberrations reported in the literature. The model considers fractionated deposition of energy to approximate dose rates of the space flight environment. The joined model also predicts of the yields and sizes of translocations, dicentrics, rings, and more complex‐type aberrations formed in the G0/G1 cell cycle phase during the first cell division after irradiation. We found that the main advantage of the joined model is our ability to simulate small doses: 0.05‐0.5 Gy. At such low doses, the stochastic track structure proved to be indispensable, as the action of individual delta‐rays becomes more important.

Ponomarev, Artem↗