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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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Thermal response of lunar surface at landing site due to radiative and convective heat transfer from LEM exhaust nozzle
This study employs data from the airborne Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) to measure thermal (i.e., longwave) energy responses, emitted or upwelling, from discrete surfaces that are typical of the city landscape within Salt Lake City, Utah, over a single diurnal time period (i.e., a single day, night-time sequence). These data are used to quantify the disposition of thermal energy for selected urban surfaces during the daytime and night-time, and the amount of change in thermal response or flux recorded between day and night. An analysis is presented on the thermal interrelationships observed for common urban materials for day, night, and flux, as identified from the TIMS data through the delineation of discrete surface type polygons. The results from the study illustrate that such factors as heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and the amount of soil moisture available have a profound impact on the magnitude of thermal energy emanating from a specific surface and on the dynamics of longwave energy response between day and night.
Response faster and contamination less than in oil-flow technique. Flowing colored water provides accurate and clean way to reveal flows of air on surfaces of models in wind tunnels. Colored water flows from small orifices in model, forming streak lines under influence of air streaming over surface of model.
While the surface-bulk correspondence has been ubiquitously shown in topological phases, the relationship between surface and bulk in Landau-like phases is much less explored. Theoretical investigations since 1970s for semi-infinite systems have predicted the possibility of the surface order emerging at a higher temperature than the bulk, clearly illustrating a counterintuitive situation and greatly enriching phase transitions. But experimental realizations of this prediction remain missing. Here, we demonstrate the higher-temperature surface and lower-temperature bulk phase transitions in CrSBr, a van der Waals (vdW) layered antiferromagnet. We leverage the surface sensitivity of electric dipole second harmonic generation (SHG) to resolve surface magnetism, the bulk nature of electric quadrupole SHG to probe bulk spin correlations, and their interference to capture the two magnetic domain states. Our density functional theory calculations show the suppression of ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic competition at the surface is responsible for this enhanced surface magnetism. Our results not only show counterintuitive, richer phase transitions in vdW magnets, but also provide viable ways to enhance magnetism in their 2D form.
El Niño events exhibit rich diversity in their spatial patterns, which can lead to distinct global impacts. Therefore, how El Niño pattern diversity will change in a warmer climate is one of the most critical issues for future climate projections. Based on the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project simulations, we report an inter-model consensus on future El Niño diversity changes. Central Pacific (CP) El Niño events are projected to occur more frequently compared to eastern Pacific (EP) El Niño events. Concurrently, EP El Niño events are projected to increase in amplitude, leading to higher chances of extreme EP El Niño occurrences. We suggest that enhanced upper-ocean stability due to greenhouse warming can lead to a stronger surface-layer response for increasing positive feedbacks, more favorable excitation of CP El Niño. Whereas, enhanced nonlinear atmospheric responses to EP sea surface temperatures can lead to a higher probability of extreme EP El Niño.
Recently published findings using satellite and ground-based observations indicate a large winter and summertime decrease in the column abundance of ozone at high and middle latitudes during the last decade. Using a simple ozone depletion profile reflecting the observed decrease in ozone column abundance, Ramaswamy et al. (1992) showed that the negative radiative forcing that results from the ozone decrease between 1979 and 1990 approximately balanced the greenhouse climate forcing due to the chlorofluorocarbons emitted during the same period. Here, we extend the forcing analyses by calculating the equilibrium surface temperature response explicitly, using an updated version of the Atmospheric and Environmental Research two-dimensional radiative-dynamical seasonal model. The calculated steady state responses suggest that the surface cooling due to the ozone depletion in the lower stratosphere offsets about 30% of the surface warming due to greenhouse gases emitted during the same decade. The temperature offset is roughly a factor of 2 larger than the corresponding offset obtained from forcing intercomparisons. This result appears to be related to the climate feedback mechanisms operating in the model troposphere, most notably that associated with atmospheric meridional heat transport. Thus a comprehensive assessment of ozone change effects on the predicted greenhouse warming cannot be accomplished based on forcing evaluations alone. Our results also show that calculations adopting a seasonally and latitudinally dependent ozone depletion profile produce a negative forcing about 50% smaller than that calculated for the depletion profile used by Ramaswamy et al. (1992).
This research project aims at enabling surface engineering strategies based on the fundamental understanding and predictive modeling of the surface morphological response of solid materials subjected to the combined action of multiple external forces. Surface morphological response to mismatch strain in strained-layer heterostructures also is analyzed. Our research focuses on the surface morphological evolution and stability of electrically conducting (metallic, such as Cu) and semiconducting (such as Si) solids under the simultaneous application of mechanical stresses, electric fields, and temperature gradients. We emphasize on identifying the conditions under which the multiply driven surface morphology is stable and on exploring the complexity of the corresponding various morphologically stable surface patterns. We also emphasize on the driven evolution of nanoscale features aiming at stabilizing and controlling nanoscale patterns on surfaces by their manipulation through simultaneously applied multiple external forces. Specifically, we address systematically the morphological response to the combined action of multiple external forces of bulk solid surfaces, surfaces of thin films grown epitaxially on thick or thin substrates, as well as nanoscale surface features such as coherently strained islands grown epitaxially on substrate surfaces. The research is based on a modeling approach that combines theoretical analyses of surface morphological stability with self-consistent dynamical simulations of surface evolution based on properly parameterized continuum and multiscale surface transport models.
Significance Hard–soft interfaces between inorganic surfaces and biomolecules promote self-assembly processes with broad implications in biogeochemistry, energy sciences, nanomedicine, and origins of life. Yet, detailed molecular-scale understanding of inorganic–biomolecule interactions and their dependence on solution conditions is missing. We present a theory for the initial stages of inorganic–biomolecule assembly based on the far-field response of water, using experimentally characterized interactions between muscovite surfaces and mica-binding proteins as model systems. Our work connects molecular details of the solution to assembly outcomes and suggests the initial driving forces for assembly are dominated by long-range, ion-specific interactions. The connections made between interfacial structure and long-range surface–biomolecule interactions provide insights toward a predictive understanding of biomolecular self-assembly on mineral surfaces.
The impact of climate change between 2000 and 2095 SRES A2 climates on surface ozone (O)3 and on O3 source-receptor (S-R) relationships is quantified using three coupled climate-chemistry models (CCMs). The CCMs exhibit considerable variability in the spatial extent and location of surface O3 increases that occur within parts of high NOx emission source regions (up to 6 ppbv in the annual average and up to 14 ppbv in the season of maximum O3). In these source regions, all three CCMs show a positive relationship between surface O3 change and temperature change. Sensitivity simulations show that a combination of three individual chemical processes-(i) enhanced PAN decomposition, (ii) higher water vapor concentrations, and (iii) enhanced isoprene emission-largely reproduces the global spatial pattern of annual-mean surface O3 response due to climate change (R2 = 0.52). Changes in climate are found to exert a stronger control on the annual-mean surface O3 response through changes in climate-sensitive O3 chemistry than through changes in transport as evaluated from idealized CO-like tracer concentrations. All three CCMs exhibit a similar spatial pattern of annual-mean surface O3 change to 20% regional O3 precursor emission reductions under future climate compared to the same emission reductions applied under present-day climate. The surface O3 response to emission reductions is larger over the source region and smaller downwind in the future than under present-day conditions. All three CCMs show areas within Europe where regional emission reductions larger than 20% are required to compensate climate change impacts on annual-mean surface O3.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a coupled Earth system circulation phenomena that reaches all around the globe. The heat added to the atmosphere by increased precipitation produces circulation changes that have global reach and, over time, warms the entire tropical band, and much of the Earth. Many studies have noted that El Niño causes warm and dry (and sometimes drought) conditions over tropical land masses. We develop a composite analysis of El Niño to identify the predominate features of tropical land response. This analysis shows that the land’s lagged response is related to a reduction clouds that leads to increase surface shortwave radiation that increases the surface temperature. The precipitation lag is somewhat longer, and then leads to a reduction in soil water and, in concert with increased SW induced surface warming, leads to increased sensible heating of the atmosphere above. The M2AMIP simulation generally captures these features, but the response is strongest with increased temporal and spatial proximity to the El Niño peak warming. The regionality of these features is also discussed, and it is noted that even the strongest individual El Niño events can vary from this composite mechanistic paradigm.
Surface washing agents (SWAs) are a diverse class of oil spill response products intended to facilitate removal of stranded oil from shorelines. This class of agents has high application rates relative to other categories of spill response products, but global toxicity data is generally limited to two standard test species: inland silverside and mysid shrimp. Here, in this study, we provide a framework to maximize the utility of limited toxicity data across a product class. To characterize species sensitivity to SWAs, the toxicity of three agents spanning a range of chemical and physical properties were tested in eight species. The relative sensitivity of mysids shrimp and inland silversides as surrogate test organisms was determined. Toxicity normalized species sensitivity distributions (SSDn) were used to estimate fifth centile hazard concentration (HC5) values for SWAs with limited toxicity data. Chemical toxicity distributions (CTD) of SWA HC5 values were used to compute a fifth centile chemical hazard distribution (HD5) to provide a more comprehensive assessment of hazard across a spill response product class with limited toxicity data than traditional single species or single agent approaches can give.
Abstract Of great relevance to climate engineering is the systematic relationship between the radiative forcing to the climate system and the response of the system, a relationship often represented by the linear response function (LRF) of the system. However, estimating the LRF often becomes an ill-posed inverse problem due to high-dimensionality and nonunique relationships between the forcing and response. Recent advances in machine learning make it possible to address the ill-posed inverse problem through regularization and sparse system fitting. Here, we develop a convolutional neural network (CNN) for regularized inversion. The CNN is trained using the surface temperature responses from a set of Green’s function perturbation experiments as imagery input data together with data sample densification. The resulting CNN model can infer the forcing pattern responsible for the temperature response from out-of-sample forcing scenarios. This promising proof of concept suggests a possible strategy for estimating the optimal forcing to negate certain undesirable effects of climate change. The limited success of this effort underscores the challenges of solving an inverse problem for a climate system with inherent nonlinearity. Significance Statement Predicting the climate response for a given climate forcing is a direct problem, while inferring the forcing for a given desired climate response is often an inverse, ill-posed, problem, posing a new challenge to the climate community. This study makes the first attempt to infer the radiative forcing for a given target pattern of global surface temperature response using a deep learning approach. The resulting deeply trained convolutional neural network inversion model shows promise in capturing the forcing pattern corresponding to a given surface temperature response, with a significant implication on the design of an optimal solar radiation management strategy for curbing global warming. This study also highlights the technical challenges that future research should prioritize in seeking feasible solutions to the inverse climate problem.
Models of the radial variation of effective viscosity inferred from the earth's response to surface loads associated with Pleistocene deglaciation are compared to structures inferred from models of geodynamic phenomena associated with convection: the geoid, plate-driving forces, and advected heat flux. While observations of the earth's response to surface loads do not have sufficient resolution to justify more than two viscous layers, adequately matching the observed long-wavelength geoid anomalies associated with density contrasts in the lower mantle (inferred from seismic tomography) and in the upper mantle (inferred from a model of subducted slabs) requires more structure. It is possible to explain the geoid, observed plate velocities, the advected heat flux in the lower mantle, and relative sea-level variations in oceanic regions, all with a mantle with a high-viscosity/elastic lid, an asthenospheric channel of 2 x 10 exp 19 Pa s from 100 to 400-km depth, a 6 x 10 exp 20 Pa s transition zone, and a lower mantle of 6 x 10 exp 21 Pa s. The uplift history of Australia, Fennoscandia, and Laurentia can be explained with an asthenospheric viscosity less than a factor of 10 higher. Lateral variations in lower mantle viscosity are not required. Transient creep appears to be unimportant for the recent response-to-surface loads from Pleistocene deglaciation.
A general analysis of eddy current response to certain types of open and closed surface flaws is presented for both standard low-frequency and ferromagnetic-resonance (FMR) probes. It is shown analytically that for two-dimensional and three-dimensional surface flaws interrogated by a uniform probe field, the crack opening sensitivity increases with the operating frequency of the probe, this behavior being due to the Faraday induction effect. Experiments with low-frequency probes operating at or below 1 MHz and with the FMR probe operating at approximately 1000 MHz confirm this increase of the crack mouth opening displacement for practical situations where the probe field is not uniform in the vicinity of the flaw.
Two scenarios of spectral solar forcing, namely Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM)-based out-of-phase variations and conventional in-phase variations, are input to a time-dependent radiative-convective model (RCM), and to the GISS modelE. Both scenarios and models give maximum temperature responses in the upper stratosphere, decreasing to the surface. Upper stratospheric peak-to-peak responses to out-of-phase forcing are approx.0.6 K and approx.0.9 K in RCM and modelE, approx.5 times larger than responses to in-phase forcing. Stratospheric responses are in-phase with TSI and UV variations, and resemble HALOE observed 11-year temperature variations. For in-phase forcing, ocean mixed layer response lags surface air response by approx.2 years, and is approx.0.06 K compared to approx.0.14 K for atmosphere. For out-of-phase forcing, lags are similar, but surface responses are significantly smaller. For both scenarios, modelE surface responses are less than 0.1 K in the tropics, and display similar patterns over oceanic regions, but complex responses over land.
Linearized three-dimensional potential flow equations for response of liquids in cylindrical containers to slightly off-axis acceleration
Surface-tethered polymers have important applications in functional polymer coatings, particularly for the development of chemically responsive surfaces. Here, we combined the traditional grafting-to and grafting-from methods to create a new surface grafting strategy, termed grafting-to and from, using surface-initiated ring-opening metathesis polymerization (SI-ROMP). In this method, poly(pentafluorophenyl methacrylate) is grafted to an amine terminated surface. Surplus reactive esters after reaction with surface amines render this polymer a connecting or tie layer that can be further reacted to provide dense ROMP initiation sites. This amplification of grafting sites results in thick and environmentally stable polymer brushes upon SI-ROMP. With the goal of developing polymer-grafted breathable membranes that autonomously react to multiple chemical warfare agents (CWAs), we demonstrate the benefit of this method by employing amine reactive monomers in the grafting-from step. This enables diverse postsynthetic functionalization for the facile screening of chemical motifs to enhance response capabilities to mustard blister agents. Surface-tethered triarylmethanol-containing polymers with four distinct functional groups are prepared and challenged with the vapor of 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (CEES), a simulant of mustard agent, in humid air. Importantly, hydroxyl groups effectively improve CWA response and the resulting polymer brushes show chain collapse after both CEES and diethylchlorophosphate (DCP) treatment. Our results illustrate that the grafting-to and from method can be used to grow functional and robust polymer coatings for various applications.
Based on a continuous-domain model, capable of accessing the spatiotemporal scales relevant to fuzz formation on the surface of plasma-facing component (PFC) tungsten, we report self-consistent simulation results that elucidate the effects of elastic softening and helium (He) accumulation kinetics on the surface morphological response of PFC tungsten. The model accounts for the softening of the elastic moduli in the near-surface region of PFC tungsten, including both thermal softening at high temperature and softening due to He accumulation upon He implantation. The dependence of the elastic moduli on the He content follows an exponential scaling relation predicted by molecular-dynamics simulations, while the He content in the near-surface region of PFC tungsten evolves according to a first-order saturation kinetics, consistent with experimental and simulation results reported in the literature. We establish that this elastic softening accelerates both nanotendril growth on the PFC surface and the onset of fuzz formation. We also explore the role of the rate of He accumulation to a saturation level in the near-surface region of irradiated tungsten in the onset of fuzz formation. For PFC tungsten surfaces such as W(110) where, under typical irradiation conditions, the characteristic time scale for stress-driven surface diffusion is comparable to the characteristic time scale for He accumulation, we find that accelerating the rate of He accumulation accelerates the growth rate of nanotendrils emanating from the surface. Additionally, we present a systematic parametric study of the PFC surface morphological response to explore its dependence on the He accumulation kinetics that is controlled by the irradiation conditions for low-energy implantation. Finally, we introduce an incubation time for nanotendril growth on the PFC surface, a concept equivalent to that of incubation fluence discussed in the literature, to predict and explain the minimum exposure time required to observe fuzz formation on PFC tungsten surfaces.