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Rate constants of two elementary bimolecular reactions involved in the oxidation of methane were determined by monitoring the exponential growth of CO flame band emission behind incident shocks in three suitably chosen gas mixtures.
Methane absorptions are prominent in the Titan atmospheric spectrum; also present are atomic hydrogen and nitrogen bands. Evaluation of the low ultraviolet albedo points to solid methane clouds and photochemical haze. Thermal infrared data indicate solar energy absorption and photodissociation reactions of the gas mixture resulting in the production of organic compounds and free hydrogen atoms.
The factors which influence the design and selection of a nozzle for a hypersonic scramjet are described. A two dimensional second-order characteristic procedure capable of analyzing the aerodynamic performance of typical nozzle configurations is presented. Equations of motion governing the two dimensional, axisymmetric, or axially expanding inviscid flow of a gas mixture, with frozen chemistry, are provided. Diagrams of the flow conditions for various configurations are included.
The procedures for predicting the aeroheating environment of Venus entry probes are outlined. After some consideration, a number of assumptions were adopted in order to make the prediction techniques tractable. Among these assumptions are thermochemical equilibrium, uncoupled radiative and convective processes, and uncoupled ablation products effects. The single strip method of integral relations, appropriately constrained, is shown to provide adequate inviscid results as a basis for heating calculations on blunt configurations. Techniques for prediction of the laminar, transitional, and turbulent convective environment are outlined and shown to agree with data. The prediction of radiative heating in C, N, and O gas mixtures is discussed and a practical scheme adopted. A comparison with LRC calculations is made.
Spatial resolution performance results obtained at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory Bevatron with prototype multiwire proportional chamber spatial detectors with integral delay line readout are presented. The effects due to incident nuclei charge, chamber operating parameters, chamber design, electronics, gas mixtures, and magnetic field presence have been investigated and are discussed.
A computational method based on the earlier work of one of the authors has been improved and modified to provide an accurate and rapid prediction of the radiating flow about blunt conical probes entering the atmosphere of Venus. Special features include a more general approximate equation of state, a more rapidly converging iteration scheme, a 38-step absorption coefficient model for a Venus atmosphere gas mixture model, and a shock-shape formula which yields a computed body shape in excellent agreement with the desired body. The method was used to calculate distributions of radiative heating for a large spherically blunted conical probe vehicle (1.219 m base diameter) and for three small spherically blunted conical probe vehicles (0.724 m base diameter). Solutions obtained with the presently developed approximate method required short computing times of the order of 1 to 3 minutes for each complete solution and gave agreements of 10% to 15% with the more exact predictions.
Mice infected by intraperitoneal injection of Diplococcus pneumoniae were held at 1 atm in either hypoxic (12%), hyperoxic (75%), or a normal (21%) oxygen environment. Mortality rates indicated prolongation of survival in hypoxia and shortened survival in hyperoxia. Exposure of mice to the experimental gas mixtures prior to inoculation did not alter the results.
Rate constants of two elementary bimolecular reactions involved in the oxidation of methane have been determined by monitoring the exponential growth of CO flame band emission behind incident shocks in three suitably chosen gas mixtures. The data do not support a mechanism which invokes the four center process CH3 + O2 yields CH2O + OH for the reaction of methyl with oxygen.
To assist design of adequate protective clothing, mathematical model of man's thermoregulatory system has been developed so that body thermal responses under immersed conditions can be predicted accurately. Experimental data encompassed wide range of water temperatures, protective clothing, breathing-gas mixtures, and durations of immersion.
Data were obtained which will provide a test of the accuracy of the differential absorption method for trace contaminant detection in many-component gas mixtures. The necessary accurate absorption coefficient determinations were carried out for several gases; acetonitrile, 1,2-dichloroethane, Freon-113, furan, methyl ethyl ketone, and t-butyl alcohol. The absorption coefficients are displayed graphically. An opto-acoustic method was tested for measuring absorbance, similar to the system described by Dewey.
The final phase to fly five pocket mice in the Apollo XVII command module was carried out at the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Upon completion of the 13-d space flight, the package was removed from the spacecraft and, after having been purged with an oxygen-helium gas mixture, was flown to American Samoa. Four of the five mice were recovered alive from the package. Analysis of the mouse that died during the flight revealed several factors that could have contributed to its death, the chief of which was massive hemorrhage in its middle ear cavities.
Preliminary experiments to investigate the formation of colored polymers and other interesting molecules by the irradiation of gas mixtures with protons are discussed. As in previous experiments, colored polymers were produced. An important feature of the present work is the presence or absence of absorption at 5 microns in the different materials produced; Titan is quite dark at this wavelength and Io is fairly bright. Such features may provide criteria for accepting or rejecting various materials produced in these experiments as reasonable coloring agents for the outer solar system.
A thin platinum wire loop is an effective way to hold silicate melts during experimentation in a gas-mixing furnace. This method results in a minimum of physical and chemical interaction between the sample and container but maximum interaction between sample and gas mixture. However, volatilization of sodium occurs while the silicate is molten. By minimizing the chance of heterogeneous nucleation, the method is ideal for experimental investigation of the origin of rock textures.
The design of a device to obtain compositional data on rocket exhaust by direct sampling of reactive flow exhausts into a mass spectrometer is presented. Sampling at three stages differing in pressure and orifice angle and diameter is possible. Results of calibration with pure gases and gas mixtures are erratic and of unknown accuracy for H2, limiting the usefulness of the apparatus for determining oxidizer/fuel ratios from combustion product analysis. Deposition effects are discussed, and data obtained from rocket exhaust spectra are analyzed to give O/F ratios and mixture ratio distribution. The O/F ratio determined spectrometrically is insufficiently accurate for quantitative comparison with cold flow data. However, a criterion for operating conditions with improved mixing of fuel and oxidizer which is consistent with cold flow results may be obtained by inspection of contour plots. A chemical inefficiency in the combustion process when oxidizer is in excess is observed from reactive flow measurements. Present results were obtained with N2O4/N2H4 propellants.
Hybrid program for chemical kinetics provides rapid solution to problems involving flowing or static, chemically reacting, gas mixtures.
The space shuttle orbiter has forward mounted and rear mounted Reaction Control Systems (RCS) which are used for orbital maneuvering and also provide control during entry and abort maneuvers in the atmosphere. The effects of interaction between the RCS jets and the flow over the vehicle in the atmosphere are studied. Test data obtained in the NASA Langley Research Center 31 inch continuous flow hypersonic tunnel at a nominal Mach number of 10.3 is analyzed. The data were obtained with a 0.01 scale force model with aft mounted RCS nozzles mounted on the sting off of the force model balance. The plume simulations were accomplished primarily using air in a cold gas simulation through scaled nozzles, however, various cold gas mixtures of Helium and Argon were also tested. The effect of number of nozzles was tested as were limited tests of combined controls. The data show that RCS nozzle exit momentum ratio is the primary correlating parameter for effects where the plume impinges on an adjacent surface and mass flow ratio is the parameter where the plume interaction is primarily with the external stream. An analytic model of aft mounted RCS units was developed in which the total reaction control moments are the sum of thrust, impingement, interaction, and cross-coupling terms.
The entropy of a gas system with the number of particles subject to external control is maximized to derive relations between the thermodynamic variables that obtain at equilibrium. These relations are described in terms of the chemical potential, defined as equivalent partial derivatives of entropy, energy, enthalpy, free energy, or free enthalpy. At equilibrium, the change in total chemical potential must vanish. This fact is used to derive the equilibrium constants for chemical reactions in terms of the partition functions of the species involved in the reaction. Thus the equilibrium constants can be determined accurately, just as other thermodynamic properties, from a knowledge of the energy levels and degeneracies for the gas species involved. These equilibrium constants permit one to calculate the equilibrium concentrations or partial pressures of chemically reacting species that occur in gas mixtures at any given condition of pressure and temperature or volume and temperature.
A hybrid chemical kinetic computer program was assembled which provides a rapid solution to problems involving flowing or static, chemically reacting, gas mixtures. The computer program uses existing subroutines for problem setup, initialization, and preliminary calculations and incorporates a stiff ordinary differential equation solution technique. A number of check cases were recomputed with the hybrid program and the results were almost identical to those previously obtained. The computational time saving was demonstrated with a propane-oxygen-argon shock tube combustion problem involving 31 chemical species and 64 reactions. Information is presented to enable potential users to prepare an input data deck for the calculation of a problem.