SEARCH · Engineering Papers
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.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Neyman's (1937) theory of confidence sets is developed as a replacement for Bayesian interference (BI) and stochastic inversion (SI) when the prior information is a hard quadratic bound. It is recommended that BI and SI be replaced by confidence set interference (CSI) only in certain circumstances. The geomagnetic problem is used to illustrate the general theory of CSI.
The present examination of radiative heat transfer through fibrous materials gives attention to the interactions between radiation scattered from individual parallel fibers for the case of a normally-incident plane EM wave and different representative geometries. Experimental results are obtained for the specific case corresponding to fibers in one plane. Analytical models are developed for the radiative scattering behavior of fibrous media when the interference mechanism is accounted for; the results obtained indicate that interference decreases the scattering efficiency of fibrous media containing a large number of randomly positioned fibers.
A two-variable method is presented which is suitable for on-line calculation of residual interference in airfoil testing in the Langley 0.3-Meter Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel (0.3-M TCT). The method applies the Cauchy's integral formula to the closed contour formed by the contoured top and bottom walls, and the upstream and downstream ends. The measured top and bottom wall pressures and position are used to calculate the correction to the test Mach number and the airfoil angle of attack. Application to specific data obtained in the 0.3-M TCT adaptive wall test section demonstrates the need to assess residual interference to ensure that the desired level of wall streamlining is achieved. A FORTRAN computer program was developed for on-line calculation of the residual corrections during airfoil tests in the 0.3-M TCT.
From the time that wind tunnel wall interference was recognized to be significant, researchers have been developing methods to alleviate or account for it. Despite the best effort so far, it appears that no method is available which completely eliminates the effects due to the wind tunnel walls. This report discusses procedures developed for slotted wall and adaptive wall test sections of the Langley 0.3-m Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel (TCT) to assess and correct for the residual interference by methods consistent with the transonic nature of the tests.
Natural and man-made radio frequency interference (RFI) are potentially serious obstacles to the successful operation of an array of spacecraft used for low frequency (1 to 30 MHz) radio interferometry in the near-earth environment. Several satellites and planetary probes have carried radio astronomy experiments, and the moderate data base that they provide are examined to help understand the near-earth RFI environment. The general conclusion is that the region of space within 100 earth-radii of the earth is a hostile environment for any radio astronomy experiment. If a low frequency array in earth orbit is to yield useful astronomical results, severe interference problems must be anticipated and overcome. A number of recommendations are made to further examine the feasibility of such an array.
Approximations for the power levels at the output of an adaptive array that uses the diagonally loaded sample-matrix inversion (SMI) algorithm are derived. Diagonal loading is a technique where the diagonal of the covariance matrix is augmented with a positive or negative constant prior to inversion. This paper examines how the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) at the array output vary with the number of samples taken when the input signals are CW. It is shown that positive loading produces more rapid convergence with a reduction in output SIR. Negative loading provides an improved SIR level, but positive loading produces more rapid convergence. Negative loading provides an improved SIR level, but the output power levels are erratic and slow to converge. Simulation results which verify the theoretical procedure are given.
The problem of memory interference in a multiprocessor system with a hierarchy of shared buses and memories is addressed. The behavior of the processors is represented by a sequence of memory requests with each followed by a determined amount of processing time. A statistical queuing network model for determining the extent of memory interference in multiprocessor systems with clusters of memory hierarchies is presented. The performance of the system is measured by the expected number of busy memory clusters. The results of the analytic model are compared with simulation results, and the correlation between them is found to be very high.
An existing computational wall interference assessment/correction (WIAC) procedure is applied to two sets of transonic airfoil data obtained from the same model tested in both a porous, planar-wall and a solid, shaped-wall test section. The published airfoil data from the porous test section agrees reasonably well with the published data from the shaped wall test section, although some differences exist. The WIAC procedure is applied to the data to assess and correct any wall interference effects; WIAC corrections generally improve the correlation between the two data sets. As an independent verification, both the published and WIAC corrected airfoil data are compared to Navier-Stokes calculations. Correlations are generally better between the WIAC corrected data and the Navier-Stokes calculations than between similar correlations with the published data.
This paper examines the scattering properties of woven fibrous materials in order to model the interactions between the scattered radiation from individual fibers. A normally incident plane electromagnetic wave is considered and different representative geometries are analyzed theoretically. Experimental results are presented for specific woven thermal insulation fabrics. Previous studies in the literature have mostly ignored the effect of constructive or destructive addition of scattered waves from individual fibers with the exception of the case of parallel fibers. Whereas the light-scattering characteristics of a single long fiber depend only on the size parameter and on the material optical constants, the additional mechanism of interference between the scattered waves from fibers of parallel or perpendicular orientation introduces an additional dependence on fiber locations. In this study, analytical models are developed for obtaining the radiative scattering characteristics of woven fibrous media taking into account the mechanism of interference. Experimental measurements of forward- and backward-scattered light from a woven silica cloth over a broad range of wavelengths in the infrared are obtained and compared with the predicted results for a system of two orthogonal families of infinite parallel fibers.
A newly developed transonic wall interference assessment and correction (WIAC) code is applied to transonic semispan wing data taken in the Lockheed-Georgia Compressible Flow Wind Tunnel (CFWT), in order to evaluate previous WIAC results and corrections. A current state-of-the-art Navier-Stokes free-air code is used as an independent check. Results are presented for Wing C at the transonic edge of its test data matrix in the CFWT. The results demonstrate the effects of wall porosity, Mach number, and angle-of-attack on the transonic wall interference correction.
An analysis is presented of a frequency-noncoherent, two-lag autocorrelation statistic for the wideband detection of random binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) signals in noise plus random multitone interference. It is shown that this detector is quite robust to the presence or absence of interference and its specific parameter values contrary to an energy detector. The rule assumes knowledge of the data rate and the active scenario under H0. The purpose of the paper is to promote the real-time autocorrelation domain and its samples (lags) as a viable approach for detecting random signals in dense environments.
A two dimensional airfoil model was tested in the adaptive wall test section of the NASA Langley 0.3 meter Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel (TCT) and in the ventilated test section of the National Aeronautical Establishment Two Dimensional High Reynold Number Facility (HRNF). The primary goal of the tests was to compare different techniques (adaptive test section walls and classical, analytical corrections) to account for wall interference. Tests were conducted over a Mach number range from 0.3 to 0.8 at chord Reynolds numbers of 10 x 10(exp 6), 15 x 10(exp 6), and 20 x 10(exp 6). The angle of attack was varied from about 12 degrees up to stall. Movement of the top and bottom test section walls was used to account for the wall interference in the HRNF tests. The test results are in good agreement.
In order to increase the capacity of a Personal Communication Service (PCS) system, the PCS system environment needs to be understood. The PCS system environment is briefly described in this paper. Because the frequency reuse concept is used to increase the capacity of PCS, the cochannel cells created cause cochannel interference. There are two approaches to reduce cochannel interference. One is the microcell approach (within the existing system) and the other is the reduction of cochannel cell separation approach (developing a new system). In-building communications using PCS systems has been addressed. Also, the Intelligent Network (IN) is described to show its importance. The cellular system has great potential to be the future PCS system.
A twin-engine, low-wing transport model, with a supercritical wing designed for a cruise Mach number of 0.77 and a lift coefficient of 0.55 was tested in the 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center. The purpose of this test was to compare the wing/nacelle interference effects of superfans (BPR 18) with the interference effects of advanced turbofans (BPR 6). Flow-through nacelles were used. Forces and moments on the complete model were measured using a strain gage balance, and extensive surface static pressure measurements were made on the model's wing, nacelles, and pylons. Results of the investigation indicate that superfan nacelles can be installed with approximately the same drag penalty as conventional turbofan nacelles.
The shock interaction produced when an incident shock impinges on an inlet cowl lip is investigated for a cowl lip radius of 0.1 in. and flight conditions of Mach 15 and 35-km altitude. This problem is of interest in the design of hypersonic flight vehicles because the interference heating at the cowl lip surface from such a shock interaction is expected to be very high and the design of adequate thermal protection in this region will be challenging. Noncontinuum effects may be significant at this combination of altitude and small dimensions. If this is so, a computational solution based on the Navier-Stokes equations could significantly overpredict the surface heating on the cowl lip. Therefore, a kinetic theory solution technique, direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), is used to predict the flowfield and surface heating. The details of modeling this problem and some preliminary results are presented. The same qualitative flow patterns are seen with DSMC and a continuum solution of the shock interference case, but the peak heating predicted with DSMC is somewhat lower.
A wall interference assessment and correction method for subsonic two-dimensional wind tunnel testing is presented. This method calculates a pressure coefficient and angle of attack correction based on velocity measurements on interfaces inside of the wind tunnel. A mathematical representation of the test article is not required. An experimental verification of the suggested technique is given. A NACA 0012 airfoil is tested at a Mach number of 0.70 and at two different angles of attack. Calculated blockage corrections show reasonable agreement with results based on Hackett's method. Corrected surface pressures compare favorably to free-air flow field data if the tunnel flow field is subsonic. The present wall interference correction method can be applied to transonic tunnel flow fields with some restrictions. Errors are estimated and it is shown that the expected error in calculating the pressure coefficient correction on the model surface is in the order of the error of pressure coefficient measurement on interfaces. Necessary testing equipment in existing tunnels can easily be modified if the present method is applied.
A Wall Signature method originally developed by Hackett has been selected to be adapted for the Ames 12-ft Wind Tunnel WIAC system in the project. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in turn for estimating blockage wall interference. The lifting interference will be treated separately by representing in a horseshoe vortex system for the model's lifting effects. The development and implementation of a working prototype will be completed, delivered and documented with a software manual. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free-air and confined wind-tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically, the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the tunnel case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method--Wall Signature method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected data with those of the free-air simulation.
The performance of the land mobile satellite system (LMSS) was evaluated by using two trellis coded modulation (TCM) schemes under multipath fading and interference. The results were also compared with uncoded QPSK. The trellis coding formats included a trellis code designed for optimum performance on the fading channel that typifies satellite to mobile communications, as well as one designed for optimum performance in the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. The results show that, in Rayleigh fading, the TCM code designed for optimum performance in such an environment performs 4 dB better than the TCM code designed for optimum performance in AWGN, and 10 dB better than the uncoded format, at a bit error rate (BER) of 10 exp -4. Additional results on the performance degradation due to the nonlinearities in the satellite transponder and the adjacent and cochannel interference show that the TCM system is more sensitive than the uncoded system to the phase distortion caused by these impairments.