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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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At least 523 records · Page 29
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

A simple biofuel surrogate blend for diesel fuel: heptane/iso-butanol mixtures and their droplet burning characteristics

• The burning rates of heptane/iso-butanol mixture droplets varied nonlinearly with composition. • Spherical droplet flames were produced by minimizing convective influences on burning. • Sooting propensities varied with mixture fraction and reduced as heptane was diluted with iso-butanol. • The evolution of droplet diameters was nearly linear throughout burning though the flame standoff ratio was not constant, thus indicating that burning was not quasi-steady. • The relative position of the flame to the droplet generally decreased by diluting heptane with iso-butanol. • A heptane/iso-butanol mixture is a good model surrogate system for a transportation fuel/biofuel blend.

Dalili, Alireza↗
DOE OSTI2024

Are Marine Low Cloud Droplet Concentrations Buffered by Entrained Aitken‐Mode Aerosol (Final Technical Report)

During the summertime, the high-latitude oceans come to life with green phytoplankton, which gain their energy from sunlight and are food for sea creatures small and large. When the phytoplankton are eaten or die, sulfur-rich gases are released under the ocean surface and mix into the air. Observations suggest that, over the Southern Ocean, frequent storms lift this air high into the atmosphere while raining out particulates like salt. As a result, the sulfur-rich air then spawns high concentrations of small ‘Aitken-mode’ aerosol particles. We hypothesize that these particles work their way down into the marine boundary layer, where they can replenish the supply of cloud-condensation nuclei scavenged by frequent precipitation. Further, this process maintains high concentrations of liquid cloud droplets in austral summer, promoting more sunlight to be reflected to space. We call this ‘Aitken buffering’. The primary objective of this project has been to document and test what role Aitken-mode aerosols play in clouds over the Southern Ocean and elsewhere. This effort has included three main components: 1) developing a computer model that realistically simulates the aerosol processes and the small-scale turbulent air motions that move aerosols around and create the clouds, 2) using that model to interpret and extend these observations for process understanding, by allowing different factors that contribute to the aerosol budget, such as surface wind speed, precipitation, surface gas exchange, etc. to be separated, and 3) studying Aitken-mode aerosol and its variability with a focus over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, using data from Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) sites and other available observations. Initial computer studies in more idealized conditions found that elevated concentrations of Aitken-mode aerosols above the clouds could help prevent the breakup of those clouds by acting as cloud-condensation nuclei after they were entrained into the cloudy boundary layer. Simulations of a day during the ACE-ENA field campaign showed that Aitken-mode aerosols could also prevent cloud breakup under more realistic conditions. A new method that extracts information about Aitken-mode aerosols from measurements of aerosols onto which cloud droplets can form finds that Aitken-mode aerosols do vary seasonally over the Southern Ocean, with a peak in summertime, as described above. Other work during this project has focused on understanding how patterns of water vapor, clouds and precipitation are coupled within low-lying clouds over the oceans, and also on how cloud droplets cluster within clouds and how the distribution of cloud droplet sizes change as dry air is mixed into clouds, with the latter studies also using observations from ACE-ENA.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Cloud droplet activation of secondary organic aerosol is mainly controlled by molecular weight, not water solubility

Aerosol particles strongly influence global climate by modifying the properties of clouds. An accurate assessment of the aerosol impact on climate requires knowledge of the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), a subset of aerosol particles that can activate and form cloud droplets in the atmosphere. Atmospheric particles typically consist of a myriad of organic species, which frequently dominate the particle composition. As a result, CCN concentration is often a strong function of the hygroscopicity of organics in the particles. Earlier studies showed organic hygroscopicity increases nearly linearly with oxidation level. Such an increase in hygroscopicity is conventionally attributed to higher water solubility for more oxidized organics. By systematically varying the water content of activating droplets, we show that for the majority of secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), essentially all organics are dissolved at the point of droplet activation. Therefore, for droplet activation, the organic hygroscopicity is not limited by solubility but is dictated mainly by the molecular weight of organic species. Instead of increased water solubility as previously thought, the increase in the organic hygroscopicity with oxidation level is largely because (1) SOAs formed from smaller precursor molecules tend to be more oxidized and have lower average molecular weight and (2) during oxidation, fragmentation reactions reduce average organic molecule weight, leading to increased hygroscopicity. A simple model of organic hygroscopicity based on molecular weight, oxidation level, and volatility is developed, and it successfully reproduces the variation in SOA hygroscopicity with oxidation level observed in the laboratory and field studies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Detection of small drizzle droplets in a large cloud chamber using ultrahigh-resolution radar

Abstract. A large convection–cloud chamber has the potential to produce drizzle-sized droplets, thus offering a new opportunity to investigate aerosol–cloud–drizzle interactions at a fundamental level under controlled environmental conditions. One key measurement requirement is the development of methods to detect the low-concentration drizzle drops in such a large cloud chamber. In particular, remote sensing methods may overcome some limitations of in situ methods. Here, the potential of an ultrahigh-resolution radar to detect the radar return signal of a small drizzle droplet against the cloud droplet background signal is investigated. It is found that using a small sampling volume is critical to drizzle detection in a cloud chamber to allow a drizzle drop in the radar sampling volume to dominate over the background cloud droplet signal. For instance, a radar volume of 1 cubic centimeter (cm3) would enable the detection of drizzle embryos with diameter larger than 40 µm. However, the probability of drizzle sampling also decreases as the sample volume reduces, leading to a longer observation time. Thus, the selection of radar volume should consider both the signal power and the drizzle occurrence probability. Finally, observations from the Pi Convection–Cloud Chamber are used to demonstrate the single-drizzle-particle detection concept using small radar volume. The results presented in this study also suggest new applications of ultrahigh-resolution cloud radar for atmospheric sensing.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1976

Investigation of Critical Burning of Fuel Droplets

An earlier analysis for the combustion response of a liquid monopropellant strand (hydrazine) was extended to consider individual droplets and sprays. While small drops gave low or negative response, large droplets provided response near unity at low frequencies, with the response declining at frequencies greater than the characteristic liquid phase frequency. Temperature gradients in the liquid phase resulted in response peaks greater than unity. A second response peak was found for large drops which corresponded to gas phase transient effects. Spray response was generally reduced from the response of the largest injected droplet, however, even a small percentage of large droplets can yield appreciable response. An apparatus was designed and fabricated to allow observation of bipropellant fuel spray combustion at elevated pressures. A locally homogeneous model was developed to describe this combustion process which allows for high pressure phenomena associated with the thermodynamic critical point.

Chanin, S. P.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Oscillatory combustion of monopropellant droplets

A theoretical study of combustion response to imposed pressure oscillations was conducted for monopropellant droplets and sprays. A first-order perturbation analysis was used, yielding the linear response. Transient gas phase phenomena were considered in some cases, but the bulk of the calculations assume a quasi-steady gas phase. The calculations employed properties representative of hydrazine decomposition. Calculated steady combustion results and response predictions for large hydrazine droplets agreed favorably with earlier measurements. Droplet and spray response factors in excess of unity were found. High response was associated with high pressures (1000-10,000 kN/sq m), large droplets, large mean liquid temperature gradients, and frequencies near the characteristic frequency of the liquid phase thermal wave. Spray response factors are lower than the response factor of the largest injected drop, however, a small percentage of large drops can still provide substantial response for the combustion process.

Chanin, S. P.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Some aspects of the interaction of radiation with the thermal and mass budgets of cloud droplets

It is shown that the effects of radiative heating or cooling can have a substantial influence on the mass budget of a cloud droplet and thus on the microphysical properties of a cloud as a whole. The radiative transfer equation, including all orders of multiple scattering, is solved for spectral windows of earth's atmosphere by adopting the Eddington approximation and assuming that the cloud is isothermal and illuminated by fluxes from both the ground and the sky. The results obtained for the 8-12-micron window indicate that radiative cooling can increase a droplet's growth rate and may also make the droplet cooler than the surrounding gas while water vapor is diffusing in, which would cause diffusiophoreisis and thermophoreisis to combine and increase the efficiency with which droplets would scavenge aerosols.

Barkstrom, B. R.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Recognition of lunar glass droplets produced directly from endogenous liquids - The evidence from S-ZN coatings

Concentrated deposits of ultramafic droplets of green glass at Apollo 15 and orange and black glass at Apollo 17 are generally accepted as having volcanic, and so endogenous, origins. Since these droplets have S + Zn surface coatings with characteristics that fit a volcanic origin, the presence of similar coatings on dispersed droplets are taken as a good criterion of their volcanic origin. This criterion in concert with other criteria (homogeneity, absence of shocked relicts) that distinguish between volcanic and impact origins, has led to identification of a new ultramafic endogenous liquid that was erupted at Apollo 15. The brown glass droplets representing this liquid have a higher TiO2 content and are more mafic than any of the Apollo 15 basalts.

Butler, P., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Nucleation of electrically charged droplets

The nucleating droplets or clusters in many nucleation environments (various colloidal plasmas in laboratory and technological applications, astrophysical condensation environments, etc.) are likely to be at a finite electric potential. This may be due either to the presence of electrons and ions in the gas phase or to the thermal ionization or photoionization of the droplets. The paper demonstrates that this potential may introduce a nontrivial modification in the conventional nucleation theory. Some results for the typical case of nucleation of water droplets are presented. The general conclusion is that the electric potential makes nucleation harder to achieve, thereby demonstrating the importance of a finite droplet potential in the theory of nucleation.

De, B. R.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Liquid droplet radiators for heat rejection in space

A radiator for heat rejection in space is described which utilizes a stream of liquid droplets to radiate waste heat. The large surface area per mass makes the liquid droplet radiator at least an order of magnitude lighter than tube and fin radiators. Generation and collection of the droplets, as well as heat transfer to the liquid, can be achieved with modest extensions of conventional technology. Low vapor pressure liquids are available which cover a radiating temperature range 250-1000 K with negligible evaporation losses. The droplet radiator may be employed for a wide range of heat rejection applications in space. Three applications - heat rejection for a high temperature Rankine cycle, cooling of photovoltaic cells, and low temperature heat rejection for refrigeration in space illustrate the versatility of the radiator.

Mattick, A. T.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Two-stream Maxwellian kinetic theory of cloud droplet growth by condensation

A new growth rate formula (NGRF) is developed for the rate of growth of cloud droplets by condensation. The theory used is a modification of the Lees-Shankar theory in which the two-stream Maxwellian distribution function of Lees is used in Maxwell's method of moments to determine the transport of water vapor to and heat away from the droplet. Boundary conditions at the droplet are the usual conditions set in terms of accommodation coefficients, and the solution passes smoothly into diffusion flow in the far region. Comparisons are given between NGRF and the conventional formula showing close agreement (approximately 0.1%) for large radii with significant difference (approximately 5%) for small radii (not greater than 1 micron). Growth times for haze droplets in a Laktionov chamber are computed.

Robinson, N. F.↗
NASA NTRS1953

Impingement of Water Droplets on NACA 65A004 Airfoil and Effect of Change in Airfoil Thickness from 12 to 4 Percent at 4 deg Angle of Attack

The trajectories of droplets in the air flowing past an NACA 65A004 a irfoil at an angle of attack of 4 deg were determined. The amount of water in droplet form impinging on the airfoil, the area of droplet impingement, and the rate of droplet impingement per unit area on the airfoil surface were calculated from the trajectories and presented to cover a large range of flight and atmospheric conditions. The effect of a change in airfoil thickness from 12 to 4 percent at 4 deg angle of attack is presented by comparing the impingement calculations for the NACA 65A004 airfoil with those for the NACA 65(sub 1)-208 and 65(sub 1)-212 airfoils. The rearward limit of impingement on the upper surface decreases as the airfoil thickness decreases. The rearward limit of impingement on the lower surface increases with a decrease in airfoil t hickness. The total water intercepted decreases as the airfoil thickness is decreased.

Brun, Rinaldo J.↗
NASA NTRS1953

Impingement of water droplets on NACA 65(1)-208 and 65(1)-212 airfoils at 4 degrees angle of attack

The trajectories of droplets in the air flowing past NACA 65(1)-208 airfoil and an NACA 65(1)-212 airfoil, both at an angle of attack of 4 degrees, were determined. The amount of water in droplet form impinging on the airfoils, the area of droplet impingement, and the rate of droplet impingement per unit area on the airfoil surface affected were calculated from the trajectories and are presented. The amount, extent, and rate of impingement of the NACA 65(1)-208 airfoil are compared with the results for the NACA 65(1)1-212 airfoil. Under similar conditions of operation, the NACA 65(1)-208 airfoil collects less water than the NACA 65(1)-212 airfoil. The extent of impingement on the upper surface of the NACA 65(1)-208 airfoil is much less than on the upper surface of the NACA 65(1)-212 airfoil, but on the lower surface the extents of impingement are about the same.

Brun, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1954

Impingement of Water Droplets on an Ellipsoid with Fineness Ratio 5 in Axisymmetric Flow

The presence of radomes and instruments that are sensitive to water films or ice formations in the nose section of all-weather aircraft and missiles necessitates a knowledge of the droplet impingement characteristics of bodies of revolution. Because it is possible to approximate many of these bodies with an ellipsoid of revolution, droplet trajectories about an ellipsoid of revolution with a fineness ratio of 5 were computed for incompressible axisymmetric air flow. From the computed droplet trajectories, the following impingement characteristics of the ellipsoid surface were obtained and are presented in terms of dimensionless parameters: (1) total rate of water impingement, (2) extent of droplet impingement zone, (3) distribution of impinging water, and (4) local rate of water impingement.

Dorsch, Robert G.↗
NASA NTRS1954

Impingement of Water Droplets on NACA 65A004 Airfoil at 8 deg Angle of Attack

The trajectories of droplets in the air flowing past an NACA 65AO04 airfoil at an angle of attack of 8 deg were determined.. The amount of water in droplet form impinging on the airfoil, the area of droplet impingement, and the rate of droplet impingement per unit area on the airfoil surface were calculated from the trajectories and presented to cover a large range of flight and atmospheric conditions. These impingement characteristics are compared briefly with those previously reported for the same airfoil at an angle of attack of 4 deg.

Brun, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1955

Impingement of Water Droplets on NACA 65A004 Airfoil at 0 Deg Angle of Attack

The trajectories of water droplets in the air flowing past an NACA 6511004 airfoil at a n angle of attack of 0 deg were determined. The amount of water in droplet form impinging on the airfoil , the area of droplet impingement, and the rate of droplet impingement per unit area on the airfoil surface were calculated from the trajectories and presented t o cover a large range of flight and atmospheric conditions. These impingement characteristics are compared briefly with those previously reported for the same airfoil at angles of attack of 4 deg and 8 deg.

Brun, Rinaldo J.↗
NASA NTRS1957

Impingement of Cloud Droplets on 36.5-Percent-Thick Joukowski Airfoil at Zero Angle of Attack and Discussion of Use as Cloud Measuring Instrument in Dye-Tracer Technique

The trajectories of droplets i n the air flowing past a 36.5-percent-thick Joukowski airfoil at zero angle of attack were determined. The amount of water i n droplet form impinging on the airfoil, the area of droplet impingement, and the rate of droplet impingement per unit area on the airfoil surface were calculated from the trajectories and cover a large range of flight and atmospheric conditions. With the detailed impingement information available, the 36.5-percent-thick Joukowski airfoil can serve the dual purpose of use as the principal element in instruments for making measurements in clouds and of a basic shape for estimating impingement on a thick streamlined body. Methods and examples are presented for illustrating some limitations when the airfoil is used as the principal element in the dye-tracer technique.

Brun, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Holographic studies of the vapor explosion of vaporizing water-in-fuel emulsion droplets

Holographic studies were performed which examined the fragmentation process during vapor explosion of a water-in-fuel (hexadecane/water) emulsion droplet. Holograms were taken at 700 to 1000 microseconds after the vapor explosion. Photographs of the reconstructed holograms reveal a wide range of fragment droplet sizes created during the explosion process. Fragment droplet diameters range from below 10 microns to over 100 microns. It is estimated that between ten thousand and a million fragment droplets can result from this extremely violent vapor explosion process. This enhanced atomization is thus expected to have a pronounced effect on vaporization processes which are present during combustion of emulsified fuels.

Sheffield, S. A.↗