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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 541 records · Page 30
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1975

Unsteady vortex lattice techniques applied to wake formation and performance of the statically thrusting propeller

The application is considered of vortex lattice techniques to the problem of describing the aerodynamics and performance of statically thrusting propellers. A numerical lifting surface theory to predict the aerodynamic forces and power is performed. The chordwise and spanwise loading is modelled by bound vortices fixed to a twisted flat plate surface. In order to eliminate any apriori assumptions regarding the wake shape, it is assumed the propeller starts from rest. The wake is generated in time and allowed to deform under its own self-induced velocity field as the motion of the propeller progresses. The bound circulation distribution is then determined with time by applying the flow tangency boundary condition at certain selected control points on the blades. The aerodynamics of the infinite wing and finite wing are also considered. The details of wake formation and roll-up are investigated, particularly the localized induction effect. It is concluded that proper wake roll-up and roll-up rates can be established by considering the details of motion at the instant of start.

Hall, G. F.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Lifting-surface theory for a semi-infinite wing in oblique gust

An unsteady lifting-surface theory is developed for the calculation of the airload on a semi-infinite-span thin wing in a compressible flow due to interaction with an oblique gust. By using the solutions obtained for a two-dimensional wing, the problem is formulated so that the unknown is taken to be the difference between the airload on the semi-infinite wing and that on a two-dimensional wing under the same gust conditions. Since this airload difference is nonzero only near the wing tip, the control points need be distributed in the tip region only; this significantly simplifies the numerical procedure. Results are presented for a wing with rectangular tip. The implication for noise and unsteady loads due to blade-vortex interaction for helicopter rotors is discussed.

Chu, S.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Advanced panel-type influence coefficient methods applied to subsonic flows

An advanced technique for solving the linear integral equations of three-dimensional subsonic potential flows (steady, inviscid, irrotational and incompressible) about arbitrary configurations is presented. It involves assembling select, logically consistent networks whose construction comprises four tasks, which are described in detail: surface geometry definition; singularity strength definition; control point and boundary condition specification; and calculation of induced potential or velocity. The technique is applied to seven wing examples approached by four network types: source/analysis, doublet/analysis, source/design, and doublet/design. The results demonstrate the forgiveness of the model to irregular paneling and the practicality of combined analysis/design boundary conditions. The appearance of doublet strength mismatch is a valuable indicator of locally inadequate paneling.

Johnson, F. T.↗
NASA NTRS1975

The influence of man in space observations

The paper evaluates the Skylab missions from the viewpoint of to what extent the presence of men may have been a detriment to scientific observations, either through their movements or through contamination of the spacecraft and instruments. The stability of the instrument canister within the Apollo Telescope Mount was secured by the Experiment Pointing Control System. Angular stability was specified to be within plus or minus 2.5 arc seconds, and was found to be less than 2 arc seconds during normal crew activity. No astronomical observations were reported as being degraded by crew movements. Instrumentation was installed to measure rates of contaminant particle deposition on optical surfaces. Clouds were formed from particles originating in outgassing from vehicle surface materials and from vent apertures. The Coronograph Contamination Measurement Instrument was used to measure the brightness of the induced cloud surrounding Skylab. Preliminary analysis shows no significant degradation of photographic data attributable to contamination.

Hanes, T. E.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Pointing control/roll positioning mechanism

Telescope mount provides torquing for a fine-pointing servosystem in both pitch and yaw. Use of flexure bearings in EPC (experiment pointing control) actuator package offers performance and reliability superior to that of other bearing configurations.

Kohman, W. E.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Precision Attitude Determination System (PADS) design and analysis. Two-axis gimbal star tracker

Development of the Precision Attitude Determination System (PADS) focused chiefly on the two-axis gimballed star tracker and electronics design improved from that of Precision Pointing Control System (PPCS), and application of the improved tracker for PADS at geosynchronous altitude. System design, system analysis, software design, and hardware design activities are reported. The system design encompasses the PADS configuration, system performance characteristics, component design summaries, and interface considerations. The PADS design and performance analysis includes error analysis, performance analysis via attitude determination simulation, and star tracker servo design analysis. The design of the star tracker and electronics are discussed. Sensor electronics schematics are included. A detailed characterization of the application software algorithms and computer requirements is provided.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1976

A summary of the Skylab crew/vehicle disturbances experiment T-013

A manned space flight experiment (designated experiment T-013) to assess the characteristics of astronaut crew-motion disturbances was conducted on the second manned Skylab mission. A brief description of the experiment hardware utilized is given, and a comprehensive discussion of the experiment data reduction and analysis is presented. Data obtained from a force-measuring system, an astronaut limb-motion measuring system, motion-picture film, and the Skylab attitude and pointing control system is described. Results show that astronaut crew members can produce significant disturbance inputs to a spacecraft's attitude control system. Total forces of up to 400 N were exerted during vigorous soaring activities, whereas ""restrained'' motions by the experiment subject generated total forces of up to 300 N. A discussion of potential applications of the experiment results is given and appendixes provide additional detail with respect to experiment operations and results.

Conway, B. A.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Arrangement of vortex lattices

A new method is developed for solving the lifting-surface equation for thin wings. The solution requires the downwash equation to be in the form of Cauchy integrals which can be interpreted as a vortex lattice with the positions of the vortices and control points dictated by the finite sum used to approximate the integrals involved. Lan's continuous loading method is employed for the chordwise integral since it properly accounts for the leading-edge singularity, Cauchy singularity, and Kutta condition. Unlike Lan, the spanwise loading is also continuous and the Cauchy singularity in the spanwise integral is also properly accounted for by using the midpoint trapezoidal rule and the theory of Chebyshev polynomials. This technique yields the exact classical solution to Prandtl's lifting-line equation.The solution to the lifting-surface equation for rectangular wings was found to compare well with other continuous loading methods, but with much smaller computational times, and to converge faster than other vortex lattice methods.

Dejarnette, F. R.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Orbiter entry trajectory corridors: 32000 pound payload, 67.5 percent center of gravity

Thermal and equilibrium glide boundaries were used to analyze and/or design shuttle orbiter entry trajectories. Plots are presented of orbiter thermal and equilibrium glide boundaries in the drag/mass-relative velocity dynamic pressure-relative velocity, and altitude-relative velocity planes for an orbiter having a 32,000 pound payload and a 67.5% center of gravity location. These boundaries were defined for control points 1 through 4 of the shuttle orbiter for 40 deg-30 deg and 38 deg-28 deg ramped angle of attack entry profiles and 40 deg, 38 deg, 35 deg, 30 deg, 28 deg, and 25 deg constant angle of attack entry profiles each at 20 deg, 15 deg, and 10 deg constant body flap settings.

Treybig, J. H.↗
NASA NTRS1976

National Aeronautics and Space Administration /NASA/ Sounding Rocket Program

An overview of the NASA Sounding Rocket Program is presented. The program has launched a total of 1912 rockets representing 30 types of vehicle configurations. Payloads have been primarily directed to the disciplines of magnetodynamics, solar physics, stellar and planetary astronomy and meteorology. The vehicles, launching sites, and launching techniques used in the program are described, and the pointing control systems and command links developed in the course of the program are discussed.

Holtz, J. R.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Lunar radargrammetry with ALSE-VHF imagery

Results are presented for a controlled experiment with a pair of overlapping lunar ALSE-VHF images produced in two consecutive revolutions of the Apollo command module around the moon. A theoretical treatment is presented of the mathematical tools for ALSE radargrammetry. Evaluation of radargrammetric mapping with single strips and a radar stereo model led to preliminary results in a test area around Mons Maraldi. Accuracy achieved with single radar images was about plus or minus 250 m along track and plus or minus 500 m across track. Stereoradargrammetry was used to generate a contour plot of Mons Maraldi and to evaluate the overall height accuracy obtainable from ALSE radar. About plus or minus 120 m of accuracy is obtained if the stereo model is corrected using a few control points. This makes ALSE stereo radar heights competitive with or even superior to vidicon data obtained for planetary exploration. The present basic limitation to radargrammetric accuracy from ALSE-VHF images is the identifiability of surface features.

Leberl, F.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Side-looking radar mosaicking experiment

A block of 24 overlapping synthetic aperture side-looking radar images flown over a well mapped area of about 90,000 sq km provided an opportunity to evaluate the mapping accuracy achieved in current radar mosaicking projects. The maps of scale 1:24,000 that are available in the imaged area permitted the study of the geometric errors of the radar mosaics and of individual radar strips. An estimate was obtained for the effect of the distribution and density of ground control points and for the accuracy of different mosaicking methods that are currently employed with synthetic aperture radar images. It is shown that a successful radar mosaicking process requires the elimination of image errors of up to several kilometers. These errors are introduced as a result of the limited precision of the inertial aircraft navigation. An example of a radar mapping effort in which the navigation errors could be eliminated is presented. The resulting radar mosaics have residual RMS mapping errors of planimetry of about plus or minus 150 m.

Leberl, F.↗
NASA NTRS1976

A study and evaluation of image analysis techniques applied to remotely sensed data

An analysis of phenomena causing nonlinearities in the transformation from Landsat multispectral scanner coordinates to ground coordinates is presented. Experimental results comparing rms errors at ground control points indicated a slight improvement when a nonlinear (8-parameter) transformation was used instead of an affine (6-parameter) transformation. Using a preliminary ground truth map of a test site in Alabama covering the Mobile Bay area and six Landsat images of the same scene, several classification methods were assessed. A methodology was developed for automatic change detection using classification/cluster maps. A coding scheme was employed for generation of change depiction maps indicating specific types of changes. Inter- and intraseasonal data of the Mobile Bay test area were compared to illustrate the method. A beginning was made in the study of data compression by applying a Karhunen-Loeve transform technique to a small section of the test data set. The second part of the report provides a formal documentation of the several programs developed for the analysis and assessments presented.

Atkinson, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Experimental study of digital image processing techniques for LANDSAT data

The author has identified the following significant results. Results are reported for: (1) subscene registration, (2) full scene rectification and registration, (3) resampling techniques, (4) and ground control point (GCP) extraction. Subscenes (354 pixels x 234 lines) were registered to approximately 1/4 pixel accuracy and evaluated by change detection imagery for three cases: (1) bulk data registration, (2) precision correction of a reference subscene using GCP data, and (3) independently precision processed subscenes. Full scene rectification and registration results were evaluated by using a correlation technique to measure registration errors of 0.3 pixel rms thoughout the full scene. Resampling evaluations of nearest neighbor and TRW cubic convolution processed data included change detection imagery and feature classification. Resampled data were also evaluated for an MSS scene containing specular solar reflections.

Rifman, S. S.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Digital overlaying of the universal transverse Mercator grid with LANDSAT data derived products

Picture elements of data from the LANDSAT multispectral scanner are correlated with the universal tranverse Mercator grid. In the procedure, a series of computer modules was used to make approximations of universal transverse Mercator grid locations for all picture elements from the grid locations of a limited number of known control points and to provide display and digital storage of the data. The software has been written in FORTRAN 4 language for a Varian 70-series computer.

Graham, M. H.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Calibration of Viking imaging system pointing, image extraction, and optical navigation measure

Pointing control and knowledge accuracy of Viking Orbiter science instruments is controlled by the scan platform. Calibration of the scan platform and the imaging system was accomplished through mathematical models. The calibration procedure and results obtained for the two Viking spacecraft are described. Included are both ground and in-flight scan platform calibrations, and the additional calibrations unique to optical navigation.

Breckenridge, W. G.↗
NASA NTRS1976

A Landsat Digital Image Rectification System

DIRS is a Digital Image Rectification System for the geometric correction of Landsat Multispectral Scanner digital image data. DIRS removes spatial distortions from the data and brings it into conformance with the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) map projection. Scene data in the form of landmarks or Ground Control Points (GCPs) are used to drive the geometric correction algorithms. The system offers extensive capabilities for 'shade printing' to aid in the determination of GCPs. Affine, two dimensional least squares polynominal and spacecraft attitude modeling techniques for geometric mapping are provided. Entire scenes or selected quadralaterals may be rectified. Resampling through nearest neighbor or cubic convolution at user designated intervals is available. The output products are in the form of digital tape in band interleaved, single band or CCT format in a rotated UTM projection. The system was designed and implemented on large scale IBM 360 computers with at least 300-500K bytes of memory for user application programs and five nine track tapes plus direct access storage.

Van Wie, P.↗
NASA NTRS1977

LST data management and mission operations concept

A candidate design concept for an LST ground facility is described. The design objectives were to use NASA institutional hardware, software and facilities wherever practical, and to maximize efficiency of telescope use. The pointing control performance requirements of LST are summarized, and the major data interfaces of the candidate ground system are diagrammed.

Walker, R.↗