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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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Theoretical and experimental work in charged particle and magnetic field research is reported. Activities center on plasma generation and acceleration, ATS 1 data processing for evaluation of magnetospheric substorms and micropulsations during magnetic disturbances, and the development of solar wind model using Mariner observations.
Volumes 3 and 4 contain papers dealing with measurements of muons and neutrinos, ultrahigh-energy interactions, extensive air showers, and details of experimental techniques and instrumentation. Attention is given to the zenith angle and underground depth dependence of cosmic ray muons, muon charge ratios and energy spectra, extraterrestrial sources of neutrinos, strong interaction data from new accelerators, searches for quarks and other new particles, hadron fluxes and propagation in the atmosphere, high-energy gamma-ray measurements, and new models and theories for high-energy strong interactions. Extensive air showers are examined in papers dealing with associated Cerenkov light, radio emission, structure, the hadron content, and primaries. The design, operation, and performance of various detectors are explained. Individual items are announced in this issue.
Analytical methods for combining flight acceleration and strain data with shake test mobility data to predict the effects of structural changes on flight vibrations and strains are presented. This integration of structural dynamic analysis with flight performance is referred to as analytical testing. The objective of this methodology is to analytically estimate the results of flight testing contemplated structural changes with minimum flying and change trials. The category of changes to the aircraft includes mass, stiffness, absorbers, isolators, and active suppressors. Examples of applying the analytical testing methodology using flight test and shake test data measured on an AH-1G helicopter are included. The techniques and procedures for vibration testing and modal analysis are also described.
A ballistic intercept mission to Comet Halley is currently under consideration by the United States. This paper describes the navigation system and the navigation strategy which would be employed in such a mission, assuming a launch in the summer of 1985 and an arrival in March of 1986. Spacecraft comet-relative orbit determination accuracies are presented as functions of time for the baseline navigation strategy, along with the results of a number of parametric sensitivity studies involving parameters such as data frequencies, data accuracies, stochastic acceleration levels, cometary ephemeris uncertainties, maneuver execution errors, and encounter date.
New evidence is presented that EUV emission lines formed at the levels of the base of the corona and the transition region are systematically shifted to shorter wavelengths within coronal holes relative to the rest of the solar disk, and that moreover this shift increases with height in the atmosphere. Measurements were made with a rocket-borne EUV spectrometer having high spectroscopic resolution and stability flown on July 15, 1980. Repeated measurements were made along a chord of the solar disk that crossed a compact coronal hole near sun center identified on gamma 10830 He I spectroheliograms. The maximum measured shift corresponded to a velocity of 12 km/sec in gamma 625 Mg X and 7 km/sec in gamma 629 O V. If these velocities correspond to a true mass flux, they provide important data on the acceleration of coronal plasma in open magnetic field regions. These observed Doppler displacements are a strong and significant signature of coronal holes, now measured on three rocket flights.
Measurements and theoretical analysis complement each other. Experimental acceleration and strain data used to calculate coefficients of low-frequency vibrational modes of object under test. An iterative comparison of experimental and calculated strains give modal model of improved accuracy that predicts strains under operating conditions. Method useful in fatigue life and reliability analyses of buildings, pumps, engines, vehicles, and other systems subject to vibrations and loud noises during operation.
Six events with the number of secondaries ranging from 250 to several thousands were registered by an installation consisting of a thin graphite target, above and under which are placed photolayers followed by the usual lead X-ray film and emulsion chambers. Data concerning the number of secondaries and their angular distribution are given. The variance of the angular distribution is compared with data obtained at accelerator energies.
An analytical technique was developed for identifying enhanced fluctuations in the angular distributions of secondary particles produced from relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. The method is applied under the assumption that the masses of the produced particles are small compared to their linear momenta. The importance of particles rests in the fact that enhanced fluctuations in the rapidity distributions is considered to be an experimental signal for the creation of the quark-gluon-plasma (QGP), a state of nuclear matter predicted from the quantum chromodynamics theory (QCD). In the approach, Monte Carlo simulations are employed that make use of a portable random member generator that allow the calculations to be performed on a desk-top computer. The method is illustrated with data taken from high altitude emulsion exposures and is immediately applicable to similar data from accelerator-based emulsion exposures.
A recursive Newton-Euler procedure is presented for the formulation and solution of manipulator dynamical equations. The procedure includes rotational and translational joints and a topological tree. This model was verified analytically using a planar two-link manipulator. Also, the model was tested numerically against the Walker-Orin model using the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System data. The hinge accelerations obtained from both models were identical. The computational requirements of the model vary linearly with the number of joints. The computational efficiency of this method exceeds that of Walker-Orin methods. This procedure may be viewed as a considerable generalization of Armstrong's method. A six-by-six formulation is adopted which enhances both the computational efficiency and simplicity of the model.
The 1989 NASA-ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center was conducted during 5 Jun. 1989 to 11 Aug. 1989. The research projects were previously assigned. Work summaries are presented for the following topics: optical properties data base; particle acceleration; satellite imagery; telemetry workstation; spectroscopy; image processing; stellar spectra; optical radar; robotics; atmospheric composition; semiconductors computer networks; remote sensing; software engineering; solar flares; and glaciers.
We report Cl-36 (301-kyr half-life) data obtained by accelerator mass spectrometry allowing nominal terrestrial ages to be determined for 39 Antarctic H4-6 chondrites for which contents of volatile trace elements are known. The compositional difference between these Antarctic meteorites and 58 non-Antarctic falls increases with terrestrial age and, using multivariate statistical techniques, becomes highly significant for Antarctic samples with ages greater than 50 kyr. The compositional difference is inconsistent with trivial causes such as weathering and seems to reflect differences in thermal histories of parent sources. Temporal source variations for the H chondrite flux on Earth thus exist not only on a short-term, 40 years, basis (Dodd et al., 1993) but also on a long-term, greater than 50 kyr, basis.
Development of advanced rotorcraft configurations has highlighted a need for high-quality experimental data to support the development of flexible and accurate analytical design tools. To provide this type of data, a test program was conducted in the Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel to measure the flow near the empennage of a 15-percent scale powered helicopter model with an operating tail fan. Three-component velocity profiles were measured with laser velocimetry (LV) one chord forward of the horizontal tail for four advance ratios to evaluate the effect of the rotor wake impingement on the horizontal tail angle of attack. These velocity data indicate the horizontal tail can experience unsteady angle of attack variations of over 30 degrees due to the rotor wake influence. The horizontal tail is most affected by the rotor wake above advance ratios of 0.10. Velocity measurements of the flow on the inlet side of the tail fan were made for a low-speed flight condition using conventional LV techniques. The velocity data show an accelerated flow near the tail fan duct, and vorticity calculations track the passage of main rotor wake vortices through the measurement plane.
I have helped scientists at NASA-JSC in analyzing data from many projects. Some of the major ones are: (1) cardiovascular responses to lower body negative pressure (LBNP) following bed rest, (2) the effects of dietary sodium, (3) in-flight cycle exercise mitigates reduced oxygen consumption at submaximal heart rates following space flight, (4) exercise thermoregulation after 13 days of head down bed rest, and (5) bed rest induced orthostatic intolerance. Many of the projects have now been completed and some of them are in the process of being published and others have been presented at national meetings. These projects have helped me be a true statistician and given me a real-life perspective of how interesting and complicated data can be. As a by-product of of these involvements I have been able to write and publish some methodological research that have applications in NASA and elsewhere. For instance, while I was at JSC, I happened to meet Dr. Al Feiveson and got into a discussion of the Space Shuttle Reliability. This led us to rethink about the way the data on the accelerated life testing of space shuttle pressure vessels had been analyzed. This has resulted in a major statistical paper and the paper has appeared in one of the top journals in the field of Statistics. A review of the paper by the editor of the journal was published in AmStatNews, a copy is attached with this report. I have presented these findings at the national/international statistics conference and at other places. I have also written another paper on reliability and a paper on calibration techniques that have applications in the engineering and the biomedical branches of NASA. Further, I am currently in the process of writing at least two more papers that have direct applications in NASA related studies.
Experiments are being performed on the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) pulsed electromagnetic plasma accelerator (PEPA-0). Data produced from the experiments provide an opportunity to further understand the plasma dynamics in these thrusters via detailed computational modeling. The detailed and accurate understanding of the plasma dynamics in these devices holds the key towards extending their capabilities in a number of applications, including their applications as high power (greater than 1 MW) thrusters, and their use for producing high-velocity, uniform plasma jets for experimental purposes. For this study, the 2-D MHD modeling code, MACH2, is used to provide detailed interpretation of the experimental data. At the same time, a 0-D physics model of the plasma initial phase is developed to guide our 2-D modeling studies.
A test program was conducted in the NASA Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel to measure the flow near the empennage of a small-scale powered helicopter model with an operating tail fan. Three-component velocity profiles were measured with Laser Velocimetry (LV) one chord forward of the horizontal tail for four advance ratios to evaluate the effect of the rotor wake impingement on the horizontal tail angle of attack. These velocity data indicate the horizontal tail can experience unsteady downwash angle variations of over 30 degrees due to the rotor wake influence. The horizontal tail is most affected by the rotor wake above advance ratios of 0.10. Velocity measurements of the flow on the inlet side of the fan were made for a low-speed flight condition using both conventional LV techniques and a promising, non-intrusive, global, three-component velocity measurement technique called Doppler Global Velocimetry (DGV). The velocity data show an accelerated flow near the fan duct, and vorticity calculations track the passage of main rotor wake vortices through the measurement plane. DGV shows promise as an evolving tool for rotor flowfield diagnostics.
Onboard radioisotope power systems being developed to support future NASA exploration missions require reliable design lifetimes of up to 14 yr and beyond. The structurally critical heater head of the high-efficiency developmental Stirling power convertor has undergone extensive computational analysis of operating temperatures (up to 650 C), stresses, and creep resistance of the thin-walled Inconel 718 bill of material. Additionally, assessment of the effect of uncertainties in the creep behavior of the thin-walled heater head, the variation in the manufactured thickness, variation in control temperature, and variation in pressure on the durability and reliability were performed. However, it is possible for the heater head to experience rare incidences of random temperature spikes (excursions) of short duration. These incidences could occur randomly with random magnitude and duration during the desired mission life. These rare incidences could affect the creep strain rate and therefore the life. The paper accounts for these uncertainties and includes the effect of such rare incidences, random in nature, on the reliability. The sensitivities of variables affecting the reliability are quantified and guidelines developed to improve the reliability are outlined. Furthermore, the quantified reliability is being verified with test data from the accelerated benchmark tests being conducted at the NASA Glenn Research Center.
Onboard radioisotope power systems being developed to support future NASA exploration missions require reliable design lifetimes of up to 14 yr and beyond. The structurally critical heater head of the high-efficiency developmental Stirling power converter has undergone extensive computational analysis of operating temperatures (up to 650 C), stresses, and creep resistance of the thin-walled Inconel 718 bill of material. Additionally assessment of the effect of uncertainties in the creep behavior of the thin-walled heater head, the variation in the manufactured thickness, variation in control temperature, and variation in pressure on the durability and reliability were performed. However, it is possible for the heater head to experience rare incidences of random temperature spikes (excursions) of short duration. These incidences could occur randomly with random magnitude and duration during the desired mission life. These rare incidences could affect the creep strain rate and therefore the life. The paper accounts for these uncertainties and includes the effect of such rare incidences, random in nature, on the reliability. The sensitivities of variables affecting the reliability are quantified and guidelines developed to improve the reliability are outlined. Furthermore, the quantified reliability is being verified with test data from the accelerated benchmark tests being conducted at the NASA Glenn Research Center.
To date completed three Solar Dynamic Observatory SDO real-time eclipse seasons. Sony 18650HC has a low rate of capacity fade under GEO cycling regime. Real time test results correlate with accelerated GEO lifetest data and AEA capacity fade prediction tool. This data, together with other AEA test data, justify the SDO Project decision to baseline Lithium-Ion chemistry for the spacecraft battery.