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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 577 records · Page 32
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Large Eddy Simulation of Low-Reynolds-Number Turbulent Flow of Low-Prandtl-Number Fluid in a Tight Lattice Bundle for Assessment of Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Turbulence Model

The MARVEL (Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation) microreactor utilizes natural circulation as core cooling mechanism and liquid metal as a primary coolant. Moreover, the reactor core has a pitch-to-diameter ratio of 1.056, which is considered a tight lattice configuration. Numerous studies have widely reported that Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models inaccurately predict heat transfer in liquid metals and fail to capture flow pulsations that can occur within tight lattices, leading to further inaccuracies in simulation results. Therefore, evaluating the accuracy of RANS turbulence models in the thermal-hydraulic analysis of the MARVEL microreactor core is crucial for assessing reactor safety. In this study, a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of the MARVEL microreactor core subchannel was conducted and compared with a RANS simulation to evaluate the accuracies and conservatism of the RANS model. The flow pulsation in a tight lattice predicted by LES enhanced the heat transfer, whereas the RANS model underpredicted it. Consequently, the RANS model predicted the peak cladding temperature higher than the LES model, but the discrepancy between the two approaches was not significant due to the good thermal characteristics of the liquid metal. It can be concluded that the steady-state RANS model is effective for the thermal analysis of liquid-metal-cooled MARVEL microreactor core and can provide conservative predictions from a safety analysis perspective.

21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗
DOE OSTI2022

XMM–Newton study of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy

ABSTRACT We analysed observations with XMM–Newton in the field of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph). The aim of the study was the classification of X-ray binaries and accreting white dwarfs belonging to the Sculptor dSph. Using different methods of X-ray timing and spectral analyses, together with an extensive multiwavelength study of the optical and infrared counterparts of the X-ray sources, we classified the sources detected with XMM–Newton in the field of the Sculptor dSph. The long-term variability of the sources has been studied over two XMM–Newton observations. None of the members of the Sculptor dSph show significant long-term variability over these two observations. We also searched for periodicity and pulsation using the Lomb–Scargle and Rayleigh Z$^{2}_{n}$ techniques. No signals of pulsation or periodicity have been found for the X-ray sources. The results show the presence of a noticeable number of background X-ray sources in the field of this galaxy. We classified 43 sources as active galactic nuclei, galaxies, and galaxy candidates. Three Galactic foreground stars have been identified in the field of the Sculptor dSph, and one of them is an M-dwarf candidate. Moreover, we classified four symbiotic-star candidates and three quiescent low-mass X-ray binary candidates in the Sculptor dSph. The luminosity of these X-ray sources is ∼1033−35 erg s−1.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Control of hybrid boosting in highly diluted internal combustion engines

A novel hybrid system enabling both flexible supercharging and limited torque assist is studied to mitigate transient response challenges of a turbocharged spark ignition engine equipped with low pressure exhaust gas recirculation. The hybrid system, called a power split supercharger (SC), is configured with a planetary gear set that splits the supercharging power between a small low-voltage electric motor and the engine crankshaft. The air path controller relies on the coordination of four actuators on the engine side and three low-level actuators on the hybrid boosting device. A decentralized control scheme is used in this work, in which the master–slave structure of the boost pressure controller decreases the turbo-lag associated with exhaust gas recirculation, while minimizing the SC operation for fuel economy. A vector reference governor is used to prevent compressor surge during engine tip-outs. In addition, the desired intake manifold pressure is modified to provide time for evacuating the exhaust gas recirculation and avoiding misfires when transitioning to low load, while the hybrid capability of the power split SC is used to recuperate the unwanted generated power. All controllers are validated on both a mean value engine model and a high-fidelity engine model. Practical challenges of implementing the vector reference governor to the highly nonlinear engine air path with pressure pulsations originating from the engine reciprocation are discussed and some solutions are proposed.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2023

The saturation mechanism of thermal instability

The literature on thermal instability (TI) reveals that even for a simple homogeneous plasma, the nonlinear outcome ranges from a gentle reconfiguration of the initial state to an explosive one, depending on whether the condensations that form evolve in an isobaric or nonisobaric manner. After summarizing the recent developments on the linear and nonlinear theory of TI, here we derive several general identities from the evolution equation for entropy that reveal the mechanism by which TI saturates; whenever the boundary of the instability region (the Balbus contour) is crossed, a dynamical change is triggered that causes the comoving time derivative of the pressure to change the sign. This event implies that the gas pressure force reverses direction, slowing the continued growth of condensation. For isobaric evolution, this “pressure reversal” occurs nearly simultaneously for every fluid element in condensation and a steady state is quickly reached. For nonisobaric evolution, the condensation is no longer in mechanical equilibrium and the contracting gas rebounds with greater force during the expansion phase that accompanies the gas reaching the equilibrium curve. The cloud then pulsates because the return to mechanical equilibrium becomes wave mediated. We show that both the contraction rebound event and subsequent pulsation behavior follow analytically from an analysis of the new identities. Our analysis also leads to the identification of an isochoric TI zone and makes it clear that unless this zone intersects the equilibrium curve, isochoric modes can only become unstable if the plasma is in a state of thermal non-equilibrium.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the Flow of a Cement Suspension: The Effects of Nano-Silica and Fly Ash Particles

Additives such as nano-silica and fly ash are widely used in cement and concrete materials to improve the rheology of fresh cement and concrete and the performance of hardened materials and increase the sustainability of the cement and concrete industry by reducing the usage of Portland cement. Therefore, it is important to study the effect of these additives on the rheological behavior of fresh cement. In this paper, we study the pulsating Poiseuille flow of fresh cement in a horizontal pipe by considering two different additives and when they are combined (nano-silica, fly ash, combined nano-silica, and fly ash). To model the fresh cement suspension, we used a modified form of the power-law model to demonstrate the dependency of the cement viscosity on the shear rate and volume fraction of cement and the additive particles. The convection–diffusion equation was used to solve for the volume fraction. After solving the equations in the dimensionless forms, we conducted a parametric study to analyze the effects of nano-silica, fly ash, and combined nano-silica and fly ash additives on the velocity and volume fraction profiles of the cement suspension. According to the parametric study presented here, larger nano-silica content results in lower centerline velocity of the cement suspension and larger non-uniformity of the volume fraction. Compared to nano-silica, fly ash exhibits an opposite effect on the velocity. Larger fly ash content results in higher centerline velocity, while the effect of the fly ash on the volume fraction is not obvious. For cement suspension containing combined nano-silica and fly ash additives, nano-silica plays a dominant role in the flow behavior of the suspension. The findings of the study can help the design and operation of the pulsating flow of fresh cement mortars and concrete in the 3D printing industry.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Discovery and Timing of Three Millisecond Pulsars in Radio and Gamma-Rays with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope and Fermi Large Area Telescope

In this work, we performed deep observations to search for radio pulsations in the directions of 375 unassociated Fermi Large Area Telescope γ-ray sources using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) at 322 and 607 MHz. In this paper we report the discovery of three millisecond pulsars (MSPs), PSR J0248+4230, PSR J1207–5050, and PSR J1536–4948. We conducted follow-up timing observations for ~5 yr with the GMRT and derived phase-coherent timing models for these MSPs. PSR J0248+4230 and J1207–5050 are isolated MSPs having periodicities of 2.60 ms and 4.84 ms. PSR J1536–4948 is a 3.07 ms pulsar in a binary system with an orbital period of ~62 days about a companion of a minimum mass of 0.32 M⊙. We also present multifrequency pulse profiles of these MSPs from the GMRT observations. PSR J1536–4948 is an MSP with an extremely wide pulse profile having multiple components. Using the radio timing ephemeris we subsequently detected γ-ray pulsations from these three MSPs, confirming them as the sources powering the γ-ray emission. For PSR J1536–4948 we performed combined radio–γ-ray timing using ~11.6 yr of γ-ray pulse times of arrival (TOAs) along with the radio TOAs. PSR J1536–4948 also shows evidence for pulsed γ-ray emission out to above 25 GeV, confirming earlier associations of this MSP with a ≥10 GeV point source. The multiwavelength pulse profiles of all three MSPs offer challenges to models of radio and γ-ray emission in pulsar magnetospheres.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Deep Search for Gamma-Ray Emission from the Accreting X-Ray Pulsar 1A 0535+262

Binary systems are a well-established subclass of gamma-ray sources. The high mass X-ray binary pulsar 1A 0535+262 has been considered to be a possible gamma-ray emitter for a long time, although former gamma-ray searches using the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and VERITAS data resulted in upper limits only. We aim at a deep search for gamma-ray emission and pulsations from 1A 0535+262 using more than 13 yr of Fermi-LAT data. The analysis was performed for both the whole Fermi-LAT data set, as well as for the X-ray outbursts that 1A 0535+262 has experienced since the launch of Fermi. Various X-ray observations have been used to generate the ephemeris for the pulsation search. We also investigate the long-term gamma-ray flux variability and perform orbital phase-resolved analysis for the outbursts. We did not detect any steady or pulsed gamma-ray emission from 1A 0535+262 during the whole Fermi-LAT mission span or its X-ray outbursts. We thus derived the deepest gamma-ray luminosity upper limits to date at the 95% confidence level to be around (2.3–4.7) × 10 32 erg s -1 depending on different spectral indices assumed, which results in a ratio of L γ to L X (2–150 keV) being (1.9–3.9) × 10 -6 .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Characterizing the Gamma-Ray Emission Properties of the Globular Cluster M5 with the Fermi-LAT

Abstract We analyzed the globular cluster M5 (NGC 5904) using 15 yr of gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Using rotation ephemerides generated from Arecibo and FAST radio telescope observations, we searched for gamma-ray pulsations from the seven millisecond pulsars (MSPs) identified in M5. We detected no significant pulsations from any of the individual pulsars. In addition, we searched for possible variations of the gamma-ray emission as a function of orbital phase for all six MSPs in binary systems, but we did not detect any significant modulations. The gamma-ray emission from the direction of M5 is well described by an exponentially cutoff power-law spectral model, although other models cannot be excluded. The phase-averaged emission is consistent with being steady on a timescale of a few months. We estimate the number of MSPs in M5 to be between 1 and 10, using the gamma-ray conversion efficiencies for well-characterized gamma-ray MSPs in the Third Fermi-LAT Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars, suggesting that the sample of known MSPs in M5 is (nearly) complete, even if it is not currently possible to rule out a diffuse component of the observed gamma rays from the cluster.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2020

Discovery of a Gamma-Ray Black Widow Pulsar by GPU-accelerated Einstein@Home

We report the discovery of 1.97 ms period gamma-ray pulsations from the 75 minute orbital-period binary pulsar now named PSR J1653-0158. The associated Fermi Large Area Telescope gamma-ray source 4FGL J1653.6-0158 has long been expected to harbor a binary millisecond pulsar. Despite the pulsar-like gamma-ray spectrum and candidate optical/X-ray associations—whose periodic brightness modulations suggested an orbit—no radio pulsations had been found in many searches. The pulsar was discovered by directly searching the gamma-ray data using the GPU-accelerated Einstein@Home distributed volunteer computing system. The multidimensional parameter space was bounded by positional and orbital constraints obtained from the optical counterpart. More sensitive analyses of archival and new radio data using knowledge of the pulsar timing solution yield very stringent upper limits on radio emission. Any radio emission is thus either exceptionally weak, or eclipsed for a large fraction of the time. The pulsar has one of the three lowest inferred surface magnetic-field strengths of any known pulsar with B surf ≈ 4 × 10 7 G. The resulting mass function, combined with models of the companion star's optical light curve and spectra, suggests a pulsar mass gsim 2 M ⊙ . The companion is lightweight with mass ~0.01 M ⊙ , and the orbital period is the shortest known for any rotation-powered binary pulsar. This discovery demonstrates the Fermi Large Area Telescope's potential to discover extreme pulsars that would otherwise remain undetected.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1969

X-ray pulsar in the Crab Nebula.

X ray pulsations in Crab Nebula at frequency closely matching radio and optical pulsations, noting energy distribution

Chubb, T. A.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Study on multi-satellite, multi-measurement of the structure of the earth's bow shock

The pulsation model of the earth's bow shock proposed a nonuniform shock having both perpendicular (abrupt, monotonic) and oblique (oscillatory, multigradient) properties simultaneously, depending on local orientation of the shock surface to the interplanetary field B sub sw in parallel planes defined by B sub sw and solar wind velocity. Multiple, concurrent, satellite observations of the shock and solar wind conditions were used. Twenty-six potentially useful intervals of concurrent Explorer 33 and 35 data acquisition were examined, of which six were selected for closer study. In addition, two years of OGO-5 and HEOS 1 magnetometer data were examined for possible conjunctions to these spacecraft having applicable data. One case of clear nonuniformity and several of field-dependent structure were documented. A computational aid, called pulsation index, was developed.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1972

X-ray observations of pulsars.

The X-ray pulsations from NP 0532, discovered by Fritz et al. (1969), have been studied. The detectors in the investigations had wide fields of view, and the entire Crab Nebula NP 0532 radiation was detected. The power density spectrum of X-radiation observed is presented together with the shapes of X-ray and optical pulses. Searches for X-ray pulsations from other X-ray sources have also been carried out. The summarized results are shown in a table.

Bradt, H. V.↗
NASA NTRS1972

A model for the Centaurus X-3 phenomenon.

Description of a model for Cen X-3 according to which the X-ray emission comes from an atmosphere heated by shock waves produced by surface pulsations of a white dwarf. This model can explain the luminosity, period, and spectrum of Cen X-3. The way in which these quantities vary with pulsation period and amplitude is discussed.

Blumenthal, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Relativistic stellar stability: Preferred-frame effects

Possible preferred-frame effects on stellar stability were examined and no new instabilities were found. In particular, it is shown that: (1) Although terms linear in the preferred-frame velocity w (time-odd terms, analogous to viscosity and energy generation) change the shapes of the normal modes, their symmetry properties prevent them from changing the characteristic frequencies. Thus, no new vibrational or secular instabilities can occur. (2) Terms quadratic in w do not change either the shapes of the normal modes or the characteristic frequencies for radial pulsations. Thus, they have no influence on radial stability. (3) Terms quadratic in w do change both the normal modes and the characteristic frequencies of nonradial pulsations; but in the limit of a neutral mode these changes vanish. Hence, there is no modification of the criterion for convective stability, i.e., the standard Schwarzschild criterion remains valid.

Ni, W.↗
NASA NTRS1973

VLBI observations of the Crab Nebula pulsar.

Observations of the Crab Nebula pulsar at meter wavelengths using very long baseline interferometry techniques have been made. At 196.5 MHz, no resolution of the pulsar is observed, all the pulse shapes observed with the interferometers are similar to single-dish profiles, and all the power pulsates. At 111.5 MHz, in addition to the pulsing power, there is always a steady component, presumably due to multipath propagation effects. The pulsar is slightly resolved at 111.5 MHz with an apparent angular diameter of 0.07 plus or minus 0.01 sec. Fifty per cent linear polarization of the time-averaged power is observed at 196.5 MHz; at 111.5 MHz, 20% of the total time-averaged power is polarized, and 35% of the pulsing power is polarized. The steady component is unpolarized. The total flux of the steady plus pulsating component appears to remain constant, while the distribution of power between these components varies.

Vandenberg, N. R.↗
NASA NTRS1973

UHURU results on galactic X-ray sources.

Consideration of the nature of the galactic X-ray sources located with the aid of the UHURU satellite. A brief description is given of the X-ray emission of the Galaxy as a whole. The general properties of sources similar to Sco X-1 (called Sco X-1-like sources) are discussed, as well as the properties of three pulsating sources showing evidence of a binary nature. Finally, some new results concerning two objects - GX263+3 (2U0900-40) and the X-ray source in the Small Magellanic Cloud (2U0115-73) - which both show evidence of a binary nature, yet have some of the properties of the Sco X-1-like objects are presented. The links noted between the Sco X-1-like objects and the pulsating binary sources lead to the suggestion that all of the galactic X-ray sources (except supernova remnants) may in fact be binaries.

Tananbaum, H. D.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Studies of hydrodynamic events in stellar evolution. 3: Ejection of planetary nebulae

The dynamic behavior of the H-rich envelope (0.101 solar mass) of an evolved star (1.1 solar mass) as the luminosity rises to 19000 solar luminosity during the second ascent of the red giant branch. For luminosities in the range 3100 L 19000 solar luminosity the H-rich envelope pulsates like a long-period variable (LPV) with periods of the order of a year. As L reaches 19000 solar luminosity, the entire H-rich envelope is ejected as a shell with speeds of a few 10 km/s. The ejection occurs on a timescale of a few LPV pulsation periods. This ejection is associated with the formation of a planetary nebula. The computations are based on an implicit hydrodynamic computer code. T- and RHO-dependent opacities and excitation and ionization energies are included. As the H-rich envelope is accelerated off the stellar core, the gap between envelope and core is approximated by a vacuum, filled with radiation. Across the vacuum, the luminosity is conserved and the anisotropy of the radiation is considered as well as the solid angle subtended by the remnant star at the inner surface of the H-rich envelope. Spherical symmetry and the diffusion approximation are assumed.

Sparks, W. M.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Study of the relation between Pc 3 micropulsations and magnetosheath fluctuations and for the multisatellite multimeasurement investigation of earths bow shock

Hourly averages of HEOS A interplanetary field and plasma parameters are compared with micropulsation spectrograms taken by auroral zone stations. Visual evaluation of tungsten induction coil records and a statistical summary indicate a class of pulsations sometimes in the Pc 3, sometimes in the Pc 4 range, whose appearance correlates with solar wind field flow alignment. It is concluded that there is a pulsation phenomenon of variable period strongly associated with certain interplanetary field directions.

Greenstadt, E. W.↗