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At least 577 records · Page 32
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Grating Polarizers at 170 GHz for ECRH Systems: Low Power Tests and Simulations

The elliptical polarization produced by a pair of sinusoidally profiled miter-bend grating polarizers has been measured experimentally and found to be in excellent agreement with theory. The polarizers were designed to be used at 170 GHz in the miter bends of a 63.5 mm corrugated metallic waveguide for creating the arbitrary elliptically polarized microwave beam needed for electron cyclotron resonance heating of plasma. Using a vector network analyzer to generate a linearly polarized HE 11 incident mode, each polarizer was individually tested to measure the rotation α and ellipticity β of the elliptically polarized reflected microwave beam as a function of the grating rotation angle. The grating polarizers were then tested together to measure the elliptical polarization as a function of the angles of the combination of the two polarizers arranged sequentially on the transmission line. The map of the ellipticity versus grating angles agreed very well with numerical simulations using high-frequency structure simulator. Numerical simulations show that up to eight combinations of rotation angles of the two grating polarizers can provide the same ellipticity but with the varying ohmic loss, thus allowing the choice of settings to minimize the ohmic loss, a necessary consideration to minimize heating effects in megawatt power level systems.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1993

Testing of the on-board attitude determination and control algorithms for SAMPEX

Algorithms for on-board attitude determination and control of the Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) have been expanded to include a constant gain Kalman filter for the spacecraft angular momentum, pulse width modulation for the reaction wheel command, an algorithm to avoid pointing the Heavy Ion Large Telescope (HILT) instrument boresight along the spacecraft velocity vector, and the addition of digital sun sensor (DSS) failure detection logic. These improved algorithms were tested in a closed-loop environment for three orbit geometries, one with the sun perpendicular to the orbit plane, and two with the sun near the orbit plane - at Autumnal Equinox and at Winter Solstice. The closed-loop simulator was enhanced and used as a truth model for the control systems' performance evaluation and sensor/actuator contingency analysis. The simulations were performed on a VAX 8830 using a prototype version of the on-board software.

Mccullough, Jon D.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Challenges of Cold Conditioning and Static Testing the Second Ares Demonstration Motor (DM-2)

On August 31, 2010, a five-segment demonstration motor (DM) for the Ares program was successfully tested. A series of demonstration motors (DMs) will be tested in different conditioned environments to confirm they meet their design specifications. The second demonstration motor (DM-2) was the first cold motor. The motor needed to be subjected to sub-freezing temperatures for two months so that its internal propellant mean bulk temperature (PMBT) was approximately 40 F. Several challenges had to be overcome to make this a successful test. One challenge was to condition four field joints to get the O-rings approximately 32 F. This would be done by applying conditioning shrouds to externally cool each field joint after the test bay was pulled off. The purpose of this conditioning was to validate the new O-ring design and allow joint heaters to be eliminated. Another challenge was maintaining temperature requirements for components in the nozzle vectoring system. A separate heating system was used to warm these components during cold conditioning. There were 53 test objectives that required 764 channels of data to be recorded; 460 were specific to DM-2. This instrumentation had to be installed prior to conditioning, which meant the baseline process and timeline had to be modified to meet this time critical schedule.

Quinn, Shyla↗
DOE OSTI2018

Neutral Particle Motion around a Schwarzschild Black Hole in Modified Gravity

We investigate circular motion of neutral test particles on equatorial plane near a black hole in scalar-tensor-vector gravity. We consider three cases (i) α < G/G{sub N} (ii) α = G/G{sub N} and (iii) α > G/G{sub N} to find the regions where motion can exist. The corresponding effective potential, energy, angular momentum and center of mass energy are evaluated. Further, we define four different cases for α > G/G{sub N} and identify stable and unstable regions of circular orbits. It is found that circular orbits having zero angular momentum exist at r = αGNM due to repulsive gravity effects. We conclude that the structure of stable regions for α < G/G{sub N} as well as α = G/G{sub N} case is completely different from that of α > G/G{sub N}.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2016

Damping Effects of Drogue Parachutes on Orion Crew Module Dynamics

Because simulations of the Orion Crew Module (CM) dynamics with drogue parachutes deployed were under-predicting the amount of damping seen in free-flight tests, an attach-point damping model was applied to the Orion system. A key hypothesis in this model is that the drogue parachutes' net load vector aligns with the CM drogue attachment point velocity vector. This assumption seems reasonable and has historically produced good results, but has never been experimentally verified. The wake of the CM influences the drogue parachutes, which makes performance predictions of the parachutes difficult. Many of these effects are not currently modeled in the simulations. A forced oscillation test of the CM with parachutes was conducted in the NASA LaRC 20-Ft Vertical Spin Tunnel (VST) to gather additional data to validate and refine the attach-point damping model. A second loads balance was added to the original Orion VST model to measure the drogue parachute loads independently of the CM. The objective of the test was to identify the contribution of the drogues to CM damping and provide additional information to quantify wake effects and the interactions between the CM and parachutes. The drogue parachute force vector was shown to be highly dependent on the CM wake characteristics. Based on these wind tunnel test data, the attach-point damping model was determined to be a sufficient approximation of the parachute dynamics in relationship to the CM dynamics for preliminary entry vehicle system design. More wake effects should be included to better model the system.

Aubuchon, Vanessa V.↗
DOE OSTI2016

Experimental and CFD Studies of Coolant Flow Mixing within Scaled Models of the Upper and Lower Plenums of NGNP Gas-Cooled Reactors

A 1/16th scaled VHTR experimental model was constructed and the preliminary test was performed in this study. To produce benchmark data for CFD validation in the future, the facility was first run at partial operation with five pipes being heated. PIV was performed to extract the vector velocity field for three adjacent naturally convective jets at statistically steady state. A small recirculation zone was found between the pipes, and the jets entered the merging zone at 3 cm from the pipe outlet but diverged as the flow approached the top of the test geometry. Turbulence analysis shows the turbulence intensity peaked at 41-45% as the jets mixed. A sensitivity analysis confirmed that 1000 frames were sufficient to measure statistically steady state. The results were then validated by extracting the flow rate from the PIV jet velocity profile, and comparing it with an analytic flow rate and ultrasonic flowmeter; all flow rates lie within the uncertainty of the other two methods for Tests 1 and 2. This test facility can be used for further analysis of naturally convective mixing, and eventually produce benchmark data for CFD validation for the VHTR during a PCC or DCC accident scenario. Next, a PTV study of 3000 images (1500 image pairs) were used to quantify the velocity field in the upper plenum. A sensitivity analysis confirmed that 1500 frames were sufficient to precisely estimate the flow. Subsequently, three (3, 9, and 15 cm) Y-lines from the pipe output were extracted to consider the output differences between 50 to 1500 frames. The average velocity field and standard deviation error that accrued in the three different tests were calculated to assess repeatability. The error was varied, from 1 to 14%, depending on Y-elevation. The error decreased as the flow moved farther from the output pipe. In addition, turbulent intensity was calculated and found to be high near the output. Reynolds stresses and turbulent intensity were used to validate the data by comparing it with benchmark data. The experimental data gave the same pattern as the benchmark data. A turbulent single buoyant jet study was performed for the case of LOFC in the upper plenum of scaled VHTR. Time-averaged profiles show that 3,000 frames of images were sufficient for the study up to second-order statistics. Self-similarity is an important feature of jets since the behavior of jets is independent of Reynolds number and a sole function of geometry. Self-similarity profiles were well observed in the axial velocity and velocity magnitude profile regardless of z/D where the radial velocity did not show any similarity pattern. The normal components of Reynolds stresses have self-similarity within the expected range. The study shows that large vortices were observed close to the dome wall, indicating that the geometry of the VHTR has a significant impact on its safety and performance. Near the dome surface, large vortices were shown to inhibit the flows, resulting in reduced axial jet velocity. The vortices that develop subsequently reduce the Reynolds stresses that develop and the impact on the integrity of the VHTR upper plenum surface. Multiple jets study, including two, three and five jets, were investigated.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Transient Storage Model Parameter Optimization Using the Simulated Annealing Method

Hyporheic exchange in streams is critical to ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling along river corridors, especially for slowly moving or small stream systems. The transient storage model (TSM) has been widely used for modeling of hyporheic exchange. TSM calibration, for hyporheic exchange, is typically used to estimate four parameters, including the mass exchange rate coefficient, the dispersion coefficient, stream cross-sectional area, and hyporheic zone cross-sectional area. Prior studies have raised concerns regarding the non-uniqueness of the inverse problem for the TSM, that is, the occurrence of different parameter vectors resulting in TSM solution that reproduces the observed in-stream tracer break through curve (BTC) with the same error. This leads to practical non-identifiability in determining the unknown parameter vector values even when global-optimal values exist, and the parameter optimization becomes practically non-unique. To address this problem, we applied the simulated annealing method to calibrate the TSM to BTCs, because it is less susceptible to local minima-induced non-identifiability. A hypothetical (or synthetic) tracer test data set with known parameters was developed to demonstrate the capability of the simulated annealing method to find the global minimum parameter vector, and it identified the “hypothetically-true” global minimum parameter vector even with input data that were modified with up to 10% noise without increasing the number of iterations required for convergence. The simulated annealing TSM was then calibrated using two in-stream tracer tests conducted in East Fork Poplar Creek, Tennessee. In conclusion, simulated annealing was determined to be appropriate for quantifying the TSM parameter vector because of its search capability for the global minimum parameter vector.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2010

Understanding Solar Eruptions with SDO/HMI Measuring Photospheric Flows, Testing Models, and Steps Towards Forecasting Solar Eruptions

The imminent launch of Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will carry the first full-disk imaging vector magnetograph, the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), into an inclined geosynchronous orbit. This magnetograph will provide nearly continuous measurements of photospheric vector magnetic fields at cadences of 90 seconds to 12 minutes with I" resolution, precise pointing, and unfettered by atmospheric seeing. The enormous data stream of ~1.5 Terabytes per day from SDO will provide an unprecedented opportunity to understand the mysteries of solar eruptions. These ground-breaking observations will permit the application of a new technique, the differential affine velocity estimator for vector magnetograms (DAVE4VM), to measure photospheric plasma flows in active regions. These measurements will permit, for the first time, accurate assessments of the coronal free energy available for driving CMEs and flares. The details of photospheric plasma flows, particularly along magnetic neutral-lines, are critical to testing models for initiating coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and flares. Assimilating flows and fields into state-of-the art 3D MHD simulations that model the highly stratified solar atmosphere from the convection zone to the corona represents the next step towards achieving NASA's Living with a Star forecasting goals of predicting "when a solar eruption leading to a CME will occur." This talk will describe these major science and predictive advances that will be delivered by SDO /HMI.

Schuck, Peter W.↗
DOE OSTI2013

Distance-preserving rigidity penalty on deformable image registration of multiple skeletal components in the neck

Purpose: This study aims at developing and testing a novel rigidity penalty suitable for the deformable registration of tightly located skeletal components in the head and neck from planning computed tomography (CT) and daily cone-beam CT (CBCT) scans of patients undergoing radiotherapy. Methods: The proposed rigidity penalty is designed to preserve intervoxel distances within each bony structure. This penalty was tested in the intensity-based B-spline deformable registration of five cervical vertebral bodies (C1–C5). The displacement vector fields (DVFs) from the registrations were compared to the DVFs generated by using rigid body motions of the cervical vertebrae, measured by the surface registration of vertebrae delineated on CT and CBCT images. Twenty five pairs of planning CT (reference) and treatment CBCTs (target) from five patients were aligned without and with the penalty. An existing penalty based on the orthonormality of the deformation gradient tensor was also tested and the effects of the penalties compared. Results: The mean magnitude of the maximum registration error with the proposed distance-preserving penalty was (0.86, 1.12, 1.33) mm compared to (2.11, 2.49, 2.46) without penalty and (1.53, 1.64, 1.64) with the existing orthonormality-based penalty. The improvement in the accuracy of the deformable image registration was also verified by comparing the Procrustes distance between the DVFs. With the proposed penalty, the average distance was 0.11 (σ 0.03 mm) which is smaller than 0.53 (0.1 mm) without penalty and 0.28 (0.04 mm) with the orthonormality-based penalty. Conclusions: The accuracy of aligning multiple bony elements was improved by using the proposed distance-preserving rigidity penalty. The voxel-based statistical analysis of the registration error shows that the proposed penalty improved the integrity of the DVFs within the vertebral bodies.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
NASA NTRS2012

Velocity Vector Field Visualization of Flow in Liquid Acquisition Device Channel

A capillary flow liquid acquisition device (LAD) for cryogenic propellants has been developed and tested in NASA Glenn Research Center to meet the requirements of transferring cryogenic liquid propellants from storage tanks to an engine in reduced gravity environments. The prototypical mesh screen channel LAD was fabricated with a mesh screen, covering a rectangular flow channel with a cylindrical outlet tube, and was tested with liquid oxygen (LOX). In order to better understand the performance in various gravity environments and orientations at different liquid submersion depths of the screen channel LAD, a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of LOX flow through the LAD screen channel was undertaken. The resulting velocity vector field visualization for the flow in the channel has been used to reveal the gravity effects on the flow in the screen channel.

McQuillen, John B.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Constraining Cosmology with Simulation-based inference and Optical Galaxy Cluster Abundance

We test the robustness of simulation-based inference (SBI) in the context of cosmological parameter estimation from galaxy cluster counts and masses in simulated optical datasets. We construct ``simulations'' using analytical models for the galaxy cluster halo mass function (HMF) and for the observed richness (number of observed member galaxies) to train and test the SBI method. We compare the SBI parameter posterior samples to those from an MCMC analysis that uses the same analytical models to construct predictions of the observed data vector. The two methods exhibit comparable performance, with reliable constraints derived for the primary cosmological parameters, ($\Omega_m$ and $\sigma_8$), and richness-mass relation parameters. We also perform out-of-domain tests with observables constructed from galaxy cluster-sized halos in the Quijote simulations. Again, the SBI and MCMC results have comparable posteriors, with similar uncertainties and biases. Unsurprisingly, upon evaluating the SBI method on thousands of simulated data vectors that span the parameter space, SBI exhibits worsened posterior calibration metrics in the out-of-domain application. We note that such calibration tests with MCMC is less computationally feasible and highlight the potential use of SBI to stress-test limitations of analytical models, such as in the use for constructing models for inference with MCMC.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1995

User's and test case manual for FEMATS

The FEMATS program incorporates first-order edge-based finite elements and vector absorbing boundary conditions into the scattered field formulation for computation of the scattering from three-dimensional geometries. The code has been validated extensively for a large class of geometries containing inhomogeneities and satisfying transition conditions. For geometries that are too large for the workstation environment, the FEMATS code has been optimized to run on various supercomputers. Currently, FEMATS has been configured to run on the HP 9000 workstation, vectorized for the Cray Y-MP, and parallelized to run on the Kendall Square Research (KSR) architecture and the Intel Paragon.

Chatterjee, Arindam↗
NASA NTRS1990

Control research in the NASA high-alpha technology program

NASA is conducting a focused technology program, known as the High-Angle-of-Attack Technology Program, to accelerate the development of flight-validated technology applicable to the design of fighters with superior stall and post-stall characteristics and agility. A carefully integrated effort is underway combining wind tunnel testing, analytical predictions, piloted simulation, and full-scale flight research. A modified F-18 aircraft has been extensively instrumented for use as the NASA High-Angle-of-Attack Research Vehicle used for flight verification of new methods and concepts. This program stresses the importance of providing improved aircraft control capabilities both by powered control (such as thrust-vectoring) and by innovative aerodynamic control concepts. The program is accomplishing extensive coordinated ground and flight testing to assess and improve available experimental and analytical methods and to develop new concepts for enhanced aerodynamics and for effective control, guidance, and cockpit displays essential for effective pilot utilization of the increased agility provided.

Gilbert, William P.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Real-time in-flight engine performance and health monitoring techniques for flight research application

Procedures for real time evaluation of the inflight health and performance of gas turbine engines and related systems were developed to enhance flight test safety and productivity. These techniques include the monitoring of the engine, the engine control system, thrust vectoring control system health, and the detection of engine stalls. Real time performance techniques were developed for the determination and display of inflight thrust and for aeroperformance drag polars. These new methods were successfully shown on various research aircraft at NASA-Dryden. The capability of NASA's Western Aeronautical Test Range and the advanced data acquisition systems were key factors for implementation and real time display of these methods.

Ray, Ronald J.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Enhancing Cloud Radiative Processes and Radiation Efficiency in the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model

The objective of this research has been to evaluate and implement enhancements to the computational performance of the RRTMG radiative transfer option in the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Efficiency is as essential as accuracy for effective numerical weather prediction, and radiative transfer is a relatively time-consuming component of dynamical models, taking up to 30-50 percent of the total model simulation time. To address this concern, this research has implemented and tested a version of RRTMG that utilizes graphics processing unit (GPU) technology (hereinafter RRTMGPU) to greatly improve its computational performance; thereby permitting either more frequent simulation of radiative effects or other model enhancements. During the early stages of this project the development of RRTMGPU was completed at AER under separate NASA funding to accelerate the code for use in the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Goddard Earth Observing System GEOS-5 global model. It should be noted that this final report describes results related to the funded portion of the originally proposed work concerning the acceleration of RRTMG with GPUs in WRF. As a k-distribution model, RRTMG is especially well suited to this modification due to its relatively large internal pseudo-spectral (g-point) dimension that, when combined with the horizontal grid vector in the dynamical model, can take great advantage of the GPU capability. Thorough testing under several model configurations has been performed to ensure that RRTMGPU improves WRF model run time while having no significant impact on calculated radiative fluxes and heating rates or on dynamical model fields relative to the RRTMG radiation. The RRTMGPU codes have been provided to NCAR for possible application to the next public release of the WRF forecast model.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Trinity Benchmarks on the Intel Xeon Phi (Knights Corner)

This report documents the early experiences with porting and performance analysis of the Tri-Lab Trinity benchmark applications on Intel Xeon Phi (Knights Corner) (KNC) processor. KNC, the second generation of the Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) architectures, uses a large number of small P54C-x86 cores with wide vector units and is deployed as PCI bus attached process accelerators. Sandia has experimental test beds of small InifiniBand clusters and workstations to investigate the performance of the MIC architecture. On these experimental test beds the programming models that may be investigated are "offload", "symmetric" and "native". Among these program usage models our primary interest is in the so called "native" mode, because the planned Trinity system to be deployed in 2016 using the next generation MIC processor architecture called Knights Landing would be self-hosted. Trinity / NERSC-8 benchmark programs cover a variety of scientific disciplines and they were used to guide the procurement of these systems. Architectures such as the Intel MIC are well suited to study evolving processor architectures and a usage model commonly referred to as MPI + X that facilitates migration of our applications to use both coarse grain and fine grain parallelism. Our focus with the applications selected is on the efficacy of algorithms in these applications to take advantage of features like: large number of cores, wide vector units, higher-bandwidth and deeper memory sub-system. This is a first step towards understanding applications, algorithms and programming environments for Trinity and future exascale computing systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

SOLAR FLARE PREDICTION USING SDO/HMI VECTOR MAGNETIC FIELD DATA WITH A MACHINE-LEARNING ALGORITHM

We attempt to forecast M- and X-class solar flares using a machine-learning algorithm, called support vector machine (SVM), and four years of data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, the first instrument to continuously map the full-disk photospheric vector magnetic field from space. Most flare forecasting efforts described in the literature use either line-of-sight magnetograms or a relatively small number of ground-based vector magnetograms. This is the first time a large data set of vector magnetograms has been used to forecast solar flares. We build a catalog of flaring and non-flaring active regions sampled from a database of 2071 active regions, comprised of 1.5 million active region patches of vector magnetic field data, and characterize each active region by 25 parameters. We then train and test the machine-learning algorithm and we estimate its performances using forecast verification metrics with an emphasis on the true skill statistic (TSS). We obtain relatively high TSS scores and overall predictive abilities. We surmise that this is partly due to fine-tuning the SVM for this purpose and also to an advantageous set of features that can only be calculated from vector magnetic field data. We also apply a feature selection algorithm to determine which of our 25 features are useful for discriminating between flaring and non-flaring active regions and conclude that only a handful are needed for good predictive abilities.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1982

Testing of turbulent seals for rotordynamic coefficients

A facility has been developed for dynamic testing of straight and convergent tapered seals with the capability of measuring the radial and tangential force components which result from a circular centered orbit. The test apparatus causes the seal journal to execute small-eccentricity centered circular orbits within its clearance circle. Dynamic measurements are made and recorded of the seal displacement-vector components, and of the pressure field. The pressure field is integrated to yield seal tangential and radial reaction-force components. Representative test data are provided and discussed for straight seals.

Childs, D. W.↗