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At least 595 records · Page 33
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

On modelling the pressure-strain correlations in wall bounded flows

Turbulence models for the pressure-strain term of the Reynolds-stress equations in the vicinity of a moving wall are evaluated for a high Reynolds number flow using decaying grid turbulence as a model problem. The data of Thomas and Hancock are used as a base for evaluating the different turbulence models. In particular, the Rotta model for return-to-isotropy is evaluated both in its inclusion into the Reynolds-stress equation model and in comparison to a nonlinear model advanced by Sarkar and Speziale. Further, models for the wall correction to the transfer term advanced by Launder et al., Shir, and Shih and Lumley are compared. Initial data using the decaying grid turbulence experiment as a base suggests that the coefficients proposed for these models are high perhaps by as much as an order of magnitude. The Shih and Lumley model which satisfies realizability constraints, in particular, seems to hold promise in adequately modeling the Reynolds stress components of this flow. Extensions of this work are to include testing the homogeneous transfer model by Shih and Lumley and the testing of the wall transfer models using their proposed coefficients and the coefficients chosen from this work in a flow with mean shear component.

Peltier, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS1990

New bound on neutrino dipole moments from globular-cluster stars

Neutrino dipole moments mu(nu) would increase the core mass of red giants at the helium flash by delta(Mc) = 0.015 solar mass x mu(nu)/10 to the -12th muB (where muB is the Bohr magneton) because of enhanced neutrino losses. Existing measurements of the bolometric magnitudes of the brightest red giants in 26 globular clusters, number counts of horizontal-branch stars and red giants in 15 globular clusters, and statistical parallax determinations of field RR Lyr luminosities yield delta(Mc) = 0.009 + or - 0.012 solar mass, so that conservatively mu(nu) is less than 3 x 10 to the -12th muB.

Raffelt, Georg G.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Extensional reactivation of an abandoned thrust - A bound on shallowing in the brittle regime

Shallow dip angles (not greater than 45 deg) suggested by field observations of continental extensional faults are not predicted by classical isotropic Mohr-Coulomb-Anderson theory. Earthquake data indicate that normal faults exist in the upper crust with dip angles commonly as shallow as 30 deg. One explanation of the apparent conflict between theory and structural/seismic observations is that intrinsically weak, shallow-dipping pre-existing faults are preferentially reactivated. An analytical treatment clarifies the roles of geometry, intact/preexisting fault strengths and fluid pore pressures. Frictional strength ratios of 3 or greater could account for extremely shallow normal faults (dips 10-20 deg) without consideration of pore pressures in excess of the least principal stress or of principal stress systems rotated away from the gravity vector. Moderate reduction in friction (3/4) with respect to wall rock can reduce the dip to 30 deg and can account for shallow normal-slip earthquakes.

Ivins, E. R.↗
NASA NTRS1990

A one-equation turbulence transport model for high Reynolds number wall-bounded flows

A one-equation turbulence model that avoids the need for an algebraic length scale is derived from a simplified form of the standard k-epsilon model equations. After calibration based on well established properties of the flow over a flat plate, predictions of several other flows are compared with experiment. The preliminary results presented indicate that the model has predictive and numerical properties of sufficient interest to merit further investigation and refinement. The one-equation model is also analyzed numerically and robust solution methods are presented.

Baldwin, Barrett S.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Injection efficiency of bound modes

Previous work on efficiency of light injection into the core of a fiber from a thin film and a bulk distribution of sources in the cladding have used the fields of a weakly guiding fiber. This approximation simplifies the analysis of the power efficiency by introducing universal values for the eigenvalues of different fibers with the same V-number, but cannot predict accurately the behavior of the injected light into a fiber with arbitrary differences in indices of refraction. The exact field solution was used in the expressions of the power efficiency, p sub eff, and its behavior as a function of the fiber parameter was analyzed. Weakly guiding results obtained previously are confirmed. However, P sub eff does not always increase with the V-number but with the difference in the indices of refraction, eta sub core-eta sub clad. For the bulk distribution it was found that P sub eff increases with the wavelength, lambda, and decreases with the fiber core radius, a, i.e., it decreases with the V-number. However, for the thin film, the P sub eff remains almost constant with lambda and the fiber core radius.

Egalon, Claudio Oliveira↗
NASA NTRS1991

Near field interaction of microwave signals with a bounded plasma plume

The objective was to study the effect of the arcjet thruster plume on the performance of an onboard satellite reflector antenna. A project summary is presented along with sections on plasma and electromagnetic modeling. The plasma modeling section includes the following topics: wave propagation; plasma analysis; plume electron density model; and the proposed experimental program. The section on electromagnetic modeling includes new developments in ray modeling and the validation of three dimensional ray results.

Ling, Hao↗
NASA NTRS1991

Channel assignments and array gain bounds for the Ka-band array feed compensation system

The performance of a real-time digital combining system for use with array feeds was considered previously. The purpose of the combining operation is to recover signal to noise ratio (SNR) losses due to antenna deformations and atmospheric effects. Previously, arbitrary signal powers and noise variances were assumed, but no attempt was made to match the receiver channels to the available signal powers. It is shown that for any signal power and noise variance distribution, a best channel assignment exists that maximizes the combined SNR in the limit of vanishingly small combining losses. This limit can be approached in practice by observing sufficiently many samples. Specific signal power and noise variance distributions are considered, and it is shown that even relatively noisy channels can be used effectively to recover SNR losses resulting from signals diverted out of a high-quality channel by antenna deformations.

Vilnrotter, V. A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Core mass at the helium flash from observations and a new bound on neutrino electromagnetic properties

Existing measurements of the bolometric magnitudes of the brightest red giants in 26 globular clusters are used to determine the brightness difference between the tip of the red giant branch (on average found to be 0.1 mag brighter than the brightest red giant) and RR Lyrae stars. The metallicity variation of the result agrees perfectly with theoretical predictions. In conjunction with previous determinations of the number ratio of horizontal-branch versus red giant stars, with statistical parallax determinations of RR Lyrae absolute luminosities, and with theoretical predictions based on the Sweigart and Gross evolutionary sequences, this result yields an allowed range for a hypothetical core mass variation relative to the standard results of (0.009 + or - 0.012) solar mass. If neutrinos had anomalous electromagnetic dipole moments, the increased energy loss near the helium flash would lead to an increased core mass. Constraints on neutrino electromagnetic properties are determined from the color-magnitude diagrams of the globular clusters.

Raffelt, Georg G.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Comments on Reynolds number effects in wall-bounded shear layers

The effect of Reynolds number on the structure of turbulent boundary layers and channel flows is discussed. Published data are reexamined in light of the following questions: (1) does the boundary layer turbulence structure change after the well known Reynolds number limit viz, when Re(theta) is greater than 6000?; (2) is it possible to disturb a high Reynolds number flat plate turbulent boundary layer near the wall such that the recovery length is O(100 delta)?; and (3) how close is the numerically simulated low Reynolds number flat plate turbulence structure to that observed experimentally? The turbulence structure appears to change continuously with Reynolds number virtually throughout the bounday layer and sometimes in unexpected manners at high Reynolds numbers.

Bandyopadhyay, Promode R.↗
NASA NTRS1991

A one-equation turbulence transport model for high Reynolds number wall-bounded flows

A one-equation turbulence model that avoids the need for an algebraic length scale is derived from a simplified form of the standard-k-epsilon model equations. After calibration based on well established properties of the flow over a flat plate, predictions of several other flows are compared with experiment. The preliminary results presented indicate that the model has predictive and numerical properties of sufficient interest to merit further investigation and refinement. The one-equation model is also analyzed numerically and robust solution methods are presented.

Baldwin, Barrett S.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Numerical simulation of transition in wall-bounded shear flows

The current status of numerical simulation techniques for the transition to turbulence in incompressible channel and boundary-layer flows is surveyed, and typical results are presented graphically. The focus is on direct numerical simulations based on the full nonlinear time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations without empirical closure assumptions for prescribed initial and boundary conditions. Topics addressed include the vibrating ribbon problem, space and time discretization, initial and boundary conditions, alternative methods based on the triple-deck approximation, two-dimensional channel and boundary-layer flows, three-dimensional boundary layers, wave packets and turbulent spots, compressible flows, transition control, and transition modeling.

Kleiser, Leonhard↗
NASA NTRS1991

Red-giant evolution, metallicity, and new bounds on hadronic axions

Stellar cooling by nuclear axion emission is explored, identifying those special isotopes that dominate this process for temperatures from 10 to the 7th to 10 to the 9th K. It is argued that such nuclear energy-loss mechanisms are distinctive because the effects track metallicity. Three observables associated with evolution of stars along the red-giant and horizontal branches are shown to impose new and restrictive constraints on axions in the hadronic window.

Haxton, W. C.↗
NASA NTRS1990

On the application of large-eddy simulation to transitional wall-bounded flows

Large-eddy simulations of transition on a flat-plate boundary layer have been carried out. Standard residual stress models of the Smagorinsky type are excessively dissipative, but rescaling the model constant improves the prediction of the total (integrated) subgrid scale dissipation, leading to results that compare favorably with those of a direct simulation, at a small fraction of the computational effort.

Piomelli, Ugo↗
NASA NTRS1992

Upper bounds for convergence rates of vector extrapolation methods on linear systems with initial iterations

The application of the minimal polynomial extrapolation (MPE) and the reduced rank extrapolation (RRE) to a vector sequence obtained by the linear iterative technique x(sub j) + 1 = Ax(sub j) = b,j = 1,2,..., is considered. Both methods produce a two dimensional array of approximations s(sub n,k) to the solution of the system (I - A)x = b. Here, s(sub n,k) is obtained from the vectors x(sub j), n is less than or equal to j is less than or equal to n + k + 1. It was observed in an earlier publication by the first author that the sequence s(sub n,k), k = 1,2,..., for n greater than 0, but fixed, possesses better convergence properties than the sequence s(sub 0,k), k = 1,2,.... A detailed theoretical explanation for this phenomenon is provided in the present work. This explanation is heavily based on approximations by incomplete polynomials. It is demonstrated by numerical examples when the matrix A is sparse that cycling with s(sub n,k) for n greater than 0, but fixed, produces better convergence rates and costs less computationally than cycling with s(sub 0,k). It is also illustrated numerically with a convection-diffusion problem that the former may produce excellent results where the latter may fail completely. As has been shown in an earlier publication, the results produced by s(sub 0,k) are identical to the corresponding results obtained by applying the Arnoldi method or generalized minimal residual scheme (GMRES) to the system (I - A)x = b.

Sidi, Avram↗
NASA NTRS1991

Bounds on intergalactic compact objects from observations of compact radio sources

The constraints that can be imposed on the cosmic density of uniformly distributed intergalactic compact objects in the mass range of 10 million to 1 billion solar masses, using VLBI observations of compact radio sources. A compact object at a sufficiently small angular separation from a compact radio source produces a deamplified and inverted secondary image. No such cases are known. Using published maps of compact radio sources and assuming an Einstein-de Sitter cosmology, a density parameter for mass in this range greater than 0.4 is excluded at the 99.7 percent confidence level. Observations using the VLBA should allow one to exclude or discover a density parameter greater than about 0.001 for compact objects in the mass range of 0.1-100 solar masses.

Kassiola, Aggeliki↗