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NASA NTRS1985

CO2 impact ionization-driven plasma instability observed by Pioneer Venus Orbiter at Periapsis

Observations of enhanced ac electric field noise about Pioneer Venus periapsis are shown to be related to spacecraft-generated impact ionization of the ambient CO2. The frequency of the electric field noise is found to peak in the vicinity of the CO2(+) ion plasma frequency and to closely follow the form of the neutral CO2 density profile. When the electric field noise in all channels is normalized by the square root of the CO2 number density, the ratio is constant. Since the impact electron density measured by the Pioneer Venus Langmuir probe, is observed to scale directly with the neutral CO2, the growth of the electric field amplitude is found to be linear in time with a growth rate proportional to the CO2(+) ion plasma frequency. On the basis of these results the impact ionization-driven instability is shown to be the ion acoustic instability. Implications for the lack of observations by Pioneer Venus of reflected-O(+)-driven instabilities, as have been proposed for the space shuttle, are discussed.

Curtis, S. A.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Electromagnetic electron temperature anisotropy instabilities

This paper considers electromagnetic Vlasov instabilities driven by electron temperature anisotropies in a homogeneous, nonrelativistic magnetized plasma. Numerical solutions of the full linear dispersion equation for bi-Maxwellian distribution functions and instabilities propagating parallel to the magnetic field are presented. Parametric dependences of the maximum growth rates of the electron fire hose and whistler anisotropy instabilities are given.

Gary, S. P.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Electron-cyclotron maser instability caused by hot electrons

The electron-cyclotron maser instability is studied for energetic electrons with a loss-cone distribution. The instability can occur at all angles of propagation for a wide range of parameters. The growth rate is significantly reduced by the presence of a population of cold electrons, and the instability can be suppressed if the density of the cold electrons is sufficiently large and the temperature of the energetic electrons is not too high.

Wong, H. K.↗

NASA NTRS1985

The coalescence instability in solar flares

The nonlinear coalescence instability of current carrying solar loops can explain many of the characteristics of the solar flares such as their impulsive nature, heating and high energy particle acceleration, amplitude oscillations of electromagnetic and emission as well as the characteristics of two-dimensional microwave images obtained during a flare. The plasma compressibility leads to the explosive phase of loop coalescence and its overshoot results in amplitude oscillations in temperatures by adiabatic compression and decompression. It is noted that the presence of strong electric fields and super-Alfvenic flows during the course of the instability play an important role in the production of nonthermal particles. A qualitative explanation on the physical processes taking place during the nonlinear stages of the instability is given.

Tajima, T.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Simulation of the electron acoustic instability in the polar cusp

A computer simulation of the beam-driven electron acoustic instability in the polar cusp is used to investigate the temporal evolution of typical cusp electron distribution functions in self-consistently generated wave fields. The simulation results are compared with linear, second-order, and nonlinear theory. The behavior of the instability over a range of plasma parameters, such as beam speed and the cold electron density, is shown. The saturation mechanism of the instability is examined, and the relevance of the results for observations of cusp hiss are discussed.

Lin, C. S.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Surface Tension Induced Instabilities in Reduced Gravity: the Benard Problem

A Benard convection experiment has been set up, and the onset of convection in shallow layers of silicone oil two millimeters or less deep has been studied. The onset has been observed visually or has been determined by the break in the heat transfer curve which accompanies the onset of convection. The outcome of these experiments has been very surprising, from the point of view of theoretical expectations. The onset of convection at temperature differences far below the critical value for fluid depths smaller than 2mm was observed. The discrepancy between experiments and theory increases with decreasing fluid depth. According to theoretical considerations, the effects of surface tension become more important as the fluid depth is decreased. Actually, one observes that the onset of convection tales place in two stages. There is first an apparently surface tension driven instability, occuring at subcritical temperature differences according to conventional theory. If then the temperature difference is increased, a second instability occurs which transform the first pattern into conventional strong hexagonal Benard cells. The second instability is in agreement with the critical temperature gradients predicted by Nield.

Koschmieder, E.↗

NASA NTRS1985

A Simulation of High Latitude F-Layer Instabilities in the Presence of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling

A magnetic-field-line-integrated model of plasma interchange instabilities is developed for the high latitude ionosphere including magnetospheric coupling effects. We show that primary magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling effect is to incorporate the inertia of the magnetospheric plasma in the analysis. As a specific example, we present the first simulation of the E x B instability in the inertial regime, i.e., nu sub i omega where nu sub i is the ion-neutral collision frequency and omega is the wave frequency. We find that the inertial E x B instability develops in a fundamentally different manner than in the collisional case ni sub i omega. Our results show that striations produced in the inertial regime are spread and retarded by ion inertial effects, and result in more isotropic irregularities than those seen in the collisional case.

Mitchell, H. G., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Instability in Rotating Machinery

The proceedings contain 45 papers on a wide range of subjects including flow generated instabilities in fluid flow machines, cracked shaft detection, case histories of instability phenomena in compressors, turbines, and pumps, vibration control in turbomachinery (including antiswirl techniques), and the simulation and estimation of destabilizing forces in rotating machines. The symposium was held to serve as an update on the understanding and control of rotating machinery instability problems.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1985

Instability analysis procedure for 3-level multi-bearing rotor-foundation systems

A procedure for the instability analysis of a three-level multispan rotor systems is described. This procedure is based on a distributed mass elastic representation of the rotor system in several eight-coefficient bearings. Each bearing is supported from an elastic foundation on damped, elastic pedestals. The foundation is represented as a general distributed mass elastic structure on discrete supports, which may have different stiffness and damping properties in the horizontal and vertical directions. This system model is suited to studies of instability threshold conditions for multirotor turbomachines on either massive or flexible foundations. The instability conditions is found by obtaining the eigenvalues of the system determinant, which is obtained by the transfer matrix method from the three-level system model. The stability determinant is solved for the lowest rotational speed at which the system damping becomes zero in the complex eigenvalue, and for the whirl frequency corresponding to the natural frequency of the unstable mode. An efficient algorithm for achieving this is described. Application of this procedure to a rigid rotor in two damped-elastic bearings and flexible supports is described. A second example discusses a flexible rotor with four damped-elastic bearings. The third case compares the stability of a six-bearing 300 Mw turbine generator unit, using two different bearing types. These applications validate the computer program and various aspects of the analysis.

Zhou, S.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Magnetospheric interchange instability

It is shown that the conventional derivation of the MHD interchange instability criterion using an energy approach yields incorrect results. A special case involving straight, parallel flux tubes is considered in which the conventional energy argument should apply but disagrees with the result of an elementary dynamical argument. It is shown that the disagreement arises because the conventional derivation neglects the self-consistent changes in the magnetic field that result from the flux-tube interchange. When these self-consistent changes are included in the energy approach, a new interchange instability criterion is derived that agrees with the dynamical criterion. The new instability criterion is qualitatively different from the conventional one and suggests that the pressure gradient of energetic ions at Jupiter may not stabilize the Io torus against interchanges. The inner magnetospheres of earth, Jupiter, and Saturn may all be interchange unstable.

Cheng, A. F.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Electromagnetic ion beam instabilities. II

The results of Gary et al. (1984) on the properties of the right-hand resonant and nonresonant electromagnetic ion beam instabilities for relatively cool beam temperatures are extended. In particular, the parametric dependence of the real frequency at maximum growth of these modes is examined. It is demonstrated that the right-hand resonant ion beam instability can have maximum growth at frequencies near the ion-cyclotron frequency if the beam main component relative drift speed is about twice the Alfven speed and at least one of two conditions holds: that the ion beta or the beam main component relative temperature are sufficiently small, or the perpendicular-to-parallel beam temperature ratio is sufficiently large. These results support the identification of the right-hand resonant instability as the source of the large amplitude magnetic fluctuations observed upstream of slow shocks in the earth's magnetotail.

Gary, S. P.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Anomalous transport by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities

A simulation of magnetohydrodynamic Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities has been performed for parallel and transverse configurations, modeling high latitude (or downstream flanks) and dayside low latitude magnetospheric boundaries. In the parallel configuration, a super-Alfvenic and transsonic shear flow develops into small eddies, which strongly compresses, twists, and hence amplifies the magnetic field by the dynamo action with an amplification factor of M(A)/2. In the nonlinear stage, however large the initial Alfven mach number M(A) may be, the magnetic field amplified and twisted by the hydromagnetic flow vortices reacts back upon the flow evolution, and the flow vortices cascade into smaller structures. In the transverse configuration, the instability leads to the formation of a fast shock discontinuity from an initially subfast shear flow. Anomalous tangential stress by the instability in the transverse configuration reaches 1 percent of the magnetosheath momentum flux, but for the parallel configuration, the anomalous transport is 2-3 times larger than the anomalous transport in the transverse configuration. The anomalous transport for both configurations satisfies the requirement of the viscous-like interaction at the magnetospheric boundary.

Miura, A.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Observations of the right-hand resonant ion beam instability in the distant plasma sheet boundary layer

Examples of the onset of a resonant ion beam instability are illustrated on the basis of ISEE 3 observations of 66 large amplitude wave events at the plasma sheet boundary layer. Analysis of the observational data showed that the observed wave and ion beam parameters were, in general, in agreement with linear theoretical predictions of resonant ion beam instability. The distribution of ion energies at the onset of the instability is given in a table.

Tsurutani, B. T.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Theory of the current-driven ion cyclotron instability in the bottomside ionosphere

A comprehensive treatment of the theory of electrostatic ion cyclotron instability in the collisional bottomside ionosphere is given. The linear dispersion relations for the ion cyclotron instability (electron and ion collisions) are derived. Analytical solutions to the dispersion relation are obtained in three limits: collisionless; weakly collisional; and collisional. In addition, the linear dispersion relation is solved numerically, using parameters typical of the high-latitude bottomside ionosphere. It is pointed out that the linear growth rates in the bottomside collisional regime can be of the same order as the corresponding topside collisionless growth rates. A nonlinear saturation mechanism for the electrostatic ion cyclotron instability is proposed on the basis of Dupree's (1966) resonance broadening theory.

Satyanarayana, P.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Conditional symmetric instability and mesoscale rainbands

The linear theory of conditional symmetric instability (CSI) is re-examined in a rigorous framework. In comparison with symmetric instability a new feature of CSI is that the moist updraught tends to be narrow, as with conditional buoyancy instability (CBI). As the width of the moist updraught varies from its tolerance maximum to infinitesimal, the inviscid growth rate increases from zero to its maximum and the slope of the moist updraught increases from the absolute momentum surface to the moist most unstable surface. The fact that CSI circulations absorb energy from the basic shear and moist thermal field but lose energy to the dry basic thermal field is responsible for the narrow and slant feature of the moist updraught. When a bulk viscosity is accounted for, the most rapidly growing CSI modes bear a qualitative resemblance to some observed rainbands. The stability criterion of viscous CSI also shows a better comparison with observational data than inviscid CSI. The linear CSI theory here predicts that the isolated mode is preferred to other non-isolated (periodic or irregular spacing) modes. The preference of non-isolated modes is speculated to occur in the nonlinear stage.

Xu, Q.↗

NASA NTRS1986

A numerical simulation of barotropic instability. III - Wave-wave interaction in the presence of dissipation

A fully nonlinear model of barotropic instability including dissipation is used to investigate the evolution of the integrated enstrophy and vorticity. The dissipation independent limits on the integrated enstrophy and the long period oscillation in the integrated enstrophy found by Schoeberl and Lindzen are verified. The enstrophy oscillations are similar to those previously noted for two-dimensional Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. They are produced by advection of the vorticity back and forth across the region of instability by the largest scale wave. A simple expression that accurately estimates the period of these oscillations is derived using the saturation theory.

Schoeberl, M. R.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Instability of an intershaft squeeze film damper in a two-spool rotor dynamics simulator

An instability associated with an intershaft squeeze film damper is described. The squeeze film is located between the intershaft bearing outer race and the low-speed shaft of a five-bearing, two-spool test rig. The instability is dominated by response of the third system mode to destabilizing excitation of the type described by Hibner, et al. Installing a spring cage in place of the intershaft damper removes the instability and produces satisfactory performance throughout the operating range.

Alderson, R. G.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Studies of fluid instabilities in flows of lava and debris

At least two instabilities have been identified and utilized in lava flow studies: surface folding and gravity instability. Both lead to the development of regularly spaced structures on the surfaces of lava flows. The geometry of surface folds have been used to estimate the rheology of lava flows on other planets. One investigation's analysis assumed that lava flows have a temperature-dependent Newtonian rheology, and that the lava's viscosity decreased exponentially inward from the upper surface. The author reviews studies by other investigators on the analysis of surface folding, the analysis of Taylor instability in lava flows, and the effect of surface folding on debris flows.

Fink, Jonathan H.↗