Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “guide”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 685 records · Page 38
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

A study on nondestructive evaluation technique by the use of interface guided waves on shrink fit structure

Guided wave was widely studied for plate and pipe due to the great application area. Guided wave has advantage on long distance inspection for an inaccessible area and apart from transducer. Quite often shrink fit structures were found in nuclear power facilities. In this paper, two pipes were designed with perfect shrink fit condition for Stainless Steel 316. The displacement distribution was calculated with boundary condition. The interface wave propagation pattern was analyzed by the numerical modeling. The experimental results show a possibility of weld delamination and defect detection.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Leaky guided waves in generic bars: Numerical prediction and experimental validation by means of ultrasonic underwater testing

Guided Ultrasonic Waves (GUWs) are used in several industrial and civil applications for the non-destructive tests and inspection of mechanical waveguides immersed in fluids. As well known, the impedance mismatch at the fluid-structure interface causes the bulk waves traveling inside the waveguide to be partially refracted in the surrounding fluid. The leakage of bulk waves involves continuous energy radiation along the propagation direction, resulting in high attenuation rates and, consequently, reduced inspection ranges. In this work, the dispersion behaviour of leaky guided waves that propagate in immersed waveguides of general cross-section is investigated. To this end, a Semi-Analytical Finite Element (SAFE) method coupled with a 2.5D Boundary Element method (BEM) is used to extract the wave dispersion equation. The proposed formulation avoids the well known limitations of analytical methods in treating complex geometries as well as those of Finite Element-based methods in representing propagation processes in unbounded domains. Numerical and experimental results are presented, in which the dispersion curves are extracted for different bars of arbitrary shape immersed in water. The results obtained in this paper can be useful for the design of testing conditions in practical applications and to tune experimental set up.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2014

A novel coaxial Ku-band transit radiation oscillator without external guiding magnetic field

A novel coaxial transit radiation oscillator without external guiding magnetic field is designed to generate high power microwave at Ku-band. By using a coaxial structure, the space-charge potential energy is suppressed significantly, that is good for enhancing efficient beam-wave interaction. In order to improve the transmission stability of the unmagnetized intense relativistic electron beam, a Pierce-like cathode is employed in the novel device. By contrast with conventional relativistic microwave generators, this kind of device has the advantages of high stability, non-guiding magnetic field, and high efficiency. Moreover, with the coaxial design, it is possible to improve the power-handing capacity by increasing the radial dimension of the Ku-band device. With a 550 keV and 7.5 kA electron beam, a 1.25 GW microwave pulse at 12.08 GHz has been obtained in the simulation. The power conversion efficiency is about 30%.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

An ion guide laser ion source for isobar-suppressed rare isotope beams

Modern experiments at isotope separator on-line (ISOL) facilities like ISAC at TRIUMF often depend critically on the purity of the delivered rare isotope beams. Therefore, highly selective ion sources are essential. This article presents the development and successful on-line operation of an ion guide laser ion source (IG-LIS) for the production of ion beams free of isobaric contamination. Thermionic ions from the hot ISOL target are suppressed by an electrostatic potential barrier, while neutral radio nuclides effusing out are resonantly ionized by laser radiation within a quadrupole ion guide behind this barrier. The IG-LIS was developed through detailed thermal and ion optics simulation studies and off-line tests with stable isotopes. In a first on-line run with a SiC target a suppression of surface-ionized Na contaminants in the ion beam of up to six orders of magnitude was demonstrated.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Nonlinear gyrokinetic theory based on a new method and computation of the guiding-center orbit in tokamaks

The nonlinear gyrokinetic theory in the tokamak configuration based on the two-step transform is developed; in the first step, we transform the magnetic potential perturbation to the Hamiltonian part, and in the second step, we transform away the gyroangle-dependent part of the perturbed Hamiltonian. Then the I-transform method is used to decoupled the perturbation part of the motion from the unperturbed motion. The application of the I-transform method to the computation of the guiding-center orbit and the guiding-center distribution function in tokamaks is presented. It is demonstrated that the I-transform method of the orbit computation which involves integrating only along the unperturbed orbit agrees with the conventional method which integrates along the full orbit. A numerical code based on the I-transform method is developed and two numerical examples are given to verify the new method.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Gyrokinetic theory of electrostatic lower-hybrid drift instabilities in a current sheet with guide field

A kinetic electrostatic eigenvalue equation for the lower-hybrid drift instability (LHDI) in a thin Harris current sheet with a guide field is derived based on the gyrokinetic electron and fully kinetic ion(GeFi) description. Three-dimensional nonlocal analyses are carried out to investigate the influence of a guide field on the stabilization of the LHDI by finite parallel wavenumber, k{sub ∥}. Detailed stability properties are first analyzed locally, and then as a nonlocal eigenvalue problem. Our results indicate that at large equilibrium drift velocities, the LHDI is further destabilized by finite k{sub ∥} in the short-wavelength domain. This is demonstrated in a local stability analysis and confirmed by the peak in the eigenfunction amplitude. We find the most unstable modes localized at the current sheet edges, and our results agree well with simulations employing the GeFi code developed by Lin et al. [Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 47, 657 (2005); Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 53, 054013 (2011)].

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Improved foilless Ku-band transit-time oscillator for generating gigawatt level microwave with low guiding magnetic field

An improved foilless Ku-band transit-time oscillator with low guiding magnetic field is proposed and investigated in this paper. With a non-uniform buncher and a coaxial TM{sub 02} mode dual-resonant reflector, this improved device can output gigawatt level Ku-band microwave with relatively compact radial dimensions. Besides the above virtue, this novel reflector also has the merits of high TEM reflectance, being more suitable for pre-modulating the electron beam and enhancing the conversion efficiency. Moreover, in order to further increase the conversion efficiency and lower the power saturation time, a depth-tunable coaxial collector and a resonant cavity located before the extractor are employed in our device. Main structure parameters of the device are optimized by particle in cell simulations. The typical simulation result is that, with a 380 kV, 8.2 kA beam guided by a magnetic field of about 0.6 T, 1.15 GW microwave pulse at 14.25 GHz is generated, yielding a conversion efficiency of about 37%.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Guiding and collimating fast electron beam by the quasi-static electromagnetic field array

A guidance and collimation scheme for fast electron beam in a traverse periodic quasi-static electromagnetic field array is proposed with the semi-analytic method and the particle-in-cell simulation. The sheath electric fields on the surfaces of nanowires and the magnetic fields around the nanowires form a traverse periodic quasi-static electromagnetic field array. Therefore, most of the fast electrons are confined at the nanowire surfaces and transport forward. More importantly, due to the divergent property of the beams, the magnitudes of the generated fields decrease with the target depth. The lateral momenta of the electrons convert into the forward momenta through Lorenz force, and they cannot recover their initial values. Therefore, the fast electrons can be guided and collimated efficiently in the gaps between the nanowires. In our particle-in-cell simulations, the observed guiding efficiency exceeds 80% compared with the reference target.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Photo-ionization and residual electron effects in guided streamers

Complementary experiments and numerical modeling reveal the important role of photo-ionization in the guided streamer propagation in helium-air gas mixtures. It is shown that the minimum electron concentration ∼10{sup 8 }cm{sup −3} is required for the regular, repeated propagation of the plasma bullets, while the streamers propagate in the stochastic mode below this threshold. The stochastic-to-regular mode transition is related to the higher background electron density in front of the propagating streamers. These findings help improving control of guided streamer propagation in applications from health care to nanotechnology and improve understanding of generic pre-breakdown phenomena.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Optical amplifier based on guided polaritons in GaN and ZnO

We propose a scheme of an optical amplifier based on GaN and ZnO waveguides operating in the regime of strong coupling between photonic modes and excitonic resonances. Amplification of the guided exciton-polaritons is obtained by stimulated scattering from the excitonic reservoir, which is found to be fast enough compared with the large velocity of the guided polariton modes. We analyze the device parameters at different temperatures. We find that an 80 μm-long amplifier can provide a gain of 10 dB at room temperature, being supplied by 5 mA current in the cw regime.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

1D profiling using highly dispersive guided waves

Corrosion is one of the industries major issues regarding the integrity of assets. Currently inspections are conducted at regular intervals to ensure a sufficient integrity level of these assets. Cost reduction while maintaining a high level of reliability and safety of installations is a major challenge. There are many situations where the actual defect location is not accessible, e.g., a pipe support or a partially buried pipe. Guided wave tomography has been developed to reconstruct the wall thickness. In case of bottom of the line corrosion, i.e., a single corrosion pit, a simpler approach may be followed. Data is collected in a pit-catch configuration at the 12 o'clock position using highly dispersive guided waves. The phase spectrum is used to invert for a wall thickness profile in the circumferential direction, assuming a Gaussian defect profile. An EMAT sensor design has been made to measure at the 12 o'clock position of a pipe. The concept is evaluated on measured data, showing good sizing capabilities on a variety simple defect profiles.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Control of wire heating with resistively guided fast electrons through an inverse conical taper

The heating of a solid wire embedded in a solid substrate (of lower Z material) with relativistic electrons generated by ultra-intense laser irradiation is considered. Previously, it has been noted that the initial angular distribution of the fast electrons is a highly important factor in the efficacy of the heating [Robinson et al., Phys. Plasmas 20, 122701 (2013)]. We show that, using 3D numerical simulations, the addition of an inverse conical taper at the front of wire can considerably improve the heating of the wire due to the reduction of angular spread of the fast electrons which is caused by transport through the inverse conical taper [Robinson et al., “Guiding of laser-generated fast electrons by exploiting the resistivity-gradients around a conical guide element,” Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion (to be published)].

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

The influence of guiding magnetic field on beam current and plasma expansion in foil-less diode

The impedance collapse phenomenon in planar diodes has been widely investigated and is believed to be induced by the axial plasma expansion. However, there are few studies about the impedance collapse phenomenon in foil-less diodes, which may occur under a low guiding magnetic field and cannot be explained by the axial plasma expansion. This paper tries to explain this phenomenon by constructing a physical model with consideration of the radial expansion of cathode plasmas. Our physical model can quantitatively describe the formation process of beam current in experiments with reasonable parameters, and it demonstrates that a lower guiding magnetic field will lead to a faster radial plasma expansion speed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Guiding and collimation of laser-accelerated proton beams using thin foils followed with a hollow plasma channel

It is proposed that guided and collimated proton acceleration by intense lasers can be achieved using an advanced target—a thin foil followed by a hollow plasma channel. For the advanced target, the laser-accelerated hot electrons can be confined in the hollow channel at the foil rear side, which leads to the formation of transversely localized, Gaussian-distributed sheath electric field and resultantly guiding of proton acceleration. Further, due to the hot electron flow along the channel wall, a strong focusing transverse electric field is induced, taking the place of the original defocusing one driven by hot electron pressure in the case of a purely thin foil target, which results in collimation of proton beams. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that collimated proton beams with energy about 20 MeV and nearly half-reduced divergence of 26° are produced at laser intensities 10{sup 20 }W/cm{sup 2} by using the advanced target.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Electron beam guiding by grooved SiO{sub 2} parallel plates without energy loss

Using a pair of grooved SiO{sub 2} parallel plates, stably guided electron beams were obtained without energy loss at 800–2000 eV. This shows that the transmitted electrons are guided by a self-organized repulsive electric field, paving the way for a self-adaptive manipulation of electron beams.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Design of a high efficiency relativistic backward wave oscillator with low guiding magnetic field

A high efficiency relativistic backward wave oscillator working at a low guiding magnetic field is designed and simulated. A trapezoidal resonant reflector is used to reduce the modulation field in the resonant reflector to avoid overmodulation of the electron beam which will lead to a large momentum spread and then low conversion efficiency. The envelope of the inner radius of the slow wave structure (SWS) increases stepwise to keep conformal to the trajectory of the electron beam which will alleviate the bombardment of the electron on the surface of the SWS. The length of period of the SWS is reduced gradually to make a better match between phase velocity and electron beam, which decelerates continually and improves the RF current distribution. Meanwhile the modulation field is reduced by the introduction of nonuniform SWS also. The particle in cell simulation results reveal that a microwave with a power of 1.8 GW and a frequency of 14.7 GHz is generated with an efficiency of 47% when the diode voltage is 620 kV, the beam current 6.1 kA, and the guiding magnetic field 0.95 T.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Hamiltonian structure of the guiding center plasma model

The guiding center plasma model (also known as kinetic MHD) is a rigorous sub-cyclotron-frequency closure of the Vlasov-Maxwell system. While the model has been known for decades and it plays a fundamental role in describing the physics of strongly magnetized collisionless plasmas, its Hamiltonian structure has never been found. We provide explicit expressions for the model's Poisson bracket and Hamiltonian and thereby prove that the model is an infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian system. The bracket is derived in a manner which ensures that it satisfies the Jacobi identity. We also report on several previously unknown circulation theorems satisfied by the guiding center plasma model. Without having knowledge of the Hamiltonian structure, these circulation theorems would be difficult to guess.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Degenerate variational integrators for magnetic field line flow and guiding center trajectories

Symplectic integrators offer many benefits for numerically approximating solutions to Hamiltonian differential equations, including bounded energy error and the preservation of invariant sets. Two important Hamiltonian systems encountered in plasma physics—the flow of magnetic field lines and the guiding center motion of magnetized charged particles—resist symplectic integration by conventional means because the dynamics are most naturally formulated in non-canonical coordinates. New algorithms were recently developed using the variational integration formalism; however, those integrators were found to admit parasitic mode instabilities due to their multistep character. This work eliminates the multistep character, and therefore the parasitic mode instabilities via an adaptation of the variational integration formalism that we deem “degenerate variational integration.” Both the magnetic field line and guiding center Lagrangians are degenerate in the sense that the resultant Euler-Lagrange equations are systems of first-order ordinary differential equations. We show that retaining the same degree of degeneracy when constructing discrete Lagrangians yields one-step variational integrators preserving a non-canonical symplectic structure. Lastly, numerical examples demonstrate the benefits of the new algorithms, including superior stability relative to the existing variational integrators for these systems and superior qualitative behavior relative to non-conservative algorithms.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗