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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1975

Digital simulation of a communication link for Pioneer Saturn Uranus atmospheric entry probe, part 1

A digital simulation study is presented for a candidate modulator/demodulator design in an atmospheric scintillation environment with Doppler, Doppler rate, and signal attenuation typical of the conditions of an outer planet atmospheric probe. The simulation results indicate that the mean channel error rate with and without scintillation are similar to theoretical characterizations of the link. The simulation gives information for calculating other channel statistics and generates a quantized symbol stream on magnetic tape from which error correction decoding is analyzed. Results from the magnetic tape data analyses are also included. The receiver and bit synchronizer are modeled in the simulation at the level of hardware component parameters rather than at the loop equation level and individual hardware parameters are identified. The atmospheric scintillation amplitude and phase are modeled independently. Normal and log normal amplitude processes are studied. In each case the scintillations are low pass filtered. The receiver performance is given for a range of signal to noise ratios with and without the effects of scintillation. The performance is reviewed for critical reciever parameter variations.

Hinrichs, C. A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Redesign of the mixed-mode bending test for delamination toughness

The mixed-mode bending (MMB) test uses a lever to simultaneously apply mode I and mode II loading to a split-beam specimen. A nonlinear, iterative analysis that accurately predicts the measured load-displacement response and the strain energy release rate, G, of an MMB test, has shown that the errors in G calculated using linear theory can be quite large. The nonlinear analysis was used as a guide in redesigning the MMB apparatus. With the redesigned apparatus, loads are applied through a roller attached to the lever and loaded just above the midplane of the test specimen. The redesigned MMB apparatus has geometric nonlinearity errors of less than 3 percent, even for materials substantially tougher than APC2 (AS4/PEEK). This apparatus was demonstrated by measuring the mixed-mode delamination fracture toughness of APC2. The data from the redesigned MMB apparatus were analyzed with a linear analysis which yielded results similar to those found with the original apparatus and the nonlinear analysis.

Reeder, J. R.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Cooling the Martian atmosphere: The spectral overlap of the C02 15 micrometers band and dust

Careful consideration must be given to the simultaneous treatment of the radiative transfer of the CO2 15 micron band and dust calculations for the Martian winter polar region show that a simple sum of separately calculated CO2 cooling rates and dust cooling rates can easily result a 30 percent error in the net cooling particularly near the surface. CO2 and dust hinder each others ability to cool the atmosphere. Even during periods of low dust opacity, dust still reduces the efficacy of CO2 at cooling the atmosphere. At the other extreme, when dust storms occur, CO2 still significantly impedes the ability of dust to cool the atmosphere. Hence, both CO2 and dust must be considered in radiative transfer models.

Lindner, Bernhard Lee↗
NASA NTRS1989

A statistical study of radio-source structure effects on astrometric very long baseline interferometry observations

Errors from a number of sources in astrometric very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) have been reduced in recent years through a variety of methods of calibration and modeling. Such reductions have led to a situation in which the extended structure of the natural radio sources used in VLBI is a significant error source in the effort to improve the accuracy of the radio reference frame. In the past, work has been done on individual radio sources to establish the magnitude of the errors caused by their particular structures. The results of calculations on 26 radio sources are reported in which an effort is made to determine the typical delay and delay-rate errors for a number of sources having different types of structure. It is found that for single observations of the types of radio sources present in astrometric catalogs, group-delay and phase-delay scatter in the 50 to 100 psec range due to source structure can be expected at 8.4 GHz on the intercontinental baselines available in the Deep Space Network (DSN). Delay-rate scatter of approx. 5 x 10(exp -15) sec sec(exp -1) (or approx. 0.002 mm sec (exp -1) is also expected. If such errors mapped directly into source position errors, they would correspond to position uncertainties of approx. 2 to 5 nrad, similar to the best position determinations in the current JPL VLBI catalog. With the advent of wider bandwidth VLBI systems on the large DSN antennas, the system noise will be low enough so that the structure-induced errors will be a significant part of the error budget. Several possibilities for reducing the structure errors are discussed briefly, although it is likely that considerable effort will have to be devoted to the structure problem in order to reduce the typical error by a factor of two or more.

Ulvestad, J. S.↗
NASA NTRS1978

An infrared radiation routine for use in numerical atmospheric models

Previous methods for calculating radiative fluxes due to water vapor and CO2 absorption bands are extended to take into consideration the entire water vapor and CO2 bands, including e-type absorption in the window region and the overlapping of different absorptions. Cooling rate profiles in the water vapor bands for a tropical atmosphere were computed by a detailed line-by-line method and by a far-wing approximation method, and the error of both methods is less than 0.2 C/day. Cooling rate profiles in the 15 micron band including overlapping of CO2 absorption with water vapor were calculated by a method in which flux transmittance is computed by means of a linear expansion and the multiplication rule, and maximum errors of 0.3 C/day were found in comparison with the exact line-by-line method.

Chow, M.-D.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Blind Modeling Validation Exercises Using the Horizontal Dry Cask Simulator

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) established a need to understand the thermal-hydraulic properties of dry storage systems for commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in response to a shift towards the storage of high-burnup (HBU) fuel (> 45 gigawatt days per metric ton of uranium, or GWd/MTU). This shift raises concerns regarding cladding integrity, which faces increased risk at the higher temperatures within spent fuel assemblies present within HBU fuel compared to low-burnup fuel (≤ 45 GWd/MTU). A dry cask simulator (DCS) was built at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in Albuquerque, New Mexico to produce validation-quality data that can be used to test the accuracy of the modeling used to predict cladding temperatures. These temperatures are critical to evaluating cladding integrity throughout the storage cycle of commercial spent nuclear fuel. A model validation exercise was previously carried out for the DCS in a vertical configuration. Lessons learned during the previous validation exercise have been applied to a new, blind study using a horizontal dry cask simulator (HDCS). Three modeling institutions – the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Empresa Nacional del Uranio, S.A., S.M.E. (ENUSA) – were granted access to the input parameters from the DCS Handbook, SAND2017-13058R, and results from a limited data set from the horizontal BWR dry cask simulator tests reported in the HDCS update report, SAND2019-11688R. With this information, each institution was tasked to calculate peak cladding temperatures and air mass flow rates for ten HDCS test cases. Axial as well as vertical and horizontal transverse temperature profiles were also calculated. These calculations were done using modeling codes (ANSYS/Fluent, STAR-CCM+, or COBRA-SFS), each with their own unique combination of modeling assumptions and boundary conditions. For this validation study, the ten test cases of the horizontal dry cask simulator were defined by three independent variables – fuel assembly decay heat (0.5 kW, 1 kW, 2.5 W, and 5 kW), internal backfill pressure (100 kPa and 800 kPa), and backfill gas (helium and air). The plots provided in Chapter 3 of this report show the axial, vertical, and horizontal temperature profiles obtained from the dry cask simulator experiments in the horizontal configuration and the corresponding models used to describe the thermal-hydraulic behavior of this system. The tables provided in Chapter 3 illustrate the closeness of fit of the model data to the experiment data through root mean square (RMS) calculations of the error in peak cladding temperatures (PCTs), PCT axial locations, axial temperature profiles, vertical and horizontal temperature profiles at two different axial locations, and air mass flow rates for the ten test cases, normalized by the experimental results. The model results are assigned arbitrary model numbers to retain anonymity. Due to the relatively flat axial temperature profiles, small temperature gradients resulted in large deviations of all models’ PCT axial location from the experimental PCT axial location. When the PCT axial location error is excluded in the calculation of the combined RMS of the normalized errors that considers PCT, the temperature profiles, and the air mass flow rates, the model data fits the experimental data to within 5%. When the vault information is excluded, the model data fits the experimental data to within 2.5%. An error analysis was developed further for one model, using the model and experimental uncertainties in each validation parameter to calculate validation uncertainties. The uncertainties for each parameter were used to define quantifiable validation criteria. For this analysis, the model was considered validated for a given comparison metric if the normalized error in that metric divided by the validation uncertainty was less than or equal to 1. When considering the combined RMS of the normalized errors of all metrics divided by their validation uncertainties, the model was found to have satisfied the criterion for model validation.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS2014

Results of Propellant Mixing Variable Study Using Precise Pressure-Based Burn Rate Calculations

A designed experiment was conducted in which three mix processing variables (pre-curative addition mix temperature, pre-curative addition mixing time, and mixer speed) were varied to estimate their effects on within-mix propellant burn rate variability. The chosen discriminator for the experiment was the 2-inch diameter by 4-inch long (2x4) Center-Perforated (CP) ballistic evaluation motor. Motor nozzle throat diameters were sized to produce a common targeted chamber pressure. Initial data analysis did not show a statistically significant effect. Because propellant burn rate must be directly related to chamber pressure, a method was developed that showed statistically significant effects on chamber pressure (either maximum or average) by adjustments to the process settings. Burn rates were calculated from chamber pressures and these were then normalized to a common pressure for comparative purposes. The pressure-based method of burn rate determination showed significant reduction in error when compared to results obtained from the Brooks' modification of the propellant web-bisector burn rate determination method. Analysis of effects using burn rates calculated by the pressure-based method showed a significant correlation of within-mix burn rate dispersion to mixing duration and the quadratic of mixing duration. The findings were confirmed in a series of mixes that examined the effects of mixing time on burn rate variation, which yielded the same results.

Stefanski, Philip L.↗
DOE OSTI2020

A signal compensation based cascaded PI control for an industrial heat exchange system

Since the characteristics of the industrial heat exchange system (HES) are drastically affected by variations of the steam pressure, ambient temperature and water quality, it is difficult for the classical cascade PI control system to meet the desirable control objectives. Therefore, in this paper, a deterministic linear model with unmodeled dynamics is used to describe the dynamic characteristics of the HES. It should be noted that the unmodeled dynamics at the previously sampled instant can be calculated using actual measurements and that the tracking error, which includes effects of the rate of changes of unmodeled dynamics on the controlled model, can be accurately determined. An additional compensating signal is obtained with the feedforward control together with a one-step optimal control law. Consequently, the cascade PI control strategy with the signal compensation is established. Furthermore, the simulation and industrial application show that the proposed method can effectively improve the performance of the cascade PI control system, especially when the unmodeled dynamics is subjected to unknown variations.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2000

Non-Systematic Errors of Monthly Oceanic Rainfall Derived From TMI

A major objective of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is to produce a multi-year time series of monthly rainfall over 50 latitude by 50 longitude boxes with an uncertainty of 1 mm/day for low rain rates and 10% for high rain rates. Based on some simple assumptions about the error structure, we compute the non-systematic errors of monthly oceanic rainfall over the same space/time domain derived from data taken by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) on board the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The mean rain rates over a two-year period (1998-1999) are calculated to be 3.0, 2.85, 2.94 mm/day for SSM/I onboard the DMSP F-13, F-14 and TMI, respectively. Assuming that the non-systematic errors for each sensor are independent, the errors are calculated to be 22.2%, 22.4% and 19.7% for F-13, F-14 and for TMI, respectively. The non-systematic error for the TMI is smaller than that for either F-13 or F-14 SSM/I at the low rain rates but is comparable at rain rates higher than about 5 mm/day. The TRMM objective of 1 mm/day for non-systematic error is met by TMI for rain rates up to 5-6 mm/day. For higher rain rates, the nonsystematic error is in the 15% range. The goal of a 10% error for high rain rates may be realized by a combination of sensor measurements from multiple satellites, such as that advocated by the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM).

Chiu, Long S.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Highlights of Part I: Propagation Through Mars Environment: Propagation through Mars Environment - Part 1

We recommend using the dayside Martian ionosphere as a reflector for global communication, because it has a stable density peak and usable critical frequency. This is very crucial for the future Mars ground to ground communication. The dayside ionosphere has been well modeled as a Chapman layer. We suggest performing the Martian nightside ionosphere modeling study. Because the nightside ionosphere has very little measurements available, we propose to drop a digital ionosound instrument into the Mars surface for data collection. Even though the Martian tropospheric radio refractivity had a small value, it still can cause ray bending and multipath effects. We recommend performing an accurate calculation on excess phase and group delays (range and time delays). Other effects, such as range rate errors, appearance angle deviation, defocusing loss on Mars, etc. should be estimated. Ice depolarization effects due to Martian clouds on radio waves are unknown yet, but they are expected to be small, because of lower optical depth and the thinner layer of cloud. Total Martian atmospheric gaseous attenuation is expected to be less than 1 dB on microwaves and, because the Martian atmosphere had very low concentration in uncondensed H2O and O2. An accurate calculation for zenith opacity requires the information about scale heights of H2O and O2 distribution. An accurate water vapor altitude profile at Mars is not available et. Under the normal condition, CO2 and N2 gases ddo not have electric or magnetic dipoles and do not absorb electromagnetic energy from the waves. However, they may generate the dipoles through a collision and interact with waves under a high density condition and absorb electromagnetic waves in the infrared and visible band. Dust storm is the most dominant factor on the radio wave attenuation. Large Martian dust storms can cause at least 3 dB or higher loss to Ka band wave. For a normal dust storm, the attenuation is about 1 dB. The attenuation much depends on dust mass loading, dust size distribution, etc. Most large dust storms occur in the southern hemisphere during later spring and early summer when the southern hemisphere becomes suddenly hot.

Ho, Christian↗
NASA NTRS1999

Radio Wave Propagation for Communication on and around Mars: Highlights: Propagation Through Mars Environment - Part 1

We recommend to use the dayside Martian ionosphere as a reflector for global communication, because the dayside ionosphere has stable density peak and usable critic frequency. This is very crucial for the future Mars ground to around communication. The dayside ionosphere has been well modeled as a Chapman layer. We suggest to perform the Martian nightside ionospheric modeling study. Because the nightside ionosphere has very little measurements available, we propose to drop a digital ionosond instrument into the Mars surface for data collection. Even though the Martian tropospheric radio refractivity has small value, it still can cause the ray bending and multipath effects. We recommend to perform an accurate calculation on excess phase and group delays (range and time delays). Other effects, such as range rate errors, appearance angle deviation, defocusing loss on Mars, etc. are also needed to be estimated. Ice depolarization effects due to Martian clouds on radio waves is unknown yet, which is expected to be small, because lower optical depth and thinner layer of cloud: Total Martian atmospheric gaseous attenuation is expected to be less than 1 dB on microwaves band, because the Martian atmosphere has very low concentration in uncondensed H2O and O2. An accurate calculation for zenith opacity requires the information about scale heights of H2O and O2 distribution. An accurate water vapor altitude profile at Mars is not available yet. Under the normal condition, CO2 and N2 gases do not have electric or magnetic dipoles and do not absorb electromagnetic energy from the waves. However, they may generate the dipoles through a collision and interact with waves under a high density condition and absorb electromagnetic waves in the infrared and visible band. Dust storm is most dominant factor to the radio wave attenuation. Large Martian dust storm can cause at least 3 dB or higher loss to Ka band wave. For a normal dust storm, the attenuation is about 1 dB. The attenuation much depends on dust mass loading, dust size distribution, etc. Most large dust storm occur in the southern hemisphere during later spring and early summer when the southern hemisphere become suddenly hot.

Ho, Christian↗
NASA NTRS1980

Comments on the dissipation of hydromagnetic surface waves

A recent paper by Wentzel, which claims to calculate a plasma heating rate due to dissipation of surface waves in an ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) fluid, is found to be in error in interpretation. A well-established general theorem pertaining to the conservative ideal MHD fluid requires that the normal mode calculated by Wentzel be oscillatory in time. Within ideal MHD, dissipation and plasma heating are therefore impossible.

Lee, M. A.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Redesign of the mixed-mode bending delamination test to reduce nonlinear effects

The mixed-mode bending (MMB) test uses a lever to apply simultaneously mode I and mode II loading to a split-beam specimen. An iterative analysis that accounts for the geometric nonlinearity of the MMB test was developed. The analysis accurately predicted the measured load-displacement response and the strain energy release rate, G, of an MMB test specimen made of AS4/PEEK. The errors in G when calculated using linear theory were found to be as large as 30 percent in some cases. Because it would be inconvenient to use a nonlinear analysis to analyze MMB data, the MMB apparatus was redesigned to minimize the nonlinearity. With the improved apparatus, loads are applied just above the midplane of the test specimen through a roller attached to the lever. This apparatus was demonstrated by measuring the mixed-mode delamination fracture toughhess of the test specimen. The nonlinearity errors associated with testing this tough composite material were less than +/- 3 percent. The data from the improved MMB apparatus analyzed with a linear analysis were similar to those found with the original apparatus and the nonlinear analysis.

Reeder, James R.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Flight Crew Survey Responses from the Interval Management (IM) Avionics Phase 2 Flight Test

The Interval Management (IM) Avionics Phase 2 flight test used three aircraft over a nineteen day period to operationally evaluate a prototype IM avionics. Quantitative data were collected on aircraft state data and IM spacing algorithm performance, and qualitative data were collected through end-of-scenario and end-of-day flight crew surveys. The majority of the IM operations met the performance goals established for spacing accuracy at the Achieve-by Point and the Planned Termination Point, however there were operations that did not meet goals for a variety of reasons. While the positive spacing accuracy results demonstrate the prototype IM avionics can contribute to the overall air traffic goal, critical issues were also identified that need to be addressed to enhance IM performance. The first category was those issues that impacted the conduct and results of the flight test, but are not part of the IM concept or procedures. These included the design of arrival and approach procedures was not ideal to support speed as the primary control mechanism, the ground-side of the Air Traffic Management Technology Demonstration (ATD-1) integrated concept of operations was not part of the flight test, and the high workload to manually enter the information required to conduct an IM operation. The second category was issues associated with the IM spacing algorithm or flight crew procedures. These issues include the high frequency of IM speed changes and reversals (accelerations), a mismatch between the deceleration rate used by the spacing algorithm and the actual aircraft performance, and some spacing error calculations were sensitive to normal operational variations in aircraft airspeed or altitude which triggered additional IM speed changes. Once the issues in these two categories are addressed, the future IM avionics should have considerable promise supporting the goals of improving system throughput and aircraft efficiency.

Baxley, Brian T.↗
NASA NTRS1986

The effect of the dynamic wet troposphere on VLBI measurements

Calculations using a statistical model of water vapor fluctuations yield the effect of the dynamic wet troposphere on Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) measurements. The statistical model arises from two primary assumptions: (1) the spatial structure of refractivity fluctuations can be closely approximated by elementary (Kolmogorov) turbulence theory, and (2) temporal fluctuations are caused by spatial patterns which are moved over a site by the wind. The consequences of these assumptions are outlined for the VLBI delay and delay rate observables. For example, wet troposphere induced rms delays for Deep Space Network (DSN) VLBI at 20-deg elevation are about 3 cm of delay per observation, which is smaller, on the average, than other known error sources in the current DSN VLBI data set. At 20-deg elevation for 200-s time intervals, water vapor induces approximately 1.5 x 10 to the minus 13th power s/s in the Allan standard deviation of interferometric delay, which is a measure of the delay rate observable error. In contrast to the delay error, the delay rate measurement error is dominated by water vapor fluctuations. Water vapor induced VLBI parameter errors and correlations are calculated. For the DSN, baseline length parameter errors due to water vapor fluctuations are in the range of 3 to 5 cm. The above physical assumptions also lead to a method for including the water vapor fluctuations in the parameter estimation procedure, which is used to extract baseline and source information from the VLBI observables.

Treuhaft, R. N.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Vertical control of DIII-D discharges with strong negative triangularity

Through predictive modeling validated by a series of experiments on DIII-D, the vertical stability of low β diverted plasmas with strong negative triangularity (NT) ($\delta\sim-0.6$) is assessed. As a result of their unique magnetic geometry, NT plasmas feature larger Shafranov shifts and more elongated inner flux surfaces than positive triangularity counterparts, typically leading to enhanced vertical instability growth rates. However, coupling with the non-conformal vessel DIII-D wall reduces these growth rates to controllable values, providing a path forward for stabilizing strongly NT plasma with a diverted geometry. These discharges are used to validate GSdesign (part of the TokSys code suite) stability calculations in strong NT plasmas on DIII-D, with errors of no more than ~20% observed between modeled and experimentally measured growth rates. Additions of diagnostic noise and power supply tuning to the TokSys model are needed to accurately capture the time dependence of DIII-D NT discharges, assisting with the design of control schemes specific to the DIII-D poloidal field coils. Lastly, implications of these results on a future NT reactor are briefly described.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Association Kinetics for Perfluorinated n -Alkyl Radicals

Radical-radical reaction channels are important in the pyrolysis and oxidation chemistry of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In particular, unimolecular dissociation reactions within unbranched n-perfluoroalkyl chains, and their corresponding reverse barrierless association reactions, are expected to be significant contributors to the gas-phase thermal decomposition of families of species such as perfluorinated carboxylic acids and perfluorinated sulfonic acids. Unfortunately, experimental data for these reactions are scarce and uncertain. Furthermore, obtaining reliable theoretical predictions for such reactions is a laborious and computationally intensive task. Here, in this work, the chemical kinetics of the various association/decomposition reactions producing/decomposing the C 2 -C 4 series of unbranched n-perfluoroalkanes (C 2 F 6 , C 3 F 8 , and C 4 F 10 ) are examined using state-of-the-art ab initio transition-state-theory-based master-equation calculations. The variable-reaction-coordinate transition-state theory (VRC-TST) formalism is employed in computing the microcanonical and canonical rates for the association reactions. Reaction thermochemistry is obtained via composite quantum chemistry calculations and the laddering of error-canceling reaction schemes via a connectivity-based hierarchy approach employing ANL1/ANL0-style reference energies. Lennard-Jones collision model parameters for the considered systems were estimated by a direct dynamics approach, and collisional energy transfer parameters were obtained from analogies to systems of similar size and heavy-atom connectivity. A one-dimensional master equation approach was used to convert the microcanonical rate coefficients from the VRC-TST analysis into temperature- and pressure-dependent rate constants for the association reactions and the reverse dissociation reactions. The data are reported in standardized formats for usage in comprehensive chemical kinetic models for PFAS thermal destruction.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

International collaboration framework for the calculation of performance loss rates: Data quality, benchmarks, and trends (towards a uniform methodology)

Abstract The IEA PVPS Task 13 group, experts who focus on photovoltaic performance, operation, and reliability from several leading R&D centers, universities, and industrial companies, is developing a framework for the calculation of performance loss rates of a large number of commercial and research photovoltaic (PV) power plants and their related weather data coming across various climatic zones. The general steps to calculate the performance loss rate are (i) input data cleaning and grading; (ii) data filtering; (iii) performance metric selection, corrections, and aggregation; and finally, (iv) application of a statistical modeling method to determine the performance loss rate value. In this study, several high‐quality power and irradiance datasets have been shared, and the participants of the study were asked to calculate the performance loss rate of each individual system using their preferred methodologies. The data are used for benchmarking activities and to define capabilities and uncertainties of all the various methods. The combination of data filtering, metrics (performance ratio or power based), and statistical modeling methods are benchmarked in terms of (i) their deviation from the average value and (ii) their uncertainty, standard error, and confidence intervals. It was observed that careful data filtering is an essential foundation for reliable performance loss rate calculations. Furthermore, the selection of the calculation steps filter/metric/statistical method is highly dependent on one another, and the steps should not be assessed individually.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗