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NASA NTRS1992

An effective multigrid method for high-speed flows

The use is considered of a multigrid method with central differencing to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for high speed flows. The time dependent form of the equations is integrated with a Runge-Kutta scheme accelerated by local time stepping and variable coefficient implicit residual smoothing. Of particular importance are the details of the numerical dissipation formulation, especially the switch between the second and fourth difference terms. Solutions are given for 2-D laminar flow over a circular cylinder and a 15 deg compression ramp.

Swanson, R. C.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Terahertz NDE for Metallic Surface Roughness Evaluation

Metallic surface roughness in a nominally smooth surface is a potential indication of material degradation or damage. When the surface is coated or covered with an opaque dielectric material, such as paint or insulation, then inspecting for surface changes becomes almost impossible. Terahertz NDE is a method capable of penetrating the coating and inspecting the metallic surface. The terahertz frequency regime is between 100 GHz and 10 THz and has a free space wavelength of 300 micrometers at 1 THz. Pulsed terahertz radiation, can be generated and detected using optical excitation of biased semiconductors with femtosecond laser pulses. The resulting time domain signal is 320 picoseconds in duration. In this application, samples are inspected with a commercial terahertz NDE system that scans the sample and generates a set of time-domain signals that are a function of the backscatter from the metallic surface. Post processing is then performed in the time and frequency domains to generate C-scan type images that show scattering effects due to surface non-uniformity.

Madaras, Eric I.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Robust Conceptual Design of Transonic Airfoils

This paper describes an integrated, multi-fidelity analysis and heuristic design approach that can be used to derive initial airfoil designs for transonic flight. If successful, the final result is a geometry that can be expected to produce reasonable aerodynamic performance when used with higher order analysis methods. A key aspect of the methodology is the use of a “sonic-plateau” pressure distribution as the target distribution for inverse design. The sonic- plateau distribution is easily parameterized and has the advantage of automatically resulting in a smooth airfoil shape without any discontinuities built into the surface due to the presence of a shock in the target pressure distribution. Inverse design is performed on each airfoil using a parametrically defined pressure distribution at a reduced lift coefficient and Mach number from the design condition. The methodology is demonstrated by designing an airfoil at 38% of the wing semispan for a 737-200-like aircraft. The demonstration problem shows that the methodology is able to achieve rapid and robust convergence to the solution. The calculated designed airfoil was found to be sufficiently higher than Mach number, and the maximum thickness was close to the targeted value.

Olson, Erik D.↗

NASA NTRS1974

A smoothing algorithm using cubic spline functions

Two algorithms are presented for smoothing arbitrary sets of data. They are the explicit variable algorithm and the parametric variable algorithm. The former would be used where large gradients are not encountered because of the smaller amount of calculation required. The latter would be used if the data being smoothed were double valued or experienced large gradients. Both algorithms use a least-squares technique to obtain a cubic spline fit to the data. The advantage of the spline fit is that the first and second derivatives are continuous. This method is best used in an interactive graphics environment so that the junction values for the spline curve can be manipulated to improve the fit.

Smith, R. E., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1984

A comparison of experimental and theoretical results for leakage, pressure distribution, and rotordynamic coefficients for annular gas seals

The importance of seal behavior in rotordynamics is discussed and current annular seal theory is reviewed. A Nelson's analytical-computational method for determining rotordynamic coefficients for this type of compressible-flow seal is outlined. Various means for the experimental identification of the dynamic coefficients are given, and the method employed at the Texas A and M University (TAMU) test facility is explained. The TAMU test apparatus is described, and the test procedures are discussed. Experimental results, including leakage, entrance-loss coefficients, pressure distributions, and rotordynamic coefficients for a smooth and a honeycomb constant-clearance seal are presented and compared to theoretical results from Nelson's analysis. The results for both seals show little sensitivity to the running speed over the test range. Agreement between test results and theory for leakage through the seal is satisfactory. Test results for direct stiffness show a greater sensitivity to fluid pre-rotation than predicted. Results also indicate that the deliberately roughened surface of the honeycomb seal provides improved stability versus the smooth seal.

Nicks, C. O.↗

NASA NTRS1932

On the theory of wing sections with particular reference to the lift distribution

This report gives a simple and exact method of calculating the lift distribution on thin wing sections. The most essential feature of the new theory is the introduction of an "ideal angle of attack," this angle being defined as that at which the flow enters the leading edge smoothly or, more precisely, as the angle of attack at which the lift at the leading edge equals zero. The lift distribution at this particular angle is shown to be a characteristic property of the section and has been termed the "basic distribution." it is shown that the lift of a wing section may always be considered to consist of (a) the basic distribution and (b) the additional distribution, where the latter is independent of the mean camber line and thus identical for all thin sections. The specific reason for the poor aerodynamic qualities of thin wing sections is pointed out as being due to the fact that the additional lift in potential flow becomes infinite at the leading edge. It is established that the essential parameter occurring in this analysis is the radius of curvature at the leading edge. It is further established that the actual slope of the lift curve is dependent on this parameter. The theoretical lift distribution is compared with the distribution obtained by direct measurement on a number of the more conventional wing sections. The new theory is of value in calculating the strength of wing sections.

Theodorsen, Theodore↗

NASA NTRS1959

An Experimental Study at a Mach Number of 3 of the Effect of Turbulence Level and Sandpaper Type Roughness on Transition on a Flat Plate

An investigation has been conducted at a Mach number of 3 of the effect of turbulence level and sandpaper-type roughness on transition for a flat plate. The Reynolds number varied from 0.8 x 10(exp 6) to 1.8 x 10(exp 6) per inch; the settling-chamber turbulence level varied from 0.7 percent to 35 percent; and the heat transfer between the plate and the stream was negligible. Transition locations were determined by an optical method. This method was indicative of a permanent change in the boundary-layer density distribution rather than the onset of turbulent bursts. Results showed that, when transition was influenced by roughness, it moved in a way similar to its movement on a smooth plate. That is, it gradually approached the roughness location with either an increase in unit Reynolds number or an increase in turbulence level. For roughness submerged in the linear portion of the boundary-layer velocity profile, the square root of the roughness Reynolds number and the ratio of roughness height to boundary-layer displacement thickness gave similar results as parameters for predicting the effects of roughness. A range of each of these parameters which moved transition less than 10 percent was found and this range was a function of turbulence level.

Jones, Robert A.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Navigation Algorithms for the SeaWiFS Mission

The navigation algorithms for the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) were designed to meet the requirement of 1-pixel accuracy-a standard deviation (sigma) of 2. The objective has been to extract the best possible accuracy from the spacecraft telemetry and avoid the need for costly manual renavigation or geometric rectification. The requirement is addressed by postprocessing of both the Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and Attitude Control System (ACS) data in the spacecraft telemetry stream. The navigation algorithms described are separated into four areas: orbit processing, attitude sensor processing, attitude determination, and final navigation processing. There has been substantial modification during the mission of the attitude determination and attitude sensor processing algorithms. For the former, the basic approach was completely changed during the first year of the mission, from a single-frame deterministic method to a Kalman smoother. This was done for several reasons: a) to improve the overall accuracy of the attitude determination, particularly near the sub-solar point; b) to reduce discontinuities; c) to support the single-ACS-string spacecraft operation that was started after the first mission year, which causes gaps in attitude sensor coverage; and d) to handle data quality problems (which became evident after launch) in the direct-broadcast data. The changes to the attitude sensor processing algorithms primarily involved the development of a model for the Earth horizon height, also needed for single-string operation; the incorporation of improved sensor calibration data; and improved data quality checking and smoothing to handle the data quality issues. The attitude sensor alignments have also been revised multiple times, generally in conjunction with the other changes. The orbit and final navigation processing algorithms have remained largely unchanged during the mission, aside from refinements to data quality checking. Although further improvements are certainly possible, future evolution of the algorithms is expected to be limited to refinements of the methods presented here, and no substantial changes are anticipated.

Hooker, Stanford B.↗

NASA NTRS1975

A numerical method for solving the Navier-Stokes equations with application to shock-boundary layer interactions

A numerical method for solving the compressible form of the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations is described. This method was originally presented in 1970 and has since been modified during the development of computer programs at Ames for implementing models that account for the effects of turbulence in shock-induced separated flows. Although this paper does not describe the turbulence models themselves, a complete description of the basic numerical method is given with emphasis on the choice of a computational mesh for high Reynolds number flows, finite-difference approximations for mixed partial derivatives, extension of the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy stability condition for viscous flows, mesh boundary conditions, and numerical smoothing for strong shock-wave calculations.

Maccormack, R. W.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Automatic evaluation of interferograms

A system for the evaluation of interference patterns was developed. For digitizing and processing of the interferograms from classical and holographic interferometers a picture analysis system based upon a computer with a television digitizer was installed. Depending on the quality of the interferograms, four different picture enhancement operations may be used: Signal averaging; spatial smoothing, subtraction of the overlayed intensity function and the removal of distortion-patterns using a spatial filtering technique in the frequency spectrum of the interferograms. The extraction of fringe loci from the digitized interferograms is performed by a foating-threshold method. The fringes are numbered using a special scheme after the removal of any fringe disconnections which appeared if there was insufficient contrast in the holograms. The reconstruction of the object function from the fringe field uses least squares approximation with spline fit. Applications are given.

Becker, F.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Development of a 3-D upwind PNS code for chemically reacting hypersonic flowfields

Two new parabolized Navier-Stokes (PNS) codes were developed to compute the three-dimensional, viscous, chemically reacting flow of air around hypersonic vehicles such as the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP). The first code (TONIC) solves the gas dynamic and species conservation equations in a fully coupled manner using an implicit, approximately-factored, central-difference algorithm. This code was upgraded to include shock fitting and the capability of computing the flow around complex body shapes. The revised TONIC code was validated by computing the chemically-reacting (M(sub infinity) = 25.3) flow around a 10 deg half-angle cone at various angles of attack and the Ames All-Body model at 0 deg angle of attack. The results of these calculations were in good agreement with the results from the UPS code. One of the major drawbacks of the TONIC code is that the central-differencing of fluxes across interior flowfield discontinuities tends to introduce errors into the solution in the form of local flow property oscillations. The second code (UPS), originally developed for a perfect gas, has been extended to permit either perfect gas, equilibrium air, or nonequilibrium air computations. The code solves the PNS equations using a finite-volume, upwind TVD method based on Roe's approximate Riemann solver that was modified to account for real gas effects. The dissipation term associated with this algorithm is sufficiently adaptive to flow conditions that, even when attempting to capture very strong shock waves, no additional smoothing is required. For nonequilibrium calculations, the code solves the fluid dynamic and species continuity equations in a loosely-coupled manner. This code was used to calculate the hypersonic, laminar flow of chemically reacting air over cones at various angles of attack. In addition, the flow around the McDonnel Douglas generic option blended-wing-body was computed and comparisons were made between the perfect gas, equilibrium air, and the nonequilibrium air results.

Tannehill, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Mechanical forces and their second messengers in stimulating cell growth in vitro

Mechanical forces play an important role in modulating the growth of a number of different tissues including skeletal muscle, smooth muscle, cardiac muscle, bone, endothelium, epithelium, and lung. As interest increases in the molecular mechanisms by which mechanical forces are transduced into growth alterations, model systems are being developed to study these processes in tissue culture. This paper reviews the current methods available for mechanically stimulating tissue cultured cells. It then outlines some of the putative 'mechanogenic' second messengers involved in altering cell growth. Not surprisingly, many mechanogenic second messengers are the same as those involved in growth factor-induced cell growth. It is hypothesized that from an evolutionary standpoint, some second messenger systems may have initially evolved for unicellular organisms to respond to physical forces such as gravity and mechanical perturbation in their environment. As multicellular organisms came into existence, they appropriated these mechanogenic second messenger cascades for cellular regulation by growth factors.

Vandenburgh, Herman H.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Airfoil optimization by the one-shot method

An efficient numerical approach for the design of optimal aerodynamic shapes is presented in this paper. The objective of any optimization problem is to find the optimum of a cost function subject to a certain state equation (Governing equation of the flow field) and certain side constraints. As in classical optimal control methods, the present approach introduces a costate variable (Language multiplier) to evaluate the gradient of the cost function. High efficiency in reaching the optimum solution is achieved by using a multigrid technique and updating the shape in a hierarchical manner such that smooth (low-frequency) changes are done separately from high-frequency changes. Thus, the design variables are changed on a grid where their changes produce nonsmooth (high-frequency) perturbations that can be damped efficiently by the multigrid. The cost of solving the optimization problem is approximately two to three times the cost of the equivalent analysis problem.

Kuruvila, G.↗

NASA NTRS1996

A Numerical Simulation of Scattering from One-Dimensional Inhomogeneous Dielectric Random Surfaces

In this paper, an efficient numerical solution for the scattering problem of inhomogeneous dielectric rough surfaces is presented. The inhomogeneous dielectric random surface represents a bare soil surface and is considered to be comprised of a large number of randomly positioned dielectric humps of different sizes, shapes, and dielectric constants above an impedance surface. Clods with nonuniform moisture content and rocks are modeled by inhomogeneous dielectric humps and the underlying smooth wet soil surface is modeled by an impedance surface. In this technique, an efficient numerical solution for the constituent dielectric humps over an impedance surface is obtained using Green's function derived by the exact image theory in conjunction with the method of moments. The scattered field from a sample of the rough surface is obtained by summing the scattered fields from all the individual humps of the surface coherently ignoring the effect of multiple scattering between the humps. The statistical behavior of the scattering coefficient sigma(sup 0) is obtained from the calculation of scattered fields of many different realizations of the surface. Numerical results are presented for several different roughnesses and dielectric constants of the random surfaces. The numerical technique is verified by comparing the numerical solution with the solution based on the small perturbation method and the physical optics model for homogeneous rough surfaces. This technique can be used to study the behavior of scattering coefficient and phase difference statistics of rough soil surfaces for which no analytical solution exists.

Sarabandi, Kamal↗

NASA NTRS1995

Airfoil Design and Optimization by the One-Shot Method

An efficient numerical approach for the design of optimal aerodynamic shapes is presented in this paper. The objective of any optimization problem is to find the optimum of a cost function subject to a certain state equation (governing equation of the flow field) and certain side constraints. As in classical optimal control methods, the present approach introduces a costate variable (Lagrange multiplier) to evaluate the gradient of the cost function. High efficiency in reaching the optimum solution is achieved by using a multigrid technique and updating the shape in a hierarchical manner such that smooth (low-frequency) changes are done separately from high-frequency changes. Thus, the design variables are changed on a grid where their changes produce nonsmooth (high-frequency) perturbations that can be damped efficiently by the multigrid. The cost of solving the optimization problem is approximately two to three times the cost of the equivalent analysis problem.

Kuruvila, G.↗

NASA NTRS2003

[Technology Development for X-Ray Reflection for the Constellation-X Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS)]

This Grant covers MIT support for the technology development of x-ray reflection gratings for the Constellation-X Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS). Since the start of the Grant MIT has extended its previously-developed patterning and super-smooth, blazed grating fabrication technology to ten-times smaller grating periods and ten-times larger blaze angles to demonstrate feasibility and performance in the off-plane grating geometry. In the past year we successfully developed several nanoimprint grating replication methods that achieved very high fidelity replication of master silicon gratings. Grating geometry on the nano and macro scales were faithfully replicated, demonstrating the viability of the process for manufacturing the thousands of gratings required for the RGS. We also successfully developed an improved metrology truss for holding test grating substrates during metrology. The flatness goal of grating substrates is under 500 nm. In the past, grating holders would cause non-repeatable distortion of >> 500 nm to the substrates due to friction and gravity sag. The new holder has a repeatability of under 50 nm which is adequate for the proposed RGS grating substrates.

Schattenburg, Mark L.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Application of electrical stimulation for functional tissue engineering in vitro and in vivo

The present invention provides new methods for the in vitro preparation of bioartificial tissue equivalents and their enhanced integration after implantation in vivo. These methods include submitting a tissue construct to a biomimetic electrical stimulation during cultivation in vitro to improve its structural and functional properties, and/or in vivo, after implantation of the construct, to enhance its integration with host tissue and increase cell survival and functionality. The inventive methods are particularly useful for the production of bioartificial equivalents and/or the repair and replacement of native tissues that contain electrically excitable cells and are subject to electrical stimulation in vivo, such as, for example, cardiac muscle tissue, striated skeletal muscle tissue, smooth muscle tissue, bone, vasculature, and nerve tissue.

Radisic, Milica↗

NASA NTRS2019

Cleanroom Contamination Identification Method Development

During fabrication, assembly, and testing of spacecraft and flight hardware it is vital to avoid contaminants that can cause degradation and could result in significant failure. Yet, there is no existing contamination monitoring method that provides the identity of airborne particles in a cleanroom facility. Knowing the particle identities, would allow scientists and engineers to determine the source of the contaminants and prevent setbacks before they occur or cause damage. Current cleanliness monitoring methods include airborne particle counters (APCs), fallout filters, and visual inspections. Particle counts from APCs are the primary metric used to define a cleanroom class and hence its level of cleanliness, but do not provide identification nor can they differentiate between large and small sizes of particles. In addition, using fallout filters is not a proactive, timely, or representative approach to cleanroom contamination monitoring because these samples are only retrieved after 30 days and are placed away from spacecraft processing to avoid interference with operations. In contrast, the forced air sampling method can collect a sample within an hour at any location required and provide results in less than a day. This system uses a cassette and filter sample medium to capture airborne particles which are then taken to a scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) to identify and size the captured particles. Development of forced air sampling into an established laboratory capability will allow for fast sampling and routine identification of unknown contamination sources within the cleanroom. The test method development required market research for an air sampling cassette that increases sample collection efficiency and a filter with low enough background contamination to allow differentiation between a blank (control) and the collected sample. It was determined that a conductive black cassette and a polycarbonate filter were the best options. Conductive black cassettes, in comparison to the standard styrene, are manufactured using polypropylene filled with carbon. This makes the cassette conductive and minimizes the tendency of particles to stick to the wall of the cassette due to electrostatic force. In previous trials a mixed cellulose ester (MCE) filter was used to capture the contaminants, however the rougher surface of the filter contributed to entrapment of the particles within the filter structure and made it harder to identify the particles. In comparison, track etched polycarbonate filters have random cylindrical pores and a smooth surface which contributes to uniform sample distribution on the surface of the filter. Future work includes: testing the system using control samples to determine the efficiency and suitability of the medium, performing sample collection in various environments to establish ideal operating parameters and analyzing contaminant particles using SEM/EDS and assistant characterization techniques. Once fully developed, employing the forced air sampling method will help to prevent damage to spacecraft, avoid schedule delays, and allow for mission success.

Hernandez Melendez, Jailyn M.↗