Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Computer Based Procedures”

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 811 records · Page 45

Coupling of Multiple Coulomb Scattering with Energy Loss and Straggling in HZETRN

The new version of the HZETRN deterministic transport code based on Green's function methods, and the incorporation of ground-based laboratory boundary conditions, has lead to the development of analytical and numerical procedures to include off-axis dispersion of primary ion beams due to small-angle multiple Coulomb scattering. In this paper we present the theoretical formulation and computational procedures to compute ion beam broadening and a methodology towards achieving a self-consistent approach to coupling multiple scattering interactions with ionization energy loss and straggling. Our initial benchmark case is a 60 MeV proton beam on muscle tissue, for which we can compare various attributes of beam broadening with Monte Carlo simulations reported in the open literature.

Mertens, Christopher J.↗

Time-Accurate Solutions of Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations for Potential Turbopump Applications

Two numerical procedures, one based on artificial compressibility method and the other pressure projection method, are outlined for obtaining time-accurate solutions of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The performance of the two method are compared by obtaining unsteady solutions for the evolution of twin vortices behind a at plate. Calculated results are compared with experimental and other numerical results. For an un- steady ow which requires small physical time step, pressure projection method was found to be computationally efficient since it does not require any subiterations procedure. It was observed that the artificial compressibility method requires a fast convergence scheme at each physical time step in order to satisfy incompressibility condition. This was obtained by using a GMRES-ILU(0) solver in our computations. When a line-relaxation scheme was used, the time accuracy was degraded and time-accurate computations became very expensive.

Kiris, Cetin↗

A Simplified Mesh Deformation Method Using Commercial Structural Analysis Software

Mesh deformation in response to redefined or moving aerodynamic surface geometries is a frequently encountered task in many applications. Most existing methods are either mathematically too complex or computationally too expensive for usage in practical design and optimization. We propose a simplified mesh deformation method based on linear elastic finite element analyses that can be easily implemented by using commercially available structural analysis software. Using a prescribed displacement at the mesh boundaries, a simple structural analysis is constructed based on a spatially varying Young s modulus to move the entire mesh in accordance with the surface geometry redefinitions. A variety of surface movements, such as translation, rotation, or incremental surface reshaping that often takes place in an optimization procedure, may be handled by the present method. We describe the numerical formulation and implementation using the NASTRAN software in this paper. The use of commercial software bypasses tedious reimplementation and takes advantage of the computational efficiency offered by the vendor. A two-dimensional airfoil mesh and a three-dimensional aircraft mesh were used as test cases to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Euler and Navier-Stokes calculations were performed for the deformed two-dimensional meshes.

Hsu, Su-Yuen↗

Initial Field Evaluation of Pilot Procedures for Flying CTAS Descent Clearances

The Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS) is a new support system that is designed to assist air traffic controllers in the management of arrival traffic. CTAS will provide controllers with more information about current air traffic, enabling them to provide clearances for efficient, conflict-free descents that help achieve an orderly stream of aircraft at the final approach fix. CTAS is a computer-based system that functions as a "ground-based FMS" that can predict flight trajectories and arrival times for all incoming aircraft. CTAS uses an aircraft's cruise airspeed; current air traffic, winds and temperature; performance characteristics of the aircraft type; and individual airline preferences to create a flight profile from cruise altitude to the final approach fix. Controllers can use this flight profile to provide a descent clearance that will allow an aircraft to fly an efficient descent and merge more smoothly with other arriving aircraft. A field test of the CTAS Descent Advisor software was conducted at the Denver Center for aircraft arriving at the Stapleton International Airport from September 12-29. CTAS Descent clearances were given to a NASA flight test aircraft and to 77 airline flights that arrived during low traffic periods. For the airline portion of the field test, cockpit procedures and pilot briefing packages for both FMS equipped and unequipped aircraft were developed in cooperation with an airline. The procedures developed for the FMS equipped aircraft were to fly a VNAV descent at a controller specified speed to cross a metering fix at a specified altitude and speed. For nonFMS aircraft, the clearance also specified a CTAS calculated top-of-descent point. Some CTAS related flight deck issues included how much time was available to the pilots' for compliance, the amount of information that needed to be interpreted in the clearance and possible repercussions of misunderstandings. Data collected during the study ranged from subjective data (including the airline pilots' opinions and comments about the new descent clearances and procedures) to objective data (including observations of aircraft performance from the flight deck). This paper will present data and the resulting changes in the design of the procedures and clearance phraseology.

Palmer, Everett↗

Three-Dimensional Analysis and Modeling of a Wankel Engine

A new computer code, AGNI-3D, has been developed for the modeling of combustion, spray, and flow properties in a stratified-charge rotary engine (SCRE). The mathematical and numerical details of the new code are described by the first author in a separate NASA publication. The solution procedure is based on an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach where the unsteady, three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations for a perfect gas-mixture with variable properties are solved in generalized, Eulerian coordinates on a moving grid by making use of an implicit finite-volume, Steger-Warming flux vector splitting scheme. The liquid-phase equations are solved in Lagrangian coordinates. The engine configuration studied was similar to existing rotary engine flow-visualization and hot-firing test rigs. The results of limited test cases indicate a good degree of qualitative agreement between the predicted and measured pressures. It is conjectured that the impulsive nature of the torque generated by the observed pressure nonuniformity may be one of the mechanisms responsible for the excessive wear of the timing gears observed during the early stages of the rotary combustion engine (RCE) development. It was identified that the turbulence intensities near top-dead-center were dominated by the compression process and only slightly influenced by the intake and exhaust processes. Slow mixing resulting from small turbulence intensities within the rotor pocket and also from a lack of formation of any significant recirculation regions within the rotor pocket were identified as the major factors leading to incomplete combustion. Detailed flowfield results during exhaust and intake, fuel injection, fuel vaporization, combustion, mixing and expansion processes are also presented. The numerical procedure is very efficient as it takes 7 to 10 CPU hours on a CRAY Y-MP for one entire engine cycle when the computations are performed over a 31 x16 x 20 grid.

Raju, M. S.↗

Medium-range objective predictions of thunderstorms on the McIDAS/CSIS interactive computer system

Until recently, all operational meteorological data has been made available to forecasters in a variety of different forms. Predictions based upon these different data formats have been complicated by the inability of forecasters to easily assimilate, in real-time, all data to provide an optimum decision regarding future weather occurrences. By March 1980, a joint NASA/NOAA effort had been initiated to develop the Centralized Storm Information System (CSIS). The primary objectives of this joint project are related to an improvement of the overall severe storm forecast and warning procedure and to a demonstration of the operational utility of techniques developed within the applied research community. CSIS is to utilize the Man Computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS). The present investigation is concerned with one of the first attempts to employ the CSIS system for the evaluation of a new research technique involving the prediction of thunderstorms over a forecast period of 12-48 hours.

Wilson, G. S.↗

ADPAC v1.0: User's Manual

The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of turbulence models in a 3-D numerical analysis on the wake prediction capability. The current version of the computer code resulting from this study is referred to as ADPAC v7 (Advanced Ducted Propfan Analysis Codes -Version 7). This report is intended to serve as a computer program user's manual for the ADPAC code used and modified under Task 15 of NASA Contract NAS3-27394. The ADPAC program is based on a flexible multiple-block and discretization scheme permitting coupled 2-D/3-D mesh block solutions with application to a wide variety of geometries. Aerodynamic calculations are based on a four-stage Runge-Kutta time-marching finite volume solution technique with added numerical dissipation. Steady flow predictions are accelerated by a multigrid procedure. Turbulence models now available in the ADPAC code are: a simple mixing-length model, the algebraic Baldwin-Lomax model with user defined coefficients, the one-equation Spalart-Allmaras model, and a two-equation k-R model. The consolidated ADPAC code is capable of executing in either a serial or parallel computing mode from a single source code.

Hall, Edward J.↗

Cartographic Modeling: Computer-assisted Analysis of Spatially Defined Neighborhoods

Cartographic models addressing a wide variety of applications are composed of fundamental map processing operations. These primitive operations are neither data base nor application-specific. By organizing the set of operations into a mathematical-like structure, the basis for a generalized cartographic modeling framework can be developed. Among the major classes of primitive operations are those associated with reclassifying map categories, overlaying maps, determining distance and connectivity, and characterizing cartographic neighborhoods. The conceptual framework of cartographic modeling is established and techniques for characterizing neighborhoods are used as a means of demonstrating some of the more sophisticated procedures of computer-assisted map analysis. A cartographic model for assessing effective roundwood supply is briefly described as an example of a computer analysis. Most of the techniques described have been implemented as part of the map analysis package developed at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Berry, J. K.↗

A case study of view-factor rectification procedures for diffuse-gray radiation enclosure computations

The view factors which are used in diffuse-gray radiation enclosure calculations are often computed by approximate numerical integrations. These approximately calculated view factors will usually not satisfy the important physical constraints of reciprocity and closure. In this paper several view-factor rectification algorithms are reviewed and a rectification algorithm based on a least-squares numerical filtering scheme is proposed with both weighted and unweighted classes. A Monte-Carlo investigation is undertaken to study the propagation of view-factor and surface-area uncertainties into the heat transfer results of the diffuse-gray enclosure calculations. It is found that the weighted least-squares algorithm is vastly superior to the other rectification schemes for the reduction of the heat-flux sensitivities to view-factor uncertainties. In a sample problem, which has proven to be very sensitive to uncertainties in view factor, the heat transfer calculations with weighted least-squares rectified view factors are very good with an original view-factor matrix computed to only one-digit accuracy. All of the algorithms had roughly equivalent effects on the reduction in sensitivity to area uncertainty in this case study.

Taylor, Robert P.↗

Reliability, Risk and Cost Trade-Offs for Composite Designs

Risk and cost trade-offs have been simulated using a probabilistic method. The probabilistic method accounts for all naturally-occurring uncertainties including those in constituent material properties, fabrication variables, structure geometry and loading conditions. The probability density function of first buckling load for a set of uncertain variables is computed. The probabilistic sensitivity factors of uncertain variables to the first buckling load is calculated. The reliability-based cost for a composite fuselage panel is defined and minimized with respect to requisite design parameters. The optimization is achieved by solving a system of nonlinear algebraic equations whose coefficients are functions of probabilistic sensitivity factors. With optimum design parameters such as the mean and coefficient of variation (representing range of scatter) of uncertain variables, the most efficient and economical manufacturing procedure can be selected. In this paper, optimum values of the requisite design parameters for a predetermined cost due to failure occurrence are computationally determined. The results for the fuselage panel analysis show that the higher the cost due to failure occurrence, the smaller the optimum coefficient of variation of fiber modulus (design parameter) in longitudinal direction.

Shiao, Michael C.↗

Global centroid moment tensor solutions in a heterogeneous earth: the CMT3D catalogue

SUMMARY For over 40 yr, the global centroid-moment tensor (GCMT) project has determined location and source parameters for globally recorded earthquakes larger than magnitude 5.0. The GCMT database remains a trusted staple for the geophysical community. Its point-source moment-tensor solutions are the result of inversions that model long-period observed seismic waveforms via normal-mode summation for a 1-D reference earth model, augmented by path corrections to capture 3-D variations in surface wave phase speeds, and to account for crustal structure. While this methodology remains essentially unchanged for the ongoing GCMT catalogue, source inversions based on waveform modelling in low-resolution 3-D earth models have revealed small but persistent biases in the standard modelling approach. Keeping pace with the increased capacity and demands of global tomography requires a revised catalogue of centroid-moment tensors (CMT), automatically and reproducibly computed using Green's functions from a state-of-the-art 3-D earth model. In this paper, we modify the current procedure for the full-waveform inversion of seismic traces for the six moment-tensor parameters, centroid latitude, longitude, depth and centroid time of global earthquakes. We take the GCMT solutions as a point of departure but update them to account for the effects of a heterogeneous earth, using the global 3-D wave speed model GLAD-M25. We generate synthetic seismograms from Green's functions computed by the spectral-element method in the 3-D model, select observed seismic data and remove their instrument response, process synthetic and observed data, select segments of observed and synthetic data based on similarity, and invert for new model parameters of the earthquake’s centroid location, time and moment tensor. The events in our new, preliminary database containing 9382 global event solutions, called CMT3D for ‘3-D centroid-moment tensors’, are on average 4 km shallower, about 1 s earlier, about 5 per cent larger in scalar moment, and more double-couple in nature than in the GCMT catalogue. We discuss in detail the geographical and statistical distributions of the updated solutions, and place them in the context of earlier work. We plan to disseminate our CMT3D solutions via the online ShakeMovie platform.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Transverse shear stresses and their sensitivity coefficients in multilayered composite panels

A computational procedure is presented for the accurate determination of transverse shear stresses and their sensitivity coefficients in flat multilayered composite panels subjected to mechanical and thermal loads. The sensitivity coefficients measure the sensitivity of the transverse shear stresses to variations in the different lamination and material parameters of the panel. The panel is discretized by using either a three-field mixed finite element model based on a two-dimensional first- order shear deformation plate theory or a two-field degenerate solid element with each of the displacement components having a linear variation throughout the thickness of the laminate. The evaluation of transverse shear stresses can be conveniently divided into two phases. The first phase consists of using a superconvergent recovery technique for evaluating the in-plane stresses in the different layers. In the second phase, the transverse shear stresses are evaluated by using piecewise integration, in the thickness direction, of the three-dimensional equilibrium equations. The same procedure is used for evaluating the sensitivity coefficients of the transverse shear stresses. The effectiveness of the computational procedure is demonstrated by means of numerical examples of multilayered cross-ply panels subjected to transverse loading, uniform temperature change, and uniform temperature gradient through the thickness of the panel. In each case the standard of the comparison is taken to be the exact solution of the three dimensional thermoelasticity equations of the panel.

Noor, Ahmed K.↗

Root-N Krylov-space correction vectors for spectral functions with the density matrix renormalization group

In this work, we propose a method to compute spectral functions of generic Hamiltonians using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm directly in the frequency domain, based on a modified Krylov-space decomposition to compute the correction vectors. Our approach entails the calculation of the root-N (N=2 is the standard square root) of the Hamiltonian propagator using Krylov-space decomposition and repeating this procedure N times to obtain the actual correction vector. We show that our method greatly alleviates the burden of keeping a large bond dimension at large target frequencies, a problem found with conventional correction-vector DMRG, whereas achieving better computational performance at large N. We apply our method to spin and charge spectral functions of t-J and Hubbard models in the challenging two-leg ladder geometry and provide evidence that the root-N approach reaches a much improved spectral resolution compared to the conventional correction vector.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

$\mathrm{SageNet}$: Fast Neural Network Emulation of the Stiff-amplified Gravitational Waves from Inflation

Accurate modeling of the inflationary gravitational waves (GWs) requires time-consuming, iterative numerical integrations of differential equations to take into account their backreaction on the expansion history. To improve computational efficiency while preserving accuracy, we present the Stiff-amplified Gravitational-wave Emulator Network (SageNet), a deep learning framework designed to replace conventional numerical solvers (code available at https://github.com/YifangLuo/SageNet). SageNet employs a long short-term memory architecture to emulate the present-day energy density spectrum of the inflationary GWs with possible stiff amplification, Ω GW (f). Trained on a data set of 25,689 numerically generated solutions, SageNet allows accurate reconstructions of Ω GW (f) and generalizes well to a wide range of cosmological parameters; 90.9% of the test emulations with randomly distributed parameters exhibit errors of under 4%. In addition, SageNet demonstrates its ability to learn and reproduce the artificial, adaptive sampling patterns in numerical calculations, which implement denser sampling of frequencies around changes in spectral indices in Ω GW (f). The dual capability of learning both physical and artificial features of the numerical GW spectra establishes SageNet as a robust alternative to exact numerical methods. Finally, our benchmark tests show that SageNet reduces the computation time from tens of seconds to milliseconds, achieving a speedup of ∼10 4 times over standard CPU-based numerical solvers with the potential for further acceleration on GPU hardware. These capabilities make SageNet a powerful tool for accelerating Bayesian inference procedures for extended cosmological models. In a broad sense, the SageNet framework offers a fast, accurate, and generalizable solution to modeling cosmological observables whose theoretical predictions demand costly differential equation solvers.

Astronomy data modeling↗

Computerized systems analysis and optimization of aircraft engine performance, weight, and life cycle costs

The computational techniques utilized to determine the optimum propulsion systems for future aircraft applications and to identify system tradeoffs and technology requirements are described. The characteristics and use of the following computer codes are discussed: (1) NNEP - a very general cycle analysis code that can assemble an arbitrary matrix fans, turbines, ducts, shafts, etc., into a complete gas turbine engine and compute on- and off-design thermodynamic performance; (2) WATE - a preliminary design procedure for calculating engine weight using the component characteristics determined by NNEP; (3) POD DRG - a table look-up program to calculate wave and friction drag of nacelles; (4) LIFCYC - a computer code developed to calculate life cycle costs of engines based on the output from WATE; and (5) INSTAL - a computer code developed to calculate installation effects, inlet performance and inlet weight. Examples are given to illustrate how these computer techniques can be applied to analyze and optimize propulsion system fuel consumption, weight, and cost for representative types of aircraft and missions.

Fishbach, L. H.↗

ATLAS, an integrated structural analysis and design system. Volume 2: System design document

ATLAS is a structural analysis and design system, operational on the Control Data Corporation 6600/CYBER computers. The overall system design, the design of the individual program modules, and the routines in the ATLAS system library are described. The overall design is discussed in terms of system architecture, executive function, data base structure, user program interfaces and operational procedures. The program module sections include detailed code description, common block usage and random access file usage. The description of the ATLAS program library includes all information needed to use these general purpose routines.

Erickson, W. J.↗

Wave drag as the objective function in transonic fighter wing optimization

The original computational method for determining wave drag in a three dimensional transonic analysis method was replaced by a wave drag formula based on the loss in momentum across an isentropic shock. This formula was used as the objective function in a numerical optimization procedure to reduce the wave drag of a fighter wing at transonic maneuver conditions. The optimization procedure minimized wave drag through modifications to the wing section contours defined by a wing profile shape function. A significant reduction in wave drag was achieved while maintaining a high lift coefficient. Comparisons of the pressure distributions for the initial and optimized wing geometries showed significant reductions in the leading-edge peaks and shock strength across the span.

Phillips, P. S.↗

Instability of jets of arbitrary geometry

This paper describes a calculation technique for determining the stability of jets of arbitrary cross section. In particular, elliptic and rectangular jets are considered. The numerical procedure involves both a conformal transformation between the computational domain and the physical plane and a solution of the transformed stability equation in the computational domain. Modern, efficient, conformal mappings are used for both simply and doubly connected domains. The numerical solution is based on a finite difference/pseudospectral discretization of the stability equation. The technique is verified by comparison with previous calculations for circular and elliptic jets. Calculations are performed for the stability of elliptic and rectangular jets of aspect ratio 2. Growth rates, phase velocities, and pressure eigenfunctions are calculated.

Baty, Roy S.↗