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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.

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At least 811 records · Page 45
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

A novel boundary layer sensor utilizing domain switching in ferroelectric liquid crystals

This paper describes the design and the principles of operation of a novel sensor for the optical detection of a shear stress field induced by air or gas flow on a rigid surface. The detection relies on the effects of shear-induced optical switching in ferroelectric liquid crystals. It is shown that the method overcomes many of the limitations of similar measuring techniques including those using cholesteric liquid crystals. The present method offers a preferred alternative for flow visualization and skin friction measurements in wind-tunnel experiments on laminar boundary layer transition investigations. A theoretical model for the optical response to shear stress is presented together with a schematic diagram of the experimental setup.

Parmar, D. S.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Shape-Memory Wires Switch Rotary Actuator

Thermomechanical rotary actuator based on shape-memory property of alloy composed of equal parts of titanium and nickel. If alloy stretched while below transition temperature, it reverts to original length when heated above transition temperature. Two capstans on same shaft wrapped with shape-memory wires. As one wire heated, it contracts and stretches opposite wire. Wires heated in alternation so they switch shaft between two extreme angular positions; "on" and "off" positions of rotary valve.

Brudnicki, Myron J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Isolated Fast High-Voltage Switching Circuit

Electrically isolated switching circuit supplies pulses at potentials up to 6.5 kV and currents up to 6.5 A, lasting as long as few microseconds. Turn-on time about 40 ns; turn-off time about 3 microseconds. Electrically isolated from control circuitry by means of fiber-optic signal coupling and isolated power supply. Electrical isolation protects both technician and equipment. This and similar circuits useful in such industrial and scientific applications as high-voltage, high-frequency test equipment; electrostatic-discharge test equipment; plasma-laboratory instrumentation; spark chambers; and electromagnetic-interference test equipment.

Rizzi, Anthony↗
NASA NTRS1991

Space Communications Technology Conference: Onboard Processing and Switching

Papers and presentations from the conference are presented. The topics covered include the following: satellite network architecture, network control and protocols, fault tolerance and autonomy, multichanned demultiplexing and demodulation, information switching and routing, modulation and coding, and planned satellite communications systems.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1991

Destination directed packet switch architecture for a 30/20 GHz FDMA/TDM geostationary communication satellite network

Emphasis is on a destination directed packet switching architecture for a 30/20 GHz frequency division multiplex access/time division multiplex (FDMA/TDM) geostationary satellite communication network. Critical subsystems and problem areas are identified and addressed. Efforts have concentrated heavily on the space segment; however, the ground segment was considered concurrently to ensure cost efficiency and realistic operational constraints.

Ivancic, William D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Circuit-switch architecture for a 30/20-GHz FDMA/TDM geostationary satellite communications network

A circuit switching architecture is described for a 30/20 GHz frequency division, multiple access uplink/time division multiplexed downlink (FDMA/TDM) geostationary satellite communications network. Critical subsystems and problem areas are identified and addressed. Work was concentrated primarily on the space segment; however, the ground segment was considered concurrently to ensure cost efficiency and realistic operational constraints.

Ivancic, William D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Predictive onboard flow control for packet switching satellites

We outline two alternate approaches to predicting the onset of congestion in a packet switching satellite, and argue that predictive, rather than reactive, flow control is necessary for the efficient operation of such a system. The first method discussed is based on standard, statistical techniques which are used to periodically calculate a probability of near-term congestion based on arrival rate statistics. If this probability exceeds a present threshold, the satellite would transmit a rate-reduction signal to all active ground stations. The second method discussed would utilize a neural network to periodically predict the occurrence of buffer overflow based on input data which would include, in addition to arrival rates, the distributions of packet lengths, source addresses, and destination addresses.

Bobinsky, Eric A.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Destination-directed, packet-switching architecture for 30/20-GHz FDMA/TDM geostationary communications satellite network

A destination-directed packet switching architecture for a 30/20-GHz frequency division multiple access/time division multiplexed (FDMA/TDM) geostationary satellite communications network is discussed. Critical subsystems and problem areas are identified and addressed. Efforts have concentrated heavily on the space segment; however, the ground segment has been considered concurrently to ensure cost efficiency and realistic operational constraints.

Ivancic, William D.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Q-switched laser prelase detection circuit

A compact electronic circuit was developed to detect prelasing in Q-swithed pulsed laser systems and once detected to shut down the laser before the next laser pulse occurs. The circuit is small, compact, and uses a minimum of components which makes it quite economical, thus readily lending itself to commercial applications. It can easily be incorporated into virtually any Q-switched laser system or reliability of a laser system by reducing a source of possible costly optical damage. The circuit operation and instrument requirements necessary to incorporate the circuit into a laser system are discussed.

Lockard, George E.↗
NASA NTRS1992

A sweep algorithm for massively parallel simulation of circuit-switched networks

A new massively parallel algorithm is presented for simulating large asymmetric circuit-switched networks, controlled by a randomized-routing policy that includes trunk-reservation. A single instruction multiple data (SIMD) implementation is described, and corresponding experiments on a 16384 processor MasPar parallel computer are reported. A multiple instruction multiple data (MIMD) implementation is also described, and corresponding experiments on an Intel IPSC/860 parallel computer, using 16 processors, are reported. By exploiting parallelism, our algorithm increases the possible execution rate of such complex simulations by as much as an order of magnitude.

Gaujal, Bruno↗
NASA NTRS1992

Predictive onboard flow control in packet switching satellites

We outline two alternate approaches to predicting the onset of congestion in a packet switching satellite, and argue that predictive, rather than reactive, flow control is necessary for the efficient operation of such a system. The first method discussed is based on standard, statistical techniques which are used to periodically calculate a probability of near-term congestion based on arrival rate statistics. If this probability exceeds a present threshold, the satellite would transmit a rate-reduction signal to all active ground stations. The second method discussed would utilize a neural network to periodically predict the occurrence of buffer overflow based on input data which would include, in addition to arrival rates, the distributions of packet lengths, source addresses, and destination addresses.

Bobinsky, E. A.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Circuit-switch architecture for a 30/20-GHz FDMA/TDM geostationary satellite communications network

A circuit-switching architecture is described for a 30/20-GHz frequency-division, multiple-access uplink/time-division-multiplexed downlink (FDMA/TDM) geostationary satellite communications network. Critical subsystems and problem areas are identified and addressed. Work was concentrated primarily on the space segment; however, the ground segment was considered concurrently to ensure cost efficiency and realistic operational constraints.

Ivancic, William D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

High repetition-rate Q-switched and intracavity doubled diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser

A Nd:YAG laser was end pumped with 2.2 W of continuous-wave (CW) diode laser output. Efficient operation of the laser at high repetition rates was emphasized. This laser provides 890 mW of TEM00 CW output at 1064 nm, and 340 mW of 532 nm average power at a Q-switched repetition rate of 25 kHz. Experimental data are compared with analysis.

Hemmati, Hamid↗
NASA NTRS1991

Multiple-mode reconfigurable electro-optic switching network for optical fiber sensor array

This paper reports the first switching network compatible with multimode fibers. A one-to-many cascaded reconfigurable interconnection was built. A thin glass substrate was used as the guiding medium which provides not only higher coupling efficiency from multimode fiber to waveguide but also better tolerance of phase-matching conditions. Involvement of a total-internal-reflection hologram and multimode waveguide eliminates interface problems between fibers and waveguides. The DCG polymer graft has proven to be reliable from -180 C to +200 C. Survivability of such an electrooptic system in harsh environments is further ensured. LiNbO3 was chosen as the E-O material because of its stability at high temperatures (phase-transition temperature of more than 1000 C) and maturity of E-O device technology. Further theoretical calculation was conducted to provide the optimal interaction length and device capacitance.

Chen, Ray T.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Control of internal and external short circuits in lithium batteries using a composite thermal switch

A composite material has been developed, consisting of a blend of metal and fluorocarbon particles, which behaves as an electronic conductor at room temperature and which abruptly becomes an insulator at a predetermined temperature. This switching behavior results from the difference in thermal expansion coefficients between the conductive and non-conductive portions of the composite. This material was applied as a thin film between the carbon cathode in Li/SOCl2 cells, and the metallic cathode current collector. Using test articles incorporating this feature it was shown that lithium cells externally heated or internally heated during a short circuit lost rate capability and the ability to overheat well below the melting point of lithium (180 C). Thus, during an internal or external cell short circuit, the potential for thermal runaway involving reactions of molten lithium is avoided.

Mcdonald, Robert C.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Multiple switch-off slow shock solutions

A new electromagnetic quasi-neutral time-dependent implicit hybrid model for simulating the slow-mode switch-off shock is developed, in which the electrons are treated as a finite-mass adiabatic fluid (gamma sub e = 5/3), whose motion along the shock normal provides local charge neutrality. The model is used to examine the effects of various boundary conditions applied during shock formation. It is shown that, for each upstream condition, two distinctly different slow-shock structures can be obtained: a low-shock structure with a trailing magnetic wave (TMW) and a slow-shock structure without a TMW, depending strongly on the boundary conditions for the electric and magnetic fields at the physical piston which generates the shock. The results indicate that the slow-shock structure with a TMW is nonlinearly unstable with respect to changes in the upstream magnetic field, suggesting that the downstream structure of slow shocks need not be associated with a TMW.

Vu, H. X.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Destination directed packet switch architecture for a geostationary communication satellite network

A major effort at NASA/Lewis is to identify and develop critical digital technologies and components that enable new commercial missions or significantly improve the performance, cost efficiency, and/or reliability of existing and planned space comunications systems. NASA envisions the need for low data rate, direct to the user communications services, for data, facsimile, voice, and video conferencing. A report that focuses on destination directed packet switching architectures for geostationary communication satellites is presented.

Ivancic, W. D.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Diode-Pumped, Q-Switched, Frequency-Doubling Laser

Experimental Q-switched, diode-pumped, intracavity-frequency-doubling laser generates pulses of radiation at wavelength of 532 nm from excitation at 810 nm. Principal innovative feature distinguishing laser from others of its type: pulsed operation of laser at pulse-repetition frequencies higher than reported previously. Folded resonator keeps most of second-harmonic radiation away from Q-switcher, laser crystal, and laser diodes. Folding mirror highly reflective at fundamental laser wavelength and highly transmissive at second-harmonic laser wavelength. By virtue of difference of about 0.6 percent between reflectivities in two polarizations at fundamental wavelength, folding mirror favors polarized oscillation at fundamental wavelength. This characteristic desirable for doubling of frequency in some intracavity crystals.

Hemmati, Hamid↗