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At least 829 records · Page 46

Damage Assessment of Creep Tested and Thermally Aged Metallic Alloys Using Acousto-Ultrasonics

In recent years emphasis has been placed on the early detection of material changes experienced in turbine powerplant components. During the scheduled overhaul of a turbine, the current techniques of examination of various hot section components aim to find flaws such as cracks, wear, and erosion, as well as excessive deformations. Thus far, these localized damage modes have been detected with satisfactory results. However, the techniques used to find these flaws provide no information on life until the flaws are actually detected. Major improvements in damage assessment, safety, as well as more accurate life prediction could be achieved if nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques could be utilized to sense material changes that occur prior to the localized defects mentioned. Because of elevated temperatures and excessive stresses, turbine components may experience creep behavior. As a result, it is desirable to monitor and access the current condition of such components. Research at the NASA Glenn Research Center involves developing and utilizing an NDE technique that discloses distributed material changes that occur prior to the localized damage detected by the current methods of inspection. In a recent study, creep processes in a nickel-base alloy were the life-limiting condition of interest, and the NDE technique was acousto-ultrasonics (AU). AU is an NDE technique that utilizes two ultrasonic transducers to interrogate the condition of a test specimen. The sending transducer introduces an ultrasonic pulse at a point on the surface of the specimen while a receiving transducer detects the signal after it has passed through the material. The goal of the method is to correlate certain parameters of the detected waveform to characteristics of the material between the two transducers. Here, the waveform parameter of interest is the attenuation due to internal damping for which information is being garnered from the frequency domain. The parameters utilized to indirectly quantify the attenuation are the ultrasonic decay rate as well as various moments of the frequency power spectrum. A new, user-friendly, graphical interface AU system was developed at NASA Glenn. This system is an all-inclusive, multifunction system that controls the sending and receiving ultrasonic transducers as well as all posttest signal analysis. The system's postprocessing software calculates the multiple parameters used to study the material of interest.

Gyekenyesi, Andrew L.↗

Accounting for Melt Flow Pattern and Solid Fraction Evolution in DC Casting of Al-Cu Alloy Using v{sup 2}−f Turbulence Model

Experimental techniques remain reliable approaches for investigating the effects of parameters of the direct chill (DC) casting process on macrosegregation, grain structure formation, and surface quality. However, experimental analysis methods of these effects are expensive and can often prove difficult to implement. Understanding of the complex physics of the solidification process remains limited, and this makes it indispensable to use accurate numerical modeling tools as a complement to experiments. Numerical modeling without consideration of turbulent flow is unsuitable for application to solidification occurring during DC casting, since significant turbulent flow exists in the upper section of the cast, where the liquid pool exists. The present work employed a low-Re v{sup 2}−f turbulence model and a dual-zone solidification flow model to predict the melt flow pattern, turbulence level, sump depth, transition zone thickness, and mushy zone thickness in the DC casting of Al-Cu alloy. The obtained results provided evidence of significant damping of the flow in the slurry zone. Furthermore, results of different simulation cases revealed a narrower transition zone and shallower sump.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Brownian motion of massive skyrmions in magnetic thin films

We report on the thermal effects on the motion of current-driven massive magnetic skyrmions. The reduced equation for the motion of skyrmion has the form of a stochastic generalized Thiele’s equation. We propose an ansatz for the magnetization texture of a non-rigid single skyrmion that depends linearly with the velocity. By using this ansatz it is found that the skyrmion mass tensor is closely related to intrinsic skyrmion parameters, such as Gilbert damping, skyrmion-charge and dissipative force. We have found an exact expression for the average drift velocity as well as the mean-square velocity of the skyrmion. The longitudinal and transverse mobility of skyrmions for small spin-velocity of electrons is also determined and found to be independent of the skyrmion mass.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

In-situ synchrotron high energy X-ray diffraction study of phase transformation of intermetallic Ti 3 Sn

Ti 3 Sn has received increasing attention as high damping metallic material. However, information of solid state transformation and crystal structure of Ti 3 Sn were still incomplete. Here, in-situ synchrotron high energy XRD during heating/cooling and during uniaxial compressive loading were used to study the phase transformation of Ti 3 Sn. Thermal-induced reversible phase transformation of Ti 3 Sn was demonstrated, and it was found that such transformation could also be stress (strain) induced. Crystal structure, lattice parameters and atomic Wyckoff positions of new base-centered orthorhombic phase of Ti 3 Sn were suggested based on Rietveld refinement of XRD profiles. Lastly, the phase contents of Ti 3 Sn during heating/cooling processes were also discussed

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Variational deep learning of equilibrium transition path ensembles

Here, we present a time-dependent variational method to learn the mechanisms of equilibrium reactive processes and efficiently evaluate their rates within a transition path ensemble. This approach builds off of the variational path sampling methodology by approximating the time-dependent commitment probability within a neural network ansatz. The reaction mechanisms inferred through this approach are elucidated by a novel decomposition of the rate in terms of the components of a stochastic path action conditioned on a transition. This decomposition affords an ability to resolve the typical contribution of each reactive mode and their couplings to the rare event. The associated rate evaluation is variational and systematically improvable through the development of a cumulant expansion. We demonstrate this method in both over- and under-damped stochastic equations of motion, in low-dimensional model systems, and in the isomerization of a solvated alanine dipeptide. In all examples, we find that we can obtain quantitatively accurate estimates of the rates of the reactive events with minimal trajectory statistics and gain unique insights into transitions through the analysis of their commitment probability.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

VELOCITY-SHEAR-INDUCED MODE COUPLING IN THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE AND SOLAR WIND: IMPLICATIONS FOR PLASMA HEATING AND MHD TURBULENCE

We analytically consider how velocity shear in the corona and solar wind can cause an initial Alfven wave to drive up other propagating signals. The process is similar to the familiar coupling into other modes induced by non-WKB refraction in an inhomogeneous plasma, except here the refraction is a consequence of velocity shear. We limit our discussion to a low-beta plasma, and ignore couplings into signals resembling the slow mode. If the initial Alfven wave is propagating nearly parallel to the background magnetic field, then the induced signals are mainly a forward-going (i.e., propagating in the same sense as the original Alfven wave) fast mode, and a driven signal propagating like a forward-going Alfven wave but polarized like the fast mode; both signals are compressive and subject to damping by the Landau resonance. For an initial Alfven wave propagating obliquely with respect to the magnetic field, the induced signals are mainly forward- and backward-going fast modes, and a driven signal propagating like a forward-going Alfven wave but polarized like the fast mode; these signals are all compressive and subject to damping by the Landau resonance. A backward-going Alfven wave, thought to be important in the development of MHD turbulence, is also produced, but it is very weak. However, we suggest that for oblique propagation of the initial Alfven wave the induced fast-polarized signal propagating like a forward-going Alfven wave may interact coherently with the initial Alfven wave and distort it at a strong-turbulence-like rate.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Noise-Resilient and Reduced Depth Approximate Adders for NISQ Quantum Computing

The "Noisy intermediate-scale quantum" NISQ machine era primarily focuses on mitigating noise, controlling errors, and executing high-fidelity operations, hence requiring shallow circuit depth and noise robustness. Approximate computing is a novel computing paradigm that produces imprecise results by relaxing the need for fully precise output for error-tolerant applications including multimedia, data mining, and image processing. We investigate how approximate computing can improve the noise resilience of quantum adder circuits in NISQ quantum computing. We propose five designs of approximate quantum adders to reduce depth while making them noise-resilient, in which three designs are with carryout, while two are without carryout. We have used novel design approaches that include approximating the Sum only from the inputs (pass-through designs) and having zero depth, as they need no quantum gates. The second design style uses a single CNOT gate to approximate the SUM with a constant depth of O(1). We performed our experimentation on IBM Qiskit on noise models including thermal, depolarizing, amplitude damping, phase damping, and bitflip: (i) Compared to exact quantum ripple carry adder without carryout the proposed approximate adders without carryout have improved fidelity ranging from 8.34% to 219.22%, and (ii) Compared to exact quantum ripple carry adder with carryout the proposed approximate adders with carryout have improved fidelity ranging from 8.23% to 371%. Further, the proposed approximate quantum adders are evaluated in terms of various error metrics.

Gaur, Bhaskar↗

Excited-state dynamics of size-dependent colloidal TiO{sub 2}-Au nanocomposites

The ultrafast excited-state dynamics of size-dependent TiO{sub 2}-Au nanocomposites synthesized by reducing gold nanoclusters to the surface of colloidal TiO{sub 2} nanoparticles are studied using pump-probe transient absorption spectroscopy with 400 nm excitation pulses. The results show that the relaxation processes of the plasmon depletion band, which are described by electron-phonon and phonon-phonon scattering lifetimes, are independent of the gold nanocluster shell size surrounding the TiO{sub 2} nanoparticle core. The dynamics corresponding to interfacial electron transfer between the gold nanoclusters and the TiO{sub 2} bandgap are observed to spectrally overlap with the gold interband transition signal, and the electron transfer lifetimes are shown to significantly decrease as the nanocluster shell size increases. Additionally, size-dependent periodic oscillations are observed and are attributed to acoustic phonons of a porous shell composed of aggregated gold nanoclusters around the TiO{sub 2} core, with frequencies that decrease and damping times that remain constant as the nanocluster shell size increases. These results are important for the development of improved catalytic nanomaterial applications.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

The solar envelope

Processes which occur within the region between approximately 2 solar radii and 25 solar radii, which is called the solar envelope and the effect on the solar wind as seen at 1 AU are discussed. In the envelope the wind speed becomes supersonic and super-Alfvenic, the magnetic energy density is larger than the flow energy density, and the magnetic energy density is much larger than the thermal energy density. Large azimuthal gradients in the bulk speed are expected in the envelope, but the stream interactions near the outer edge of the envelope are probably relatively small. Cosmic ray observations suggest the presence of hydromagnetic waves in the envelope. The collisionless damping of such waves could heat protons out to approximately 25 solar radii and thereby cause an increase in V and T sub p consistent with the observed T sub p -V relation. A mechanism which couples protons and electrons would also heat and accelerate the wind. Alfven waves can accelerate the wind in the envelope without necessarily causing heating of protons; the Lorentz force might have a similar effect.

Burlaga, L. F.↗

Improvement of force factor of magnetostrictive vibration power generator for high efficiency

We develop high power magnetostrictive vibration power generator for battery-free wireless electronics. The generator is based on a cantilever of parallel beam structure consisting of coil-wound Galfenol and stainless plates with permanent magnet for bias. Oscillating force exerted on the tip bends the cantilever in vibration yields stress variation of Galfenol plate, which causes flux variation and generates voltage on coil due to the law of induction. This generator has advantages over conventional, such as piezoelectric or moving magnet types, in the point of high efficiency, highly robust, and low electrical impedance. Our concern is the improvement of energy conversion efficiency dependent on the dimension. Especially, force factor, the conversion ratio of the electromotive force (voltage) on the tip velocity in vibration, has an important role in energy conversion process. First, the theoretical value of the force factor is formulated and then the validity was verified by experiments, where we compare four types of prototype with parameters of the dimension using 7.0 × 1.5 × 50 mm beams of Galfenol with 1606-turn wound coil. In addition, the energy conversion efficiency of the prototypes depending on load resistance was measured. The most efficient prototype exhibits the maximum instantaneous power of 0.73 W and energy of 4.7 mJ at a free vibration of frequency of 202 Hz in the case of applied force is 25 N. Further, it was found that energy conversion efficiency depends not only on the force factor but also on the damping (mechanical loss) of the vibration.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Lithographic crystallinity regulation in additive fabrication of thermoplastics (CRAFT)

For semicrystalline polyolefin thermoplastics, the balance between interconnected ordered crystalline and disordered amorphous regions is paramount to their performance and processability. However, contemporary manufacturing strategies, from injection molding to three-dimensional (3D) printing, result in monolithic objects, unable to spatially encode crystallinity. We develop a light-based approach for fabricating mechanically robust polyolefin thermoplastics with microscopic control over crystallinity in 3D space. Light dosage governs polymer stereochemistry giving access to a continuum of materials, from strong rigid plastics, such as high-density polyethylene, to more extensible materials akin to low-density polyethylene, all at the flick of a switch. Leveraging this finding in lithographic grayscale 3D printing enables rapid multimaterial fabrication with voxel-level control over optical and mechanical properties, opening avenues in information storage, soft robotics, and energy damping.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Case depth verification of hardened samples with Barkhausen noise sweeps

An interesting topic of recent Barkhausen noise (BN) method studies is the application of the method to case depth evaluation of hardened components. The utilization of BN method for this purpose is based on the difference in the magnetic properties between the hardened case and the soft core. Thus, the detection of case depth with BN can be achieved. The measurements typically have been carried out by using low magnetizing frequencies which have deeper penetration to the ferromagnetic samples than the conventional BN measurement. However, the penetration depth is limited due to eddy current damping of the signal. We introduce here a newly found sweep measurement concept for the case depth evaluation. In this study sweep measurements were carried out with various magnetizing frequencies and magnetizing voltages to detect the effect of different frequency and voltage and their correspondence to the actual case depth values verified from destructive characterization. Also a BN measurement device that has an implemented sweep analysis option was utilised. The samples were either induction or case-hardened samples and sample geometry contained both rod samples and gear axle samples with different case depth values. Samples were also further characterized with Xray diffraction to study the residual stress state of the surface. The detailed data processing revealed that also other calculated features than the maximum slope division of the 1st derivative of the BN signal could hold the information about the case depth value of the samples. The sweep method was able to arrange the axles into correct order according to the case depth value even though the axles were used.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Foil bearing performance in liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen

Space transfer vehicles and other power and propulsion systems require long-life turbopumps. Rolling-element bearings used in current turbopumps do not have sufficient life for these applications. Process fluid foil bearings have established long life, with exceptional reliability, over a wide range of temperatures and fluids in many high-speed turbomachinery applications. However, actual data on bearing performance in cryogenic fluids has been minimal. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and AlliedSignal Aerospace Systems and Equipment (ASE) have attempted to characterize the leaf-type compliant foil bearing in oxygen and nitrogen. The work performed under a joint internal research and development program between Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and ASE demonstrated that the foil bearing has load capacities of at least 266 psi in liquid oxygen and 352 psi in liquid nitrogen. In addition, the bearing demonstrated a direct damping coefficient of 40 to 50 lb-sec/in. with a damping ratio of .7 to 1.4 in. liquid nitrogen using a bearing sized for upper-stage turbopumps. With the results from this testing and the years of successful use in air cycle machines and other applications, leaf-type compliant foil bearings are ready for testing in liquid oxygen turbopumps.

Genge, Gary G.↗

Build Orientation Dependent Microstructure in Polymer Laser Sintering: Relationship to Part Performance and Evolution with Aging

Laser sintering (LS) is widely used to produce functional polymeric parts; however, the resulting parts are often limited by their porous structure, and performance of the part may be strongly anisotropic. Relating the structural features of parts to build process conditions or powder feedstock has been explored previously. In contrast, little is known regarding how the unique internal structures of LS parts evolve and relate to their performance later in their life cycle, for example, after use in a real-world operating environment. In this study, a tightly controlled LS build process and measurement campaign by standard X-ray computed tomography (XCT), supported by high-resolution synchrotron XCT, was used to benchmark the internal microstructure (e.g. porosity) as a function of four different build orientations in printed polyamide-12 (PA-12) parts. The initial performance of the parts after printing was characterized by tensile testing and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Arrays of PA-12 parts in different build orientations were exposed to steam (under pressure) and air across multiple temperature and time points for the purposes of accelerated aging through oxidative and hydrolytic breakdown. Exposing parts to steam dramatically altered the internal microstructure and functional properties such as the glass transition temperature, tensile properties, and damping behavior. Notably, post-aging XCT revealed large microstructural changes after only 40 h of steam treatment relative to the as-printed specimens. Furthermore, pore reorganization and changes in crystallinity occurred regardless of whether the steam temperature was aggressive enough to induce a significant loss in mechanical properties. The build orientation dependence on the aging rate was minimal with the relative trend in performance persisting across most metrics among the different orientations even after aging.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Commissioning of the prototype C75 cavities in a CEBAF cryomodule

Prototype cavities have been built at Jefferson Lab to increase the energy of future refurbished CEBAF cryomodules to 75 MeV in the most cost efficient way. Three such cavities, named "C75", have been built from ingot Nb material of different purity and have been processed and tested. The two better performing cavities have been assembled into a "cavity pair" and installed in the latest refurbished original CEBAF cryomodule. The cryomodule was installed and commissioned in CEBAF. The results from the commissioning of the C75 cavities, compared with the original CEBAF cavities, are presented in this article. The vertical test performance of the C75 cavities was preserved in the cryomodule with one of the cavities achieving the performance specification of an accelerating gradient of 19 MV/m with a quality factor of ~8×109 at 2.07 K. The performance in terms of microphonics and tuner operation was similar to that of original CEBAF cavities, as expected, and the high-order modes are properly damped. The quality factor of the two C75 cavities was the highest achieved in a CEBAF cryomodule, possibly due to the better magnetic flux expulsion of ingot Nb than standard fine-grain Nb.

Drury, Michael A.↗

A Possible Mechanism for Driving Oscillations in Hot Giant Planets

The κ -mechanism has been successful in explaining the origin of observed oscillations of many types of “classical” pulsating variable stars. Here we examine quantitatively if that same process is prominent enough to excite the potential global oscillations within Jupiter, whose energy flux is powered by gravitational collapse rather than nuclear fusion. Additionally, we examine whether external radiative forcing, i.e., starlight, could be a driver for global oscillations in hot Jupiters orbiting various main-sequence stars at defined orbital semimajor axes. Using planetary models generated by the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics and nonadiabatic oscillation calculations, we confirm that Jovian oscillations cannot be driven via the κ -mechanism. However, we do show that, in hot Jupiters, oscillations can likely be excited via the suppression of radiative cooling due to external radiation given a large enough stellar flux and the absence of a significant oscillatory damping zone within the planet. This trend does not seem to be dependent on the planetary mass. In future observations, we can thus expect that such planets may be pulsating, thereby giving greater insight into the internal structure of these bodies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Thermodynamically self-consistent non-stochastic micromagnetic model for the ferromagnetic state

In this work, a self-consistent thermodynamic approach to micromagnetism is presented. The magnetic degrees of freedom are modeled using the Landau-Lifshitz-Baryakhtar theory, which separates the different contributions to the magnetic damping, and thereby allows them to be coupled to the electron and phonon systems in a self-consistent way. We show that this model can quantitatively reproduce ultrafast magnetization dynamics in Nickel suggesting that in ferromagnetic metals the ultrafast angular momentum transfer happens via the relativistic spin-electron scattering.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Multifunction tests of a frequency domain based flutter suppression system

The process is described of analysis, design, digital implementation, and subsonic testing of an active control flutter suppression system for a full span, free-to-roll wind tunnel model of an advanced fighter concept. The design technique uses a frequency domain representation of the plant and used optimization techniques to generate a robust multi input/multi output controller. During testing in a fixed-in-roll configuration, simultaneous suppression of both symmetric and antisymmetric flutter was successfully shown. For a free-to-roll configuration, symmetric flutter was suppressed to the limit of the tunnel test envelope. During aggressive rolling maneuvers above the open-loop flutter boundary, simultaneous flutter suppression and maneuver load control were demonstrated. Finally, the flutter damping controller was reoptimized overnight during the test using combined experimental and analytical frequency domain data, resulting in improved stability robustness.

Christhilf, David M.↗