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At least 847 records · Page 47

Unsteady pressure measurements on a biconvex airfoil in a transonic oscillating cascade

Flush-mounted dynamic pressure transducers were installed on the center airfoil of a transonic oscillating cascade to measure the unsteady aerodynamic response as nine airfroils were simultaneously driven to provide 1.2 deg of pitching motion about the midchord. Initial tests were performed at an incidence and angle of 0 deg and A Mach number of 0.65 in order to obtain results in a shock-free compressible flowfield. Subsequent tests were performed at an incidence angle of 7 deg and Mach number of 0.8 in order to observe the surface pressures with an oscillating shock near the leading edge of the airfoil. Results are presented for interblade phase angles of 90 and -90 deg and at blade oscillatory frequencies of 200 and 500 Hz (semi-chord reduced frequencies up to about 0.5 at a Mach number of 0.8). Results from the zero-incidence cascade are compared with a classical unsteady flat-plate analysis. Flow visualization results depicting the shock motion on the airfoils in the high-incidence cascade are discussed. The airfoil pressure data are tabulated.

Shaw, L. M.↗

Noble gas contents of shergottites and implications for the Martian origin of SNC meteorites

Three meteorites belonging to the rare group of SNC achondrites, which may have originated in the planet Mars, have been subjected to noble gas isotopic concentration measurements. The elemental and isotopic ratios obtained are unlike those for any other noble gas components except those obtained in analyses of the Martian atmosphere by Viking spacecraft. It is hypothesized that the Kr and Xe gases represent a portion of the Martian atmosphere which was shock-implanted in the case of Elephant Moraine A79001, and that they constitute direct evidence of a Martian origin for the shergottite meteorites. If the SNC meteorites were ejected from Mars at the shergottite shock age of about 180 My ago, they must have been objects more than 6 m in diameter which experienced at least three space collisions to initiate cosmic ray exposure.

Bogard, D. D.↗

Unsteady pressure measurements on a biconvex airfoil in a transonic oscillating cascade

Flush-mounted dynamic pressure transducers were installed on the center airfoil of a transonic oscillating cascade to measure the unsteady aerodynamic response as nine airfols were simultaneously driven to provide 1.2 deg of pitching motion about the midchord. Initial tests were performed at an incidence and angle of 0 deg and A Mach number of 0.65 in order to obtain results in a shock-free compressible flowfield. Subsequent tests were performed at an incidence angle of 7 deg and Mach number of 0.8 in order to observe the surface pressures with an oscillating shock near the leading edge of the airfoil. Results are presented for interblade phase angles of 90 and -90 deg and at blade oscillatory frequencies of 200 and 500 Hz (semi-chord reduced frequencies up to about 0.5 at a Mach number of 0.8). Results from the zero-incidence cascade are compared with a clasical usnteady flat-plate analysis. Flow visualization results depicting the shock motion on the airfoils in the high-incidence cascade are discussed. The airfoil pressure data are tabulated.

Shaw, L. M.↗

Test particle calculations of pick-up ions in the vicinity of Comet Giacobini-Zinner

Ionization of cometary neutral molecules produces ions which are picked-up by the solar wind. The cometary ion pick-up process for Comet Giacobini-Zinner is studied using a test particle method in which trajectories are numerically calculated for several thousand ions whose initial locations were chosen randomly with probability proportional to the neutral density. The cometary ion distribution function was calculated at several locations upstream of the bow shock. Several types of magnetic fluctuations were included. Circularly and linearly polarized monochromatic waves result in less pitch-angle scattering of pick-up ions than turbulent fluctuations which have about the same amplitude. Some anisotropy remains in the distribution function just upstream of the shock, even for the turbulent fluctuations.

Cravens, T. E.↗

Computational simulation of flows about hypersonic geometries with sharp leading edges

Hypersonic waverider design has become an important concern in the aerospace industry. As one part of an inverse design effort for waveriders, work has been done to apply existing Euler and Navier-Stokies flow solvers to hypersonic geometries with sharp leading edges. Previously, calculations were done on bodies with rounded leading edges or with conical solutions for the nose initial conditions. In this paper, solutions are computed about waveriders and conical shapes with sharp leading edges without resorting to either shortrcut. All solutions show attached shocks with fully supersonic flows at the nose and along the leading edges. Flows about several waverider shapes are shown, as well as a preliminary cone with inlet calculation to study the shock/inlet interaction.

Jones, Kevin D.↗

Heat Pipe Vapor Dynamics

The dynamic behavior of the vapor flow in heat pipes is investigated at startup and during operational transients. The vapor is modeled as two-dimensional, compressible viscous flow in an enclosure with inflow and outflow boundary conditions. For steady-state and operating transients, the SIMPLER method is used. In this method a control volume approach is employed on a staggered grid which makes the scheme very stable. It is shown that for relatively low input heat fluxes the compressibility of the vapor flow is low and the SIMPLER scheme is suitable for the study of transient vapor dynamics. When the input heat flux is high or the process under a startup operation starts at very low pressures and temperatures, the vapor is highly compressible and a shock wave is created in the evaporator. It is shown that for a wide range of input heat fluxes, the standard methods, including the SIMPLER scheme, are not suitable. A nonlinear filtering technique, along with the centered difference scheme, are then used for shock capturing as well as for the solution of the cell Reynolds-number problem. For high heat flux, the startup transient phase involves multiple shock reflections in the evaporator region. Each shock reflection causes a significant increase in the local pressure and a large pressure drop along the heat pipe. Furthermore, shock reflections cause flow reversal in the evaporation region and flow circulations in the adiabatic region. The maximum and maximum-averaged pressure drops in different sections of the heat pipe oscillate periodically with time because of multiple shock reflections. The pressure drop converges to a constant value at steady state. However, it is significantly higher than its steady-state value at the initiation of the startup transient. The time for the vapor core to reach steady-state condition depends on the input heat flux, the heat pipe geometry, the working fluid, and the condenser conditions. However, the vapor transient time, for an Na-filled heat pipe is on the order of seconds. Depending on the time constant for the overall system, the vapor transient time may be very short. Therefore, the vapor core may be assumed to be quasi-steady in the transient analysis of a heat pipe operation.

Issacci, Farrokh↗

Turbulent Output-Based Anisotropic Adaptation

Controlling discretization error is a remaining challenge for computational fluid dynamics simulation. Grid adaptation is applied to reduce estimated discretization error in drag or pressure integral output functions. To enable application to high O(10(exp 7)) Reynolds number turbulent flows, a hybrid approach is utilized that freezes the near-wall boundary layer grids and adapts the grid away from the no slip boundaries. The hybrid approach is not applicable to problems with under resolved initial boundary layer grids, but is a powerful technique for problems with important off-body anisotropic features. Supersonic nozzle plume, turbulent flat plate, and shock-boundary layer interaction examples are presented with comparisons to experimental measurements of pressure and velocity. Adapted grids are produced that resolve off-body features in locations that are not known a priori.

Park, Michael A.↗

Re-Observing the First Hours of Supernova 1987A

This project was designed to use archival data from the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) to measure the flux from the shock breakout from SN 1987A, emitted in the first few hours of the event, reflected from neighboring dust clouds in the form of a light echo. Such hot flux from the initial moments of a SN had never been observed before, and this offers a unique opportunity to measure it in reflection. Gilmozzi (1991, in "SN 1987A and Other Supernova") had reported such a detection of using IUE from observations made in 1988 and 1989. Our analysis of these data showed that this detection was very weak, and subject to changes comparable to the size of the signal according to various reasonable means of extracting the spectra. In fact, the features reported by Gilmozzi (1998 in "Ultraviolet Astrophysics Beyond IUE") are not found in a conventional NEWSIPS extraction or extended-source extraction of these data. The 1995 and 1996 IUE data collected for Crotts and Gilmozzi shows a more robust signal (about 20sigma,) from a cloud that echoes brighter in the optical than the 1988 feature. This shows a well-detected signal of about 5 x 10(exp -16) ergs per s/sq cm/Angstroms/arc sq sec at 1300 Angstroms, with a declining slope to redder wavelengths. This surface brightness, while detected with confidence in both large and small SVVT apertures, is still fainter than the reflected flux expected for most models of shock breakout. We have also taken the opportunity to recover the echo signal from exposures taken on Astro-1 and Astro-2 flights of the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT) while pointed towards SN 1987A. These data yield a complementary result on the reflected flux, an upper limit of about 5 x 10(exp -17) ergs per s/sq cm/Angstroms/arc sq sec, spread over fainter optically echoing clouds, and over the same band where the signal was detected by IUE. While this appears in contradiction with the IUE result, it is made consistent by the corresponding strengths of the echoes in the optical.

Crotts, Arlin P. S.↗

Construction of an Exact Pressure-Equilibrium Scheme for the Five-Equation Two-Phase Flow Model With Thermal Relaxation

Numerical simulation of compressible multiphase flows based on the four-equation (homogeneous relaxation) model is known to suffer from two fundamental difficulties with (a) wave propagation and (b) pressure equilibrium preservation. First, the mixture sound speed exhibits non-monotonic dependency with respect to the volume fraction, which leads to robustness issues in the resolution of shocks and acoustic wave propagation across two-phase regions. This difficulty can be mitigated by solving Allaire’s five-equation model augmented with infinitely fast phasic temperature equilibrium, from which solutions of the four-equation model can be recovered. However, when temperature is non-uniform, this augmented five-equation formulation still fails to preserve pressure equilibrium across material interfaces. In this work, we propose a fully conservative numerical scheme that exactly preserves pressure equilibrium at the discrete level for the augmented five-equation model, for arbitrary initial distributions of temperature and volume fraction. Combined with the monotonic sound speed property of the five-equation formulation, the proposed pressure-equilibrium preserving scheme significantly improves robustness in the presence of strong multiphase interactions, including shock–interface interactions and advection of material interfaces.

ESG↗

Kinetic mix at gas-shell interface in inverted corona fusion targets

Gas-filled, laser-driven “inverted corona” fusion targets have attracted interest as a low-convergence neutron source and platform for studying kinetic physics. At the fill pressures under investigation, ejected particles from the shell can penetrate deeply into the gas before colliding, leading to significant mixing across the gas–shell interface. Here, we use kinetic-ion, fluid-electron hybrid particle-in-cell simulations to explore the nature of that mix. Simulations of the system demonstrate characteristics of a weakly collisional electrostatic shock, whereby a strong electric field accelerates shell ions into the rarefied gas and reflects upstream gas ions. This interpenetration is mediated by collisional processes: At higher initial gas pressure, fewer shell particles pass into the mix region and reach the hotspot. This effect is detectable through neutron yield scaling vs gas pressure. Predictions of neutron yield scaling show excellent agreement with experimental data recorded at the OMEGA laser facility, suggesting that 1D kinetic mechanisms are sufficient to capture the mix process.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The generation of a multiphase medium in ‘Splash’ bridge systems: towards an understanding of star formation suppression in turbulent galaxy systems

ABSTRACT Cloud–cloud collisions in splash bridges produced in gas-rich disc galaxy collisions offer a brief but interesting environment to study the effects of shocks and turbulence on star formation rates in the diffuse intergalactic medium, far from the significant feedback effects of massive star formation and active galactic nucleus. Expanding on our earlier work, we describe simulated collisions between counter-rotating disc galaxies of relatively similar mass, focusing on the thermal and kinematic effects of relative inclination and disc offset at the closest approach. This includes essential heating and cooling signatures, which go some way towards explaining the luminous power in H$_2$ and [C ii] emission in the Taffy bridge, as well as providing a partial explanation of the turbulent nature of the recently observed compact CO-emitting clouds observed in Taffy by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The models show counter-rotating disc collisions result in swirling, shearing kinematics for the gas in much of the post-collision bridge. Gas with little specific angular momentum due to collisions between counter-rotating streams accumulates near the centre of mass. The disturbances and mixing in the bridge drive continuing cloud collisions, differential shock heating, and cooling throughout. A wide range of relative gas phases and line-of-sight velocity distributions are found in the bridges, depending sensitively on initial disc orientations, and the resulting variety of cloud collision histories. Most cloud collisions can occur promptly or persist for quite a long duration. Cold and hot phases can largely overlap throughout the bridge or can be separated into different parts of the bridge.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Sensitivity of the dynamic-shell target to laser drive nonuniformities

The dynamic-shell concept for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) uses an initially homogeneous target and a carefully shaped laser pulse to form a shell and implode it. The laser pulse consists of a series of pickets that drive shocks into the target. The first few shocks converge inwards and rebound from the center of the target, creating an expanding, low-density plasma. Subsequent shocks are launched into the expanding plasma and eventually coalesce to form a shell, which is then imploded with a traditional ICF laser pulse. This study describes radiation-hydrodynamic simulations that investigate the sensitivity of dynamic-shell targets to imperfections in the laser drive. A one-dimensional (1D) study looks at mistiming and power variations in the pickets and a two-dimensional (2D) study examines irradiation perturbations imposed by the laser-beam geometry. Simulations show that less than ~2% power imbalance or 200 ps timing variation in the pickets is sufficient to keep the yield above 90% of the maximum. Additionally, the 2D simulations show that 72 or more beams are required to keep irradiation nonuniformities low enough to obtain fusion yields close to that of 1D simulations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Measurements of lunar magnetic field interaction with the solar wind.

Study of the compression of the remanent lunar magnetic field by the solar wind, based on measurements of remanent magnetic fields at four Apollo landing sites and of the solar wind at two of these sites. Available data show that the remanent magnetic field at the lunar surface is compressed as much as 40% above its initial value by the solar wind, but the total remanent magnetic pressure is less than the stagnation pressure by a factor of six, implying that a local shock is not formed.

Dyal, P.↗

A review of the thermonuclear runaway model of a nova outburst

Kraft's (1963) model for a nova outburst caused by a thermonuclear runaway in the hydrogen-rich matter accreted onto the white dwarf in a binary system is reviewed. Hydrostatic and hydrodynamic studies of this phenomenon are summarized, analyses of shock ejection based on hydrodynamic computer codes are discussed, and one specific hydrodynamic code is outlined. Results obtained with this code are presented and evaluated for an initial model containing a white dwarf with a hydrogen-rich envelope of 0.0001 to 0.001 solar mass in hydrostatic and thermal equilibrium. It is shown that an implicit hydrodynamic computer code is required in order to study the thermonuclear-runaway phenomenon. The early evolution of three models with different intrinsic luminosities is illustrated, and enhancement of CNO nuclei at the bottom of the hydrogen-rich envelope is investigated. It is suggested that the concentration of C-13, N-15, and O-17 should be greatly enhanced in nova ejecta.

Sparks, W. M.↗

A fast viscous correction method for unsteady transonic flow about airfoils

This study modified the inviscid, small-disturbances, unsteady, transonic code, LTRAN2, so that the viscous effect could be considered for the purpose of improving the code's accuracy without substantially increasing the computational time. By using a conventional integral boundary layer method to determine the displacement thickness and an empirical model of viscous wedge to simulate the suddenly thickened boundary layer behind a shock, it resulted in better agreement with experimental data for both the shock position and the pressure coefficient. Aerodynamic performances were calculated for two supercritical airfoils. When the unsteady procedure was used to obtain steady state results as the initial condition, the unsteady viscous solution for the RAE 2822 airfoil required 100.5% of the computational time of the inviscid solution. When an iterative scheme was used to obtain the steady state results as the initial condition, the unsteady viscous solution for the NLR 7301 airfoil required 88% of the computational time of the inviscid solution.

Lee, S. C.↗

A fast, time-accurate unsteady full potential scheme

The unsteady form of the full potential equation is solved in conservation form by an implicit method based on approximate factorization. At each time level, internal Newton iterations are performed to achieve time accuracy and computational efficiency. A local time linearization procedure is introduced to provide a good initial guess for the Newton iteration. A novel flux-biasing technique is applied to generate proper forms of the artificial viscosity to treat hyperbolic regions with shocks and sonic lines present. The wake is properly modeled by accounting not only for jumps in phi, but also for jumps in higher derivatives of phi, obtained by imposing the density to be continuous across the wake. The far field is modeled using the Riemann invariants to simulate nonreflecting boundary conditions. The resulting unsteady method performs well which, even at low reduced frequency levels of 0.1 or less, requires fewer than 100 time steps per cycle at transonic Mach numbers. The code is fully vectorized for the CRAY-XMP and the VPS-32 computers.

Shankar, V.↗

Computational Study of Flow Establishment in Hypersonic Pulse Facilities

This paper presents a study of the temporal evolution of the combustion flowfield established by the interaction of ram-accelerator-type projectiles with an explosive gas mixture accelerated to hypersonic speeds in an expansion tube. The Navier-Stokes equations for a chemically reacting gas are solved in a fully coupled manner using an implicit, time accurate algorithm. The solution procedure is based on a spatially second order, total variation diminishing (TVD) scheme and a temporally second order, variable-step, backward differentiation formula method. The hydrogen-oxygen chemistry is modeled with a 9-species, 19-step mechanism. The accuracy of the solution method is first demonstrated by several benchmark calculations. Numerical simulations of expansion tube flowfields are then presented for two different configurations. In particular, the development of the shock-induced combustion process is followed. In one case, designed to ensure ignition only in the boundary layer, the lateral extent of the combustion front during the initial transient phase was surprisingly large. The time histories of the calculated thrust and drag forces on the ram accelerator projectile are also presented.

Yungster, S.↗

Computer Simulation of Motion of Heliospheric Termination Shock

A time-dependent computer model is used to study a non-equilibrium structure of the heliosphere, resulting from the interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar plasma. An interaction of the heliospheric termination shock with various disturbances such as density or velocity jumps or interplanetary shocks in upstream solar wind as well as pressure jumps in local interstellar medium is investigated. Consequences of latitudinal variation in dynamic pressure are also discussed. The initial boundary conditions of unsteady calculations are given by the solar wind parameters as functions of time and/or latitude on an inner boundary, and/or by the local interstellar pressure as a function of time (roughly simulating the effect of the local interstellar medium) on an outer boundary.

Ratkiewicz, R. E.↗