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NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Statistical Approach on Utilizing Ground-based Experiments to Model Break-up Events

Two laboratory-based impact tests have been conducted to develop and extend the capability of NASA satellite breakup models. The first experiment, the Satellite Orbital Debris Characterization Impact Test (SOCIT), was conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA in 1992. It employed a fully functional U.S. Navy Transit spacecraft, fabricated from materials commonly used in the 1960s. SOCIT fragmentation data formed the basis of the current NASA Standard Satellite Breakup Model (SSBM). A second experiment, DebriSat, was conducted in 2014 by the DebriSat consortium: the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office; the United States Space Force Space Systems Command, formerly the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, the Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Complex, and the University of Florida. This impact test was performed on a high-fidelity mock-up satellite assembled from modern components. Data from both experiments are expected to contribute to the next-generation models for on-orbit breakup analyses, long-term environment predictions, and debris risk assessment. This paper uses the direct statistical sampling of the SOCIT and DebriSat data ensembles to model an on-orbit breakup event, rather than the analytic expressions estimated from the samples as with as with the NASA SSBM and its predecessor. This direct method involves drawing fragments (i.e., sampling with replacement) from each fragmentation data-subset containing mass, shape category, material density, characteristic length, mass, and cross-sectional area. As part of the sampling process, the properties of sampled fragment data (e.g., area-to-mass ratios) are numerically checked to ensure they do not contain unrealistic quantities. The process to simulate a breakup cloud composed of fragments from SOCIT and DebriSat datasets is discussed. The methodology for ensuring that conservation of overall mass of the sampled fragment cloud under this sampling approach is highlighted. Finally, the results are compared with simulated clouds generated from SSBM for specific historical breakup events.

Andrew Vavrin↗

NASA NTRS2023

Statistical Approach on Utilizing Ground-Based Experiments to Model Break-Up Events

Two laboratory-based impact tests have been conducted to develop and extend the capability of NASA satellite breakup models. The first experiment, the Satellite Orbital Debris Characterization Impact Test (SOCIT), was conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA in 1992. It employed a fully functional U.S. Navy Transit spacecraft, fabricated from materials commonly used in the 1960s. SOCIT fragmentation data formed the basis of the current NASA Standard Satellite Breakup Model (SSBM). A second experiment, DebriSat, was conducted in 2014 by the DebriSat consortium: the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, the United States Space Force Space Systems Command, formerly the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, the Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Complex, and the University of Florida. This impact test was performed on a high-fidelity mock-up satellite assembled from modern components. Data from both experiments are expected to contribute to the next-generation models for on-orbit breakup analyses, long-term environment predictions, and debris risk assessment. This paper uses the direct statistical sampling of the SOCIT and DebriSat data ensembles to model an on-orbit breakup event, rather than the analytic expressions estimated from the samples in the SSBM and its predecessor. This direct method involves drawing fragments (i.e., sampling with replacement) from each fragmentation data-subset containing mass, shape category, material density, characteristic length, mass, and cross-sectional area. As part of the sampling process, the properties of sampled fragment data (e.g., area-to-mass ratios) are numerically checked to ensure they do not contain unrealistic quantities. The process to simulate a breakup cloud composed of fragments from SOCIT and DebriSat datasets is discussed. The methodology for ensuring that conservation of overall mass of the sampled fragment cloud under this sampling approach is highlighted. Finally, the results are compared with simulated clouds generated from SSBM for specific historical breakup events.

Andrew Vavrin↗

NASA NTRS2024

On the Use of Mahalanobis Distance in Particle Image Velocimetry Post-Processing

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a method of flow measurement that has become increasingly popular as an experimental tool. New technology has made high-speed and higher-dimension (stereoscopic, tomographic, etc) methods available to an ever-growing population of researchers. These advanced methods can provide significantly more data than traditional low-speed planar PIV, but these larger data sets also require more resources to process and store. A major time sink in the post-processing of large PIV data sets is the identification and rejection of “bad” or ”spurious” vectors that survive an initial processing step in commercial software, which attempts to identify spurious vectors on an image-by-image basis and not with respect to repeated trials. The Mahalanobis distance, an almost 100-year-old statistical function, was determined to be well suited for this task for its computational efficiency and higher-dimensional nature. This work includes a summary of the Mahalanobis distance and validation of its usefulness as a tool for outlier rejection in the post-processing of PIV data.

Experimental Methods↗

NASA NTRS2017

Small Ion Channel Linking Molecular Simulations and Electrophysiology

Ion channels are pore-forming protein assemblies that mediate the transport of small ions across cell membranes. Otherwise, membrane bilayers would be almost impermeable to ions incapable to traverse the low dielectric constant, hydrophobic membrane core. Ion channels are ubiquitous to all life forms. In humans and other higher organisms they play the central role in conducting nerve impulses, cardiac functions, muscle contraction and apoptosis. On the other extreme of biological complexity, viral ion channels (viroporins) influence many stages of the virus infection cycle either through regulating virus replication, such as entry, assembly and release or modulating the electrochemical balance in the subcellular compartments of host cells. Ion channels were crucial components of protocells. Their emergence facilitated adaptation of nascent life to different environmental conditions. The earliest ion channels must have been much simpler than most of their modern ancestors. Viral channels are among only a few naturally occurring models to study the structure, function and evolution of primordial channels. Experimental studies of these properties are difficult and often unreliable. In principle, computational methods, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in particular, can aid in providing information about both the structure and the function of ion channels. However, MD suffers from its own problems, such as inability to access sufficiently long time scales or limited accuracy of force fields. It is, therefore, essential to determine the reliability of MD simulations. We propose to do so on the basis of two criteria. One is channel stability on time scales that extend for several microseconds or longer. The other is the ability to reproduce the measured ionic conductance as a function of applied voltage. If both the stability and the calculated ionic conductance are satisfactory it will greatly increase our confidence that the structure and the function of a channel are described sufficiently accurately. To our knowledge, long time scale stability (approx.10 micro-sec) and the correct electrophysiology have been shown so far for only one channel - the synthetic LS3 hexamer). In this presentation, this approach will be discussed in application to two viral channels - Vpu, encoded by the HIV-1 genome and p7 of hepatitis C.

Pohorille, Andrzej↗

NASA NTRS1996

Cellular Basis of Mechanotransduction

Physical forces, such as those due to gravity are fundamental regulators of tissue development. To influence morphogenesis, mechanical forces must alter growth and function. Yet little is known about how cells convert mechanical signals into a chemical response. This presentation attempts to place the potential molecular mediators of mechanotransduction within the context of the structural complexity of living cells.

Ingber, Donald E.↗

NASA NTRS1977

The multistage heat pipe radiator - An advancement in passive cooling technology

Mathematical models were developed for one-, two-, and three-stage radiator systems to determine optimum stage areas and system performance as a function of such parameters as insulation effectiveness, cold stage temperature, and heat load to the cold and intermediate stages. This study shows that multistage radiator systems can be optimized on the basis of weight or projected area, and that cold stage temperatures as low as 15 K are theoretically possible with present technology levels for insulation emittance. For the baseline design, analyses were performed to determine optimum radiator fin geometry and heat pipe spacing as a function of temperature, material properties, and heat pipe weight. In addition, a ground test system was designed for the baseline design with heat rejection requirements of 10 MW at 35 K on the cold stage and 100 MW at the second stage.

Wilson, D. E.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Studies in Astronomical Time Series Analysis: VII. An Enquiry Concerning Non-Linearity, the RMS-Mean Flux Relation, and log-Normal Flux Distributions

A broad and widely used class of stationary, linear, additive time series models can have statistical properties which many authors have asserted imply that the underlying process must be non-linear, non-stationary, multiplicative, or inconsistent with shot noise. This result is demonstrated with exact and numerical evaluation of the model flux distribution function and dependence of flux standard deviation on mean flux (here and in the literature called the rms-flux relation). These models can: (1) exhibit normal, log-normal or other flux distributions; (2) show linear or slightly non-linear rms-mean flux dependencies; as well as (3) match arbitrary second order statistics of the time series data. Accordingly the above assertions cannot be made on the basis of statistical time series analysis alone. Also idscussed are ambiguities in the meaning of terms relevant to this study – linear, stationary and multiplicative – and functions that can transform observed fluxes to a normal distribution as well or better than the logarithm.

Jeffrey D Scargle↗

NASA NTRS2015

Technology Candidates for Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground Data Exchange

Technology Candidates for Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground Data Exchange is a two-year research effort to visualize the U. S. aviation industry at a point 50 years in the future, and to define potential communication solutions to meet those future data exchange needs. The research team, led by XCELAR, was tasked with identifying future National Airspace System (NAS) scenarios, determining requirements and functions (including gaps), investigating technical and business issues for air, ground, & air-to-ground interactions, and reporting on the results. The project was conducted under technical direction from NASA and in collaboration with XCELAR's partner, National Institute of Aerospace, and NASA technical representatives. Parallel efforts were initiated to define the information exchange functional needs of the future NAS, and specific communication link technologies to potentially serve those needs. Those efforts converged with the mapping of each identified future NAS function to potential enabling communication solutions; those solutions were then compared with, and ranked relative to, each other on a technical basis in a structured analysis process. The technical solutions emerging from that process were then assessed from a business case perspective to determine their viability from a real-world adoption and deployment standpoint. The results of that analysis produced a proposed set of future solutions and most promising candidate technologies. Gap analyses were conducted at two points in the process, the first examining technical factors, and the second as part of the business case analysis. In each case, no gaps or unmet needs were identified in applying the solutions evaluated to the requirements identified. The future communication solutions identified in the research comprise both specific link technologies and two enabling technologies that apply to most or all specific links. As a result, the research resulted in a new analysis approach, viewing the underlying architecture of ground-air and air-air communications as a whole, rather than as simple "link to function" paired solutions. For the business case analysis, a number of "reference architectures" were developed for both the future technologies and the current systems, based on three typical configurations of current aircraft. Current and future costs were assigned, and various comparisons made between the current and future architectures. In general, it was assumed that if a future architecture offers lower cost than the current typical architecture, while delivering equivalent or better performance, it is likely that the future solution will gain industry acceptance. Conversely, future architectures presenting higher costs than their current counterparts must present a compelling benefit case in other areas or risk a lack of industry acceptance. The business case analysis consistently indicated lower costs for the proposed future architectures, and in most cases, significantly so. The proposed future solutions were found to offer significantly greater functionality, flexibility, and growth potential over time, at lower cost, than current systems. This was true for overall, fleet-wide equipage for domestic and oceanic air carriers, as well as for single, General Aviation (GA) aircraft. The overall research results indicate that all identified requirements can be met by the proposed solutions with significant capacity for future growth. Results also illustrate that the majority of the future communication needs can be met using currently allocated aviation RF spectrum, if used in more effective ways than it is today. A combination of such optimized aviation-specific links and commercial communication systems meets all identified needs for the 50-year future and beyond, with the caveat that a new, overall function will be needed to manage all information exchange, individual links, security, cost, and other factors. This function was labeled "Delivery Manager" (DM) within this research. DM employs a distributed client/server architecture, for both airborne and ground communications architectures. Final research results included identifying the most promising candidate technologies for the future system, conclusions and recommendations, and identifying areas where further research should be considered.

Communications↗

NASA NTRS1971

Orientation: Sensory basis; Proceedings of the Conference, New York, N.Y., February 8-10, 1971.

Topics related to photoreceptors are considered, giving attention to visual pattern recognition and directional orientation in insects, the sensory basis of orientation in amphibians, and the aerial and underwater visual acuity in the California sea lion as a function of luminance. Other subjects explored are in the fields of phonoreceptors, chemoreception, vestibular receptors, and electrical and magnetic sensitivity. Questions of the development and evolution of orientation are also investigated, taking into account field studies of mass emigration and orientation in the spiny lobster and investigations concerning the jumping behavior in the Gobiid fish. Individual items are announced in this issue.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1974

Spectral and textural processing of ERTS imagery

A procedure is developed to simultaneously extract textural features from all bands of ERTS multispectral scanner imagery for automatic analysis. Multi-images lead to excessively large grey tone N-tuple co-occurrence matrices; therefore, neighboring grey N-tuple differences are measured and an ellipsoidally symmetric functional form is assumed for the co-occurrence distribution of multiimage greytone N-tuple differences. On the basis of past data the ellipsoidally symmetric approximation is shown to be reasonable. Initial evaluation of the procedure is encouraging.

Haralick, R. M.↗

NASA NTRS1975

Application of information-retrieval methods to the classification of physical data

Scientific data received from satellites are characterized as a multi-dimensional time series, whose terms are vector functions of a vector of measurement conditions. Information retrieval methods are used to construct lower dimensional samples on the basis of the condition vector, in order to obtain these data and to construct partial relations. The methods are applied to the joint Soviet-French Arkad project.

Mamotko, Z. N.↗

NASA NTRS1976

Heat transfer to a full-coverage film-cooled surface with 30 degree slant-hole injection

Heat transfer behavior was studied in a turbulent boundary layer with full coverage film cooling through an array of discrete holes and with injection 30 deg to the wall surface in the downstream direction. Stanton numbers were measured for a staggered hole pattern with pitch-to-diameter ratios of 5 and 10, an injection mass flux ratio range of 0.1 to 1.3, and a range of Reynolds number Re sub x of 150,000 to 5 million. Air was used as the working fluid, and the mainstream velocity varied from 9.8 to 34.2 m/sec (32 to 112 ft/sec). The data were taken for secondary injection temperature equal to the wall temperature and also equal to the mainstream temperature. The data may be used to obtain Stanton number as a continuous function of the injectant temperature by use of linear superposition theory. The heat transfer coefficient is defined on the basis of a mainstream-to-wall temperature difference. This definition permits direct comparison of performance between film cooling and transpiration cooling. A differential prediction method was developed to predict the film cooling data base. The method utilizes a two-dimensional boundary layer program with routines to model the injection process and turbulence augmentation. The program marches in the streamwise direction, and when a row of holes is encountered, it stops and injects fluid into the boundary layer. The turbulence level is modeled by algebraically augmenting the mixing length, with the augmentation keyed to a penetration distance for the injected fluid.

Crawford, M. E.↗

NASA NTRS1978

A critical evaluation of the minimization techniques as applied to nonlinear structural analyses

This paper identifies the potential for unconstrained minimization algorithms of mathematical programming to be cost-effective with other conventional techniques of transient nonlinear structural analysis. With this in mind the authors have attempted to critically evaluate a few of the most commonly used algorithms for their effectiveness in solving structural problems involving geometric and material nonlinearities. The algorithms have been categorized as being zeroth order, first order and second order depending upon the order of the derivative of the function called for by the algorithm. The sensitivity of these algorithms to the accuracy of derivatives derived on the basis of finite difference operations clearly suggest using analytically derived derivatives to obtain better control on the number of minimizations required for convergence to the exact solution.

Kamat, M. P.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Determination of vertical ozone distributions by spacecraft measurements using a limb-scan technique

The principle of a new inversion technique which uses multiple wavelength-solar UV radiation satellite measurements for determining vertical ozone profiles is described, and examples of computer simulations for 280, 300, 320, and 340 nm are discussed. Weighting functions corresponding to the sensitivity of the limb radiance to the relative ozone density at each altitude are the basis for the inversion equation, which is then solved by an iteration technique. The use of multiple wavelengths can provide more information of higher accuracy over a wider height range than those profiles recovered at a single wavelength. It is indicated that an effective range of altitude of approximately 20-70 km with a vertical resolution of 1-2 km is feasible for determining ozone profiles with an inferred profile error about three to four times larger than the measurement error within that altitude region. Ozone profile accuracy of the highest altitude region may be improved using wavelengths down to 260 nm, and inferred ozone profiles above 70 km are possible, but with a larger error.

Aruga, T.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Modelisation of the optical scattering behaviour of the vegetation canopies

The three dimensional model of Kimes (1984) which can treat three dimensional variability in heterogeneous scenes, was used to test and expand physical scattering mechanisms involved in reflectance distribution dynamics by analyzing modeling and field data. The major physical phenomena causing the directional scattering behavior of vegetation canopies are presented. These include the strong anisotropic properties of the soil, and the anisotropic scattering properties of the vegetation as described by the phase function of the leaves and the geometric effects caused by vertical layers of leaves. This knowledge serves as a basis for defining optimum directional view angles for remote sensing strategies. An example on using knowledge of the scattering behavior of vegetation to develop techniques for extracting vegetation parameters (spectral albedo) from directional reflectance data is presented.

Kimes, D. S.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Ring vortex/cylinder sound production revisited

The acoustic radiation produced by the passage of a vortex ring near a circular cylinder is calculated utilizing the Coriolis acceleration of the vortex as the source term and the low frequency Green's function approach. Necessary integrals are evaluated exactly via complex integration techniques. The results exhibit good agreement (on a Pascal basis) with experimental data. Of particular interest is the rotation of the directivity pattern during this transient encounter and the extreme sensitivity of the results to the distance at which the vortex passes by the cylinder.

Hardin, Jay C.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Theoretical studies of the potential surface for the F + H2 - HF + H reaction

Several aspects of the F + H2 - HF + H potential energy hypersurface are considered. The classical barrier height is studied as a function of improvements to both the one-particle and n-particle treatments, approaching the one-particle basis set limit. The externally contracted CI (CCI) method is used to compute bending potentials in the collinear saddle point region. The calculated CCI surface is used to locate the bottleneck on the vibrationally adiabatic potential curve, and the reaction threshold is deduced from a one-dimensinal tunneling calculation. The true classical barrier height is estimated by adjusting the CCI barrier height for the difference in the calculated and experimental thresholds.

Bauschlicher, Charles W., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Simulation of separated flow past a bluff body using Navier-Stokes equations

Two-dimensional flow past a bluff body is presently simulated on the basis of an analysis that employs the incompressible, unsteady Navier-Stokes equations in terms of vorticity and stream function. The fully implicit, time-marching, alternating-direction, implicit-block Gaussian elimination used is a direct method with second-order spatial accuracy; this allows it to avoid the introduction of any artificial viscosity. Attention is given to the simulation of flow past a circular cylinder with and without symmetry, requiring the use of either the half or the full cylinder, respectively.

Ghia, K. N.↗