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At least 955 records · Page 53
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1986

Moisture transports and budgets of 'moisture bursts'

The paper discusses moisture fluxes and budgets associated with a pair of 'moisture bursts' in the eastern North Pacific Ocean area, described by Smith et al. (1985). The moisture fluxes were calculated using data obtained during the first Special Observing Period (SOP-1) of the FGGE. The area specifically examined extended from the equator to the latitude 20 deg N and from longitude 180 deg to 100 deg W, with concentration on the region south and southeast of the Hawaiian Islands. From the comparison of the calculations based on dropwindsonde and radiosonde data and reports from commercial and military aircraft, it is concluded that the calculations of water vapor flow across latitude lines probably provide a fair representation of reality, especially when based on the dropwindsonde data. However, water vapor flow out of small volumes is not well represented by the results from either data.

Thompson, A. H.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Improved reduced-resolution satellite imagery

The resolution of satellite imagery is often traded-off to satisfy transmission time and bandwidth, memory, and display limitations. Although there are many ways to achieve the same reduction in resolution, algorithms vary in their ability to preserve the visual quality of the original imagery. These issues are investigated in the context of the Landsat browse system, which permits the user to preview a reduced resolution version of a Landsat image. Wavelets-based techniques for resolution reduction are proposed as alternatives to subsampling used in the current system. Experts judged imagery generated by the wavelets-based methods visually superior, confirming initial quantitative results. In particular, compared to subsampling, the wavelets-based techniques were much less likely to obscure roads, transmission lines, and other linear features present in the original image, introduce artifacts and noise, and otherwise reduce the usefulness of the image. The wavelets-based techniques afford multiple levels of resolution reduction and computational speed. This study is applicable to a wide range of reduced resolution applications in satellite imaging systems, including low resolution display, spaceborne browse, emergency image transmission, and real-time video downlinking.

Ellison, James↗
NASA NTRS1985

Distribution of Snow and Maximum Snow Water Equivalent Obtained by LANDSAT Data and Degree Day Method

Maximum snow water equivalence and snowcover distribution are estimated using several LANDSAT data taken in snowmelting season over a four year period. The test site is Okutadami-gawa Basin located in the central position of Tohoku-Kanto-Chubu District. The year to year normalization for snowmelt volume computation on the snow line is conducted by year to year correction of degree days using the snowcover percentage within the test basin obtained from LANDSAT data. The maximum snow water equivalent map in the test basin is generated based on the normalized snowmelt volume on the snow line extracted from four LANDSAT data taken in a different year. The snowcover distribution on an arbitrary day in snowmelting of 1982 is estimated from the maximum snow water equivalent map. The estimated snowcover is compared with the snowcover area extracted from NOAA-AVHRR data taken on the same day. The applicability of the snow estimation using LANDSAT data is discussed.

Takeda, K.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The computer integrated documentation project: A merge of hypermedia and AI techniques

To generate intelligent indexing that allows context-sensitive information retrieval, a system must be able to acquire knowledge directly through interaction with users. In this paper, we present the architecture for CID (Computer Integrated Documentation). CID is a system that enables integration of various technical documents in a hypertext framework and includes an intelligent browsing system that incorporates indexing in context. CID's knowledge-based indexing mechanism allows case based knowledge acquisition by experimentation. It utilizes on-line user information requirements and suggestions either to reinforce current indexing in case of success or to generate new knowledge in case of failure. This allows CID's intelligent interface system to provide helpful responses, based on previous experience (user feedback). We describe CID's current capabilities and provide an overview of our plans for extending the system.

Mathe, Nathalie↗
NASA NTRS1993

Line relaxation methods for the solution of 2D and 3D compressible flows

An implicit finite element based algorithm for the compressible Navier-Stokes equations is outlined, and the solution of the resulting equation by a line relaxation on general meshes of triangles or tetrahedra is described. The problem of generating and adapting unstructured meshes for viscous flows is reexamined, and an approach for both 2D and 3D simulations is proposed. An efficient approach appears to be the use of an implicit/explicit procedure, with the implicit treatment being restricted to those regions of the mesh where viscous effects are known to be dominant. Numerical examples demonstrating the computational performance of the proposed techniques are given.

Hassan, O.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Northern and Southern Hemisphere Ground-Based Infrared Spectroscopic Measurements of Tropospheric Carbon Monoxide and Ethane

Time series of CO and C2H6 measurements have been derived from high resolution infrared solar spectra recorded in Lauder, New Zealand (45.0 deg S, 169.7 deg E, altitude 0.37 km) and at the U. S. National Solar Observatory (31.90 deg N, 111.6 deg W, altitude 2.09 km) on Kitt Peak. Lauder observations were obtained between July 1993 and November 1997 while the Kitt Peak measurements were recorded between May 1977 and December 1997. Both databases were analyzed with spectroscopic parameters that included significant improvements for C2H6 relative to previous studies. Target CO and C2H6 lines were selected to achieve similar vertical samplings based on averaging kernels. These calculations show that partial columns from layers extending from the surface to the mean tropopause and from the mean tropopause to 100 km are nearly independent. Retrievals based on a semiempirical application of the Rodgers optimal estimation technique are reported for the lower layer, which has a broad maximum in sensitivity in the upper troposphere. The Lauder CO and C2H6 partial columns exhibit highly asymmetrical seasonal cycles with minima in austral autumn and sharp peaks in austral spring. The spring maxima are the result of tropical biomass burning emissions followed by deep convective vertical transport to the upper troposphere and long-range horizontal transport. Significant year-to-year variations are observed for both CO and C2H6, but the measured trends, (+0.37 +/- 0.57)%/ yr and (-0.64 +/- 0.79)%/ yr, 1 sigma, respectively, indicate no significant long-term changes. The Kitt Peak data also exhibit CO and C2H6 seasonal variations in the lower layer with trends equal to (-0.27 +/- 0.17)%/ yr and (-1.20 +/- 0.35)%/ yr, 1 sigma, respectively. Hence, a decrease in the Kitt Peak tropospheric C2H6 column has been detected, though the CO trend is not significant. Both measurement sets are compared with previous observations, reported trends, and three-dimensional model calculations.

Rinsland, Curtis P.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Package for Interactive Analysis of Line Emission (Analysis of UV-X-Ray High-Resolution Emission Spectra)

PINTofALE is an IDL based package to analyze high-resolution grating spectra. The first version was made available to the public on 3 February 2001. Since then we have carried out numerous changes, and the current release is version 1.5, released on 9 October 2002. The changes include upgrades to handle higher versions of IDL, the new version of the CHIANTI database (v4), major enhancements in user-friendliness, improved handling of response matrices, the ability to handle 24-bit color, access to the Atomic Plasma Emission Database (APED), and beta releases of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based DEM fitting routines. Plans for the future include: inclusion of MCMC techniques in the fitting programs, enhanced graphics capabilities, an overhaul of the line and continuum database structure, and bug fixes. In September 2002, we hired a data analyst (LiWei Lin) to work on PINTofALE. Mr.Lin is concentrating on incorporating MCMC as well as simpler Monte-Carlo techniques, fast RMF convolution, etc., into the code base, as well as reviewing the existing documentation and searching for bugs. A detailed description of the package, together with fairly detailed documentation, example walks-throughs, and downloadable tar files, are available on-line from http://hea-www. harvard.edu/PINTofALE/

Kashyap, Vinay↗
NASA NTRS1998

Northern and Southern Hemisphere Ground-Based Infrared Spectroscopic Measurements of Tropospheric Carbon Monoxide and Ethane

Time series of CO and C2H, measurements have been derived from high-resolution infrared solar spectra recorded in Lauder, New Zealand (45.0 degrees S, 169.7 degrees E, altitude 0.37 km), and at the U.S. National Solar Observatory (31.9 degrees N, 11, 1.6 degrees W, altitude 2.09 km) on Kitt Peak. Lauder observations were obtained between July 1993 and November 1997, while the Kitt Peak measurements were recorded between May 1977 and December 1997. Both databases were analyzed with spectroscopic parameters that included significant improvements for C2H6 relative to previous studies. Target CO and C2H6 lines were selected to achieve similar vertical samplings based on averaging kernels. These calculations show that partial columns from layers extending from the surface to the mean tropopause and from the mean tropopause to 100 km are nearly independent. Retrievals based on a semiempirical application of the Rodgers optimal estimation technique are reported for the lower layer, which has a broad maximum in sensitivity in the upper troposphere. The Lauder CO and C2H, partial columns exhibit highly asymmetrical seasonal cycles with minima in austral autumn and sharp peaks in austral spring. The spring maxima are the result of tropical biomass burning emissions followed by deep convective vertical transport to the upper troposphere and long-range horizontal transport. Significant year-to-year variations are observed for both CO and C2H6, but the measured trends, (+0.37 +/- 0.57)% yr(exp -1) and (-0.64 +/- 0.79)% yr(exp -1), I sigma, respectively, indicate no significant long-term changes. The Kitt Peak data also exhibit CO and C2H6, seasonal variations in the lower layer with trends equal to (-0.27 +/- 0.17)% yr(exp -1) and (-1.20 +/- 0.35)% yr(exp -1), 1 sigma, respectively. Hence a decrease in the Kitt Peak tropospheric C2H6 column has been detected, though the CO trend is not significant. Both measurement sets are compared with previous observations, reported trends, and three-dimensional model calculations.

Rinsland, Curtis P.↗
NASA NTRS1961

Laminar Heat-Transfer and Pressure Measurements at a Mach Number of 6 on Sharp and Blunt 15 deg Half-Angle Cones at Angles of Attack Up to 90 deg

Two circular conical configurations having 15 deg half-angles were tested in laminar boundary layer at a Mach number of 6 and angles of attack up to 90 deg. One cone had a sharp nose and a fineness ratio of 1.87 and the other had a spherically blunted nose with a bluntness ratio of 0.1428 and a fineness ratio of 1.66. Pressure measurements and schlieren pictures of the flow showed that near-conical flow existed up to an angle of attack of approximately 60 deg. At angles of attack above 70 deg high-pressure areas were present near the base and the bow shock wave was considerably curved. Comparison of the results with simply applied theories showed that on the stagnation line pressures may be predicted by Newtonian theory, and heat transfer by local yawed-cylinder theory based on the yaw angle of the windward generator and the local radius of the cone. Base effects increased the heat transfer in a region extending forward approximately 15 to 30 percent of the windward generator. Circumferential pressure distributions were higher than the corresponding Newtonian distribution and a better prediction was obtained by modifying the theory to match the pressure at 90 deg from the windward generator to that on the surface of the cone at an angle of attack of 0 deg. Circumferential heat-transfer distributions were predicted satisfactorily up to about 60 deg from the stagnation line by using Lees' heat-flux distribution based on the Newtonian pressure. The effects of nose bluntness at large angles of attack were very small in the region beyond two nose radii from the point of tangency.

Conti, Raul J.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Uniform convergence of multigrid V-cycle iterations for indefinite and nonsymmetric problems

In this paper, we present an analysis of a multigrid method for nonsymmetric and/or indefinite elliptic problems. In this multigrid method various types of smoothers may be used. One type of smoother which we consider is defined in terms of an associated symmetric problem and includes point and line, Jacobi, and Gauss-Seidel iterations. We also study smoothers based entirely on the original operator. One is based on the normal form, that is, the product of the operator and its transpose. Other smoothers studied include point and line, Jacobi, and Gauss-Seidel. We show that the uniform estimates for symmetric positive definite problems carry over to these algorithms. More precisely, the multigrid iteration for the nonsymmetric and/or indefinite problem is shown to converge at a uniform rate provided that the coarsest grid in the multilevel iteration is sufficiently fine (but not depending on the number of multigrid levels).

Bramble, James H.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Far-Infrared Line Emission from High Redshift Quasars

Recent millimeter and submillimeter detections of line emission in high redshift objects have yielded new information and constraints on star formation at early epochs. Only CO transitions and atomic carbon transitions have been detected from these objects, yet bright far-infrared lines such as C+ at 158 microns and N+ at 205 microns should be fairly readily detectable when redshifted into a submillimeter atmospheric window. We have obtained upper limits for C+ emission &om two high redshift quasars, BR1202-0725 at z=4.69 and BRI1335-0415 at z=4.41. These limits show that the ratio of the C+ line luminosity to the total far-infrared luminosity is less than 0.0l%, ten times smaller than has been observed locally. Additionally, we have searched for emission in the N+ 205 micron line from the Cloverleaf quasar, H1413+117, and detected emission in CO J=7-6. The N+ emission is found to be below the amount predicted based on comparison to the only previous detection of this line, in the starburst galaxy M82.

Benford, D. J.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Hydrogen and metal absorption lines in PKS 0405-123 from the halos of low redshift galaxies

HST ultraviolet spectra and ground-based optical spectra of the bright quasar PKS 0405-123 are used to identify two absorption-line systems probably produced by the halos of foreground galaxies. The quasar lies in a rich galaxy field. Loose groups of galaxies are present in the field at mean z1 = 0.1669 and mean z2 = 0.3519. Ly-alpha, C IV 1549 A, and probably Mg II 2798 A resonance lines are detected in an absorption system at z = 0.1670. An absorption system consisting of only Ly-alpha is observed at z = 0.3516. We cannot be completely certain which foreground galaxy is responsible for the metal line absorption system at z1. A likely candidate is a large, luminous, early-type spiral 40 arcsec to the east of the quasar. However, the origin of the z1 system could possibly be a small undetected galaxy more precisely aligned along our line of sight to PKS 0405-123, or a very faint galaxy whose redshift has not yet been measured.

Spinrad, Hyron↗
NASA NTRS1975

A distributed data base management system

Major system design features of a distributed data management system for the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) designed for continuous two-way deep space communications are described. The reasons for which the distributed data base utilizing third-generation minicomputers is selected as the optimum approach for the DSN are threefold: (1) with a distributed master data base, valid data is available in real-time to support DSN management activities at each location; (2) data base integrity is the responsibility of local management; and (3) the data acquisition/distribution and processing power of a third-generation computer enables the computer to function successfully as a data handler or as an on-line process controller. The concept of the distributed data base is discussed along with the software, data base integrity, and hardware used. The data analysis/update constraint is examined.

Bryan, A. I.↗
NASA NTRS2014

AFC-Enabled Simplified High-Lift System Integration Study

The primary objective of this trade study report is to explore the potential of using Active Flow Control (AFC) for achieving lighter and mechanically simpler high-lift systems for transonic commercial transport aircraft. This assessment was conducted in four steps. First, based on the Common Research Model (CRM) outer mold line (OML) definition, two high-lift concepts were developed. One concept, representative of current production-type commercial transonic transports, features leading edge slats and slotted trailing edge flaps with Fowler motion. The other CRM-based design relies on drooped leading edges and simply hinged trailing edge flaps for high-lift generation. The relative high-lift performance of these two high-lift CRM variants is established using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solutions to the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations for steady flow. These CFD assessments identify the high-lift performance that needs to be recovered through AFC to have the CRM variant with the lighter and mechanically simpler high-lift system match the performance of the conventional high-lift system. Conceptual design integration studies for the AFC-enhanced high-lift systems were conducted with a NASA Environmentally Responsible Aircraft (ERA) reference configuration, the so-called ERA-0003 concept. These design trades identify AFC performance targets that need to be met to produce economically feasible ERA-0003-like concepts with lighter and mechanically simpler high-lift designs that match the performance of conventional high-lift systems. Finally, technical challenges are identified associated with the application of AFC-enabled highlift systems to modern transonic commercial transports for future technology maturation efforts.

Hartwich, Peter M.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Estimated transonic flying qualities of a tailless airplane based on a model investigation, 8 June 1949

Flying qualities of a tailless airplane with the wing quarter chord line swept back 35 deg were analyzed in the Mach number range from 0.40 to 0.91 based on tests of a model of this airplane in the Langley high speed 7 by 10 foot tunnel. The results indicate that longitudinal control position instability exists at transonic speeds but the accompanying trim changes are not large. Control position maneuvering stability, however, is present for all speeds. Longitudinal and lateral control appear adequate, but the damping of the short period longitudinal and lateral oscillations at high altitudes is poor and would probably require artificial damping.

Donlan, C. J.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Interpretation of Beta Lyrae. IV - Hydrogen emission profiles and the pattern of gaseous flow in the system

The paper presents an interpretation of hydrogen emission profiles found in Beta Lyrae by attributing the asymmetry of the two emission peaks of both H-alpha and H-gamma at different phases to the absorption of an expanding-rotating gaseous stream. It is proposed that different relative shifts of the absorption line with respect to the emission line exist at different phases resulting in an apparent change in the profile with phase. Based on this idea, the expected profiles at four different phases have been computed for the H-alpha and H-gamma lines. They show a general trend close to what has been observed. Based on this same idea an apparent discrepancy between the observed results of the H-gamma profile obtained at two different epochs about 15 years apart becomes understandable. Finally a physical picture that can produce this periodic shift of the emission line relative to the absorption line is proposed and discussed.

Huang, S.-S.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Obliquity Driven Climate Change in Mars' Recent Past

We use the NASA/Ames grid Mars general circulation model with an updated radiation code and cloud nlicrophysics scheme. To speed up the simulations, we run the model at fairly coarse resolution (7.5" latitude x 22.5" longitude). Radiation Code Fluxes and heating rates are calculated from a radiation code based on the two-stream solution to radiative transfer that fully accounts for multiple scattering in the presence of gaseous absorp- tion. The model has 12 spectral intervals. Dust and water ice scattering properties are included. For dust, we use the Ockert-Bell [9] values in the visible, and Forget [IO] values in the infrared. For ice, we can either compute them online as the cloud evolves, or we can specify them. Gaseous opacities for water vapor and CO2 are calculated from correlated k-distributions taken from full line-by-line models. Cloud Microphysics Our cloud scheme is based on momentlorder scheme in which the mass mixing ratio and number density of the cloud ensemble are the advected species. From these we obtain a mean particle size and an estimate or the particle size distribution assuming a variance) which we then divide into 8 bins. Cloud microphysics is performed in each of these bins and includes nucleation, condensation, and gravitational settling. Dust is treated as a tracer and serves as condensation nuclei. The altered size distribution is then converted back into a mean size, a mixing ratio, and a particle number density.

Haberle, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Collecting, analyzing and archiving of ground based infrared solar spectra obtained from several locations

The infrared solar spectrum as observed from the ground under high resolution contains thousands of absorption lines. The majority of these lines are due to compounds that are present in the Earth's atmosphere. Ground based infrared solar spectra contain information concerning the composition of the atmosphere at the time the spectra were obtained. The objective of this program is to record solar spectra from various ground locations, and to analyze and archive these spectra. The analysis consists of determining, for as many of the absorption lines as possible, the molecular species responsible for the absorption, and to verify that current models of infrared transmission match the observed spectra. Archiving is an important part of the program, since a number of the features in the spectra have not been identified. At some later time, when the features are identified, it will be possible to determine the amount of that compound that was present in the atmosphere at the time the spectrum was taken.

Murcray, David G.↗