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At least 1,027 records · Page 57

Subtropical middle atmosphere dynamics observed by the Chung Li radar

The Chung Li Radar (24.91 N; 121.24 E) has been operating since 1986. A five beam observational configuration was used on a regular basis to study the various dynamics processes in the atmosphere-lower stratosphere height region. Due to its geographical location, the annual Typhoon and Mei-Yu seasons provide good opportunities to study the various interesting dynamic processes such as instabilities, generation of gravity waves, wave mean field interaction, etc. Three dimensional air motions due to these fronts are presented. Special cases of gravity wave generation, propagation and their effects on the turbulent layers are discussed.

Fu, I. J.↗

Mean stress and the exhaustion of fatigue-damage resistance

Mean-stress effects on fatigue life are critical in isothermal and thermomechanically loaded materials and composites. Unfortunately, existing mean-stress life-prediction methods do not incorporate physical fatigue damage mechanisms. An objective is to examine the relation between mean-stress induced damage (as measured by acoustic emission) and existing life-prediction methods. Acoustic emission instrumentation has indicated that, as with static yielding, fatigue damage results from dislocation buildup and motion until dislocation saturation is reached, after which void formation and coalescence predominate. Correlation of damage processes with similar mechanisms under monotonic loading led to a reinterpretation of Goodman diagrams for 40 alloys and a modification of Morrow's formulation for life prediction under mean stresses. Further testing, using acoustic emission to monitor dislocation dynamics, can generate data for developing a more general model for fatigue under mean stress.

Berkovits, Avraham↗

A cost-effective intelligent robotic system with dual-arm dexterous coordination and real-time vision

Dexterous coordination of manipulators based on the use of redundant degrees of freedom, multiple sensors, and built-in robot intelligence represents a critical breakthrough in development of advanced manufacturing technology. A cost-effective approach for achieving this new generation of robotics has been made possible by the unprecedented growth of the latest microcomputer and network systems. The resulting flexible automation offers the opportunity to improve the product quality, increase the reliability of the manufacturing process, and augment the production procedures for optimizing the utilization of the robotic system. Moreover, the Advanced Robotic System (ARS) is modular in design and can be upgraded by closely following technological advancements as they occur in various fields. This approach to manufacturing automation enhances the financial justification and ensures the long-term profitability and most efficient implementation of robotic technology. The new system also addresses a broad spectrum of manufacturing demand and has the potential to address both complex jobs as well as highly labor-intensive tasks. The ARS prototype employs the decomposed optimization technique in spatial planning. This technique is implemented to the framework of the sensor-actuator network to establish the general-purpose geometric reasoning system. The development computer system is a multiple microcomputer network system, which provides the architecture for executing the modular network computing algorithms. The knowledge-based approach used in both the robot vision subsystem and the manipulation control subsystems results in the real-time image processing vision-based capability. The vision-based task environment analysis capability and the responsive motion capability are under the command of the local intelligence centers. An array of ultrasonic, proximity, and optoelectronic sensors is used for path planning. The ARS currently has 18 degrees of freedom made up by two articulated arms, one movable robot head, and two charged coupled device (CCD) cameras for producing the stereoscopic views, and articulated cylindrical-type lower body, and an optional mobile base. A functional prototype is demonstrated.

Marzwell, Neville I.↗

Shaft-Motion-Analyzing System

Optoelectronic system to monitor motions of turbopump shaft developed. Optical sensors detect passage of reflective triangles on shaft. Optical measurements processed in real time into indications of speed of rotation and of axial and lateral displacements of shaft.

Randall, Richard L.↗

Observational requirements for the regional scale

Observational requirements are provided for the 'regional scale' (10(exp 2) to 10(exp 3) km space scale; 3 to 24 h time scale). Given this range, the regional scale represents a spatial and temporal domain in which important scale-interactive processes occur that act to concentrate large vertical wind shears, significant horizontal thermal gradients, and vertical motion patterns into narrow regions. A short review of the mass and momentum adjustments associated with jet streak-induced circulations is discussed. Evidence for the need to specify the wind field in the upper troposphere to accurately simulate forcing for the transverse circulations is also presented. The importance of specifying temperature tendency to resolve the lower tropospheric portion of the transverse circulations is highlighted. The observational requirements are then discussed, along with possible approaches for meeting the requirements on the regional scale.

Uccellini, Louis W.↗

Analysis of Landing-Gear Behavior

This report presents a theoretical study of the behavior of the conventional type of oleo-pneumatic landing gear during the process of landing impact. The basic analysis is presented in a general form and treats the motions of the landing gear prior to and subsequent to the beginning of shock-strut deflection. The applicability of the analysis to actual landing gears has been investigated for the particular case of a vertical landing gear in the absence of drag loads by comparing calculated results with experimental drop-test data for impacts with and without tire bottoming. The calculated behavior of the landing gear was found to be in good agreement with the drop-test data.

Milwitzky, Benjamin↗

SAR Processing Based On Two-Dimensional Transfer Function

Exact transfer function, ETF, is two-dimensional transfer function that constitutes basis of improved frequency-domain-convolution algorithm for processing synthetic-aperture-radar, SAR data. ETF incorporates terms that account for Doppler effect of motion of radar relative to scanned ground area and for antenna squint angle. Algorithm based on ETF outperforms others.

Chang, Chi-Yung↗

Simulation of the prompt energization and transport of radiation belt particles during the March 24, 1991 SSC

We model the rapid (about 1 min) formation of a new electron radiation belt at L about or = 2.5 that resulted from the Storm Sudden Commencement (SSC) of March 24, 1991 as observed by the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) satellite. Guided by the observed electric and magnetic fields, we represent the time-dependent magnetospheric electric field during the SSC by an asymmetric bipolar pulse that is associated with the compression and relaxation of the Earth's magnetic field. We follow the electrons using a relativistic guiding center code. The test-particle simulations show that electrons with energies of a few MeV at L greater than 6 were energized up to 40 MeV and transported to L about or = 2.5 during a fraction of their drift period. The energization process conserves the first adiabatic invariant and is enhanced due to resonance of the electron drift motion with the time-varying electric field. Our simulation results, with an initial W(exp -8) energy flux spectra, reproduce the observed electron drift echoes and show that the interplanetary shock impacted the magnetosphere between 1500 and 1800 MLT.

Li, Xinlin↗

More About The Video Event Trigger

Report presents additional information about system described in "Video Event Trigger" (LEW-15076). Digital electronic system processes video-image data to generate trigger signal when image shows significant change, such as motion, or appearance, disappearance, change in color, brightness, or dilation of object. Potential uses include monitoring of hallways, parking lots, and other areas during hours when supposed unoccupied, looking for fires, tracking airplanes or other moving objects, identification of missing or defective parts on production lines, and video recording of automobile crash tests.

Williams, Glenn L.↗

A New Theory of Nucleate Pool Boiling in Arbitrary Gravity

Heat transfer rates specific to nucleate pool boiling under various conditions are determined by the dynamics of vapour bubbles that are originated and grow at nucleation sites of a superheated surface. A new dynamic theory of these bubbles has been recently developed on the basis of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes. In contrast to other existing models based on empirically postulated equations for bubble growth and motion, this theory does not contain unwarrantable assumptions, and both the equations are rigorously derived within the framework of a unified approach. The conclusions of the theory are drastically different from those of the conventional models. The bubbles are shown to detach themselves under combined action of buoyancy and a surface tension force that is proven to add to buoyancy in bubble detachment, but not the other way round as is commonly presumed. The theory ensures a sound understanding of a number of so far unexplained phenomena, such as effect caused by gravity level and surface tension on the bubble growth rate and dependence of the bubble characteristics at detachment on the liquid thermophysical parameters and relevant temperature differences. The theoretical predictions are shown to be in a satisfactory qualitative and quantitative agreement with observations. When being applied to heat transfer at nucleate pool boiling, this bubble dynamic theory offers an opportunity to considerably improve the main formulae that are generally used to correlate experimental findings and to design boiling heat removal in various industrial applications. Moreover, the theory makes possible to pose and study a great deal of new problems of essential impact in practice. Two such problems are considered in detail. One problem concerns the development of a principally novel physical model for the first crisis of boiling. This model allows for evaluating critical boiling heat fluxes under various conditions, and in particular at different gravity levels, with a good agreement with experimental evidence. The other problem bears upon equilibrium shapes of a detached bubble near a heated surface in exceedingly low gravity. In low gravity or in weightlessness, the bubble can remain in the close vicinity of the surface for a long time, and its shape is greatly affected by the Marangoni effect due to both temperature and possible surfactant concentration being nonuniform along the interface. The bubble performs at these conditions like a heat pipe, with evaporation at the bubble lower boundary and condensation at its upper boundary, and ultimately ensures a substantial increase in heat removal as compared with that in normal gravity. Some other problems relevant to nucleate pool and forced convection boiling heat transfer are also discussed.

Buyevich, Y. A.↗

Cloud-System Resolving Models: Status and Prospects

Cloud-system resolving models (CRM), which are based on the nonhydrostatic equations of motion and typically have a grid-spacing of about a kilometer, originated as cloud-process models in the 1970s. This paper reviews the status and prospects of CRMs across a wide range of issues, such as microphysics and precipitation; interaction between clouds and radiation; and the effects of boundary-layer and surface-processes on cloud systems. Since CRMs resolve organized convection, tropical waves and the large-scale circulation, there is the prospect for several advances in both basic knowledge of scale-interaction requisite to parameterizing mesoscale processes in climate models. In superparameterization, CRMs represent convection, explicitly replacing many of the assumptions necessary in contemporary parameterization. Global CRMs have been run on an experimental basis, giving prospect to a new generation of climate weather prediction in a decade, and climate models due course. CRMs play a major role in the retrieval of surface-rain and latent heating from satellite measurements. Finally, enormous wide dynamic ranges of CRM simulations present new challenges for model validation against observations.

Tao, Wei-Kuo↗

Design of Oil-Lubricated Machine for Life and Reliability

In the post-World War II era, the major technology drivers for improving the life, reliability, and performance of rolling-element bearings and gears have been the jet engine and the helicopter. By the late 1950s, most of the materials used for bearings and gears in the aerospace industry had been introduced into use. By the early 1960s, the life of most steels was increased over that experienced in the early 1940s, primarily by the introduction of vacuum degassing and vacuum melting processes in the late 1950s. The development of elastohydrodynamic (EHD) theory showed that most rolling bearings and gears have a thin film separating the contacting bodies during motion and it is that film which affects their lives. Computer programs modeling bearing and gear dynamics that incorporate probabilistic life prediction methods and EHD theory enable optimization of rotating machinery based on life and reliability. With improved manufacturing and processing, the potential improvement in bearing and gear life can be as much as 80 times that attainable in the early 1950s. The work presented summarizes the use of laboratory fatigue data for bearings and gears coupled with probabilistic life prediction and EHD theories to predict the life and reliability of a commercial turboprop gearbox. The resulting predictions are compared with field data.

Zaretsky, Erwin V.↗

Fluid models and simulations of biological cell phenomena

The dynamics of coated droplets are examined within the context of biofluids. Of specific interest is the manner in which the shape of a droplet, the motion within it as well as that of aggregates of droplets can be controlled by the modulation of surface properties and the extent to which such fluid phenomena are an intrinsic part of cellular processes. From the standpoint of biology, an objective is to elucidate some of the general dynamical features that affect the disposition of an entire cell, cell colonies and tissues. Conventionally averaged field variables of continuum mechanics are used to describe the overall global effects which result from the myriad of small scale molecular interactions. An attempt is made to establish cause and effect relationships from correct dynamical laws of motion rather than by what may have been unnecessary invocation of metabolic or life processes. Several topics are discussed where there are strong analogies droplets and cells including: encapsulated droplets/cell membranes; droplet shape/cell shape; adhesion and spread of a droplet/cell motility and adhesion; and oams and multiphase flows/cell aggregates and tissues. Evidence is presented to show that certain concepts of continuum theory such as suface tension, surface free energy, contact angle, bending moments, etc. are relevant and applicable to the study of cell biology.

Greenspan, H. P.↗

Determination of sea ice motion using digital SAR imagery

Precise, densely sampled maps of ice motion have been derived from digital Seasat SAR imagery, in order to determine the small scale spatial variability of ice formation. The SAR images were processed to remove geometric distortions, and then located to an accuracy of about 100 m by means of a spacecraft orbital data/SAR characteristics algorithm, independently of attitude and ground reference point data. Ice features common to an overlapping pair of images yielded vector plots of ice motion that indicate a high degree of spatial deformation, demonstrating the potential value of spaceborne SAR data.

Curlander, J. C.↗

Some procedures for computerized electronic data processing of absorption measurements from artificial earth satellites

The processing of data obtained from solar absorption radiation measurements is discussed. The position of the satellite was obtained by numerical integration of the differential equations of motion using initial conditions. The position of the sun was calculated as a function of time, and the tangential elevation was determined approximately from the positions of the satellite and the sun. The coefficients of an approximation formula and of a data smoothing process were determined, and the inversion of an Abel integral equation is solved analytically.

Trinkkeller, B.↗

Arctic Mixed-Phase Cloud Base Ice Precipitation Properties Over the NSA Site

Cloud-climate feedbacks are still the greatest source of uncertainty in current climate projections. Arctic clouds, which are predominantly stratiform and supercooled, often long-lived, and nearly continuously precipitate ice particles, contribute roughly 10% of the uncertainty attributed to the global cloud feedback. This arctic cloud uncertainty is driven by incomplete observational and theoretical knowledge required to estimate and explain the state and active processes occurring in those clouds. A focus on ice precipitation properties at arctic cloud base rather than the surface deconfounds the product of cloud condensate sink processes from the influence of the atmospheric thermodynamic state below cloud base, rendering cloud-base properties a more appealing target for inference and evaluation of model simulations. This data set provides more than 1800 samples of cloud-base ice precipitation properties over Utqiagvik, North Slope of Alaska, all of which were retrieved using the synthesis of ARM radar and lidar measurements. The retrieved ice precipitation variables in this data set include, among others, the ice number concentration, water content, PSD parameters, precipitation rate, mass-weighted fall velocity, vertical air motion, and effective radius, all of which are highly valuable for model evaluation and a general understanding of polar cloud sink processes. Each variable sample includes its mean value and associated uncertainty. Additional variables based on ARM measurements (liquid layer statistics, etc.) are included in this data set. The retrieval algorithm and analysis of this data set are described in Silber (JGR, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JD038202).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Mechanisms of selective attention and space motion sickness

The neural mismatch theory of space motion sickness asserts that the central and peripheral autonomic sequelae of discordant sensory input arise from central integrative processes falling to reconcile patterns of incoming sensory information with existing memory. Stated differently, perceived novelty reaches a stress level as integrative mechanisms fail to return a sense of control to the individual in the new environment. Based on evidence summarized here, the severity of the neural mismatch may be dependent upon the relative amount of attention selectively afforded to each sensory input competing for control of behavior. Components of the limbic system may play important roles in match-mismatch operations, be therapeutically modulated by antimotion sickness drugs, and be optimally positioned to control autonomic output.

NASA Discipline Neuroscience↗

The Optical Signatures of Stochastic Processes in Many-Body Exciton Scattering

We review our recent quantum stochastic model for spectroscopic lineshapes in the presence of a coevolving and nonstationary background population of excitations. Starting from a field theory description for interacting bosonic excitons, we derive a reduced model whereby optical excitons are coupled to an incoherent background via scattering as mediated by their screened Coulomb coupling. The Heisenberg equations of motion for the optical excitons are then driven by an auxiliary stochastic population variable, which we take to be the solution of an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. Here, we present an overview of the theoretical techniques we have developed as applied to predicting coherent nonlinear spectroscopic signals. We show how direct (Coulomb) and exchange coupling to the bath give rise to distinct spectral signatures and discuss mathematical limits on inverting spectral signatures to extract the background density of states.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗