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At least 1,081 records · Page 60

Spray Penetration with a Simple Fuel Injection Nozzle

The purpose of the tests covered by this report was to obtain specific information on the rate of penetration of the spray from a simple injection nozzle, having a single orifice with a diameter of 0.015 inch when injecting into compressed gases. The results have shown that the effects of both chamber and fuel pressures on penetration are so marked that the study of sprays by means of high-speed photography or its equivalent is necessary if the effects are to be appreciated sufficiently to enable rational analysis. It was found for these tests that the negative acceleration of the spray tip is approximately proportional to the 1.5 power of the instantaneous velocity of the spray tip.

Miller, Harold E↗

Elevated Temperature Deformation of Fe-39.8Al and Fe-15.6Mn-39.4Al

The elevated temperature compressive properties of binary Fe-39.8 at % Al and Fe-15.6Mn-39.4Al have been measured between 1000 and 1300 K at strain rates between 10(exp 7) and 10(exp 3)/ s. Although the Mn addition to iron aluminide did not change the basic deformation characteristics, the Mn-modified alloy was slightly weaker. In the regime where deformation of FeAl occurs by a high stress exponent mechanism (n = 6), strength increases as the grain size decreases at least for diameters between approx. 200 and approx. 10 microns. Due to the limitation in the grain size-flow stress-temperature-strain rate database, the influence of further reductions of the grain size on strength is uncertain. Based on the appearance of subgrains in deformed iron aluminide, the comparison of grain diameters to expected subgrain sizes, and the grain size exponent and stress exponent calculated from deformation experiments, it is believed that grain size strengthening is the result of an artificial limitation on subgrain size as proposed by Sherby, Klundt and Miller.

Whittenberger, J. Daniel↗

Category Learning Research in the Interactive Online Environment Second Life

The interactive online environment Second Life allows users to create novel three-dimensional stimuli that can be manipulated in a meaningful yet controlled environment. These features suggest Second Life's utility as a powerful tool for investigating how people learn concepts for unfamiliar objects. The first of two studies was designed to establish that cognitive processes elicited in this virtual world are comparable to those tapped in conventional settings by attempting to replicate the established finding that category learning systematically influences perceived similarity . From the perspective of an avatar, participants navigated a course of unfamiliar three-dimensional stimuli and were trained to classify them into two labeled categories based on two visual features. Participants then gave similarity ratings for pairs of stimuli and their responses were compared to those of control participants who did not learn the categories. Results indicated significant compression, whereby objects classified together were judged to be more similar by learning than control participants, thus supporting the validity of using Second Life as a laboratory for studying human cognition. A second study used Second Life to test the novel hypothesis that effects of learning on perceived similarity do not depend on the presence of verbal labels for categories. We presented the same stimuli but participants classified them by selecting between two complex visual patterns designed to be extremely difficult to label. While learning was more challenging in this condition , those who did learn without labels showed a compression effect identical to that found in the first study using verbal labels. Together these studies establish that at least some forms of human learning in Second Life parallel learning in the actual world and thus open the door to future studies that will make greater use of the enriched variety of objects and interactions possible in simulated environments compared to traditional experimental situations.

Andrews, Jan↗

Onboard Interferometric SAR Processor for the Ka-Band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn)

An interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) onboard processor concept and algorithm has been developed for the Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) instrument on the Surface and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. This is a mission- critical subsystem that will perform interferometric SAR processing and multi-look averaging over the oceans to decrease the data rate by three orders of magnitude, and therefore enable the downlink of the radar data to the ground. The onboard processor performs demodulation, range compression, coregistration, and re-sampling, and forms nine azimuth squinted beams. For each of them, an interferogram is generated, including common-band spectral filtering to improve correlation, followed by averaging to the final 1 1-km ground resolution pixel. The onboard processor has been prototyped on a custom FPGA-based cPCI board, which will be part of the radar s digital subsystem. The level of complexity of this technology, dictated by the implementation of interferometric SAR processing at high resolution, the extremely tight level of accuracy required, and its implementation on FPGAs are unprecedented at the time of this reporting for an onboard processor for flight applications.

Esteban-Fernandez, Daniel↗

Parameterizations of Chromospheric Condensations in dG and dMe Model Flare Atmospheres

The origin of the near-ultraviolet and optical continuum radiation in flares is critical for understanding particle acceleration and impulsive heating in stellar atmospheres. Radiative-hydrodynamic (RHD) simulations in 1D have shown that high energy deposition rates from electron beams produce two flaring layers at T approximately 10 (exp 4) K that develop in the chromosphere: a cooling condensation (downflowing compression) and heated non-moving (stationary) flare layers just below the condensation. These atmospheres reproduce several observed phenomena in flare spectra, such as the red-wing asymmetry of the emission lines in solar flares and a small Balmer jump ratio in M dwarf flares. The high beam flux simulations are computationally expensive in 1D, and the (human) timescales for completing NLTE models with adaptive grids in 3D will likely be unwieldy for some time to come. We have developed a prescription for predicting the approximate evolved states, continuum optical depth, and emergent continuum flux spectra of RHD model flare atmospheres. These approximate prescriptions are based on an important atmospheric parameter: the column mass (m(sub ref)) at which hydrogen becomes nearly completely ionized at the depths that are approximately in steady state with the electron beam heating. Using this new modeling approach, we find that high energy flux density (>F11) electron beams are needed to reproduce the brightest observed continuum intensity in IRIS data of the 2014 March 29 X1 solar flare, and that variation in m(sub ref) from 0.001 to 0.02 g cm (exp -2) reproduces most of the observed range of the optical continuum flux ratios at the peak of M dwarf flares.

Kowalski, Adam F.↗

A constrained joint source/channel coder design and vector quantization of nonstationary sources

The emergence of broadband ISDN as the network for the future brings with it the promise of integration of all proposed services in a flexible environment. In order to achieve this flexibility, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) has been proposed as the transfer technique. During this period a study was conducted on the bridging of network transmission performance and video coding. The successful transmission of variable bit rate video over ATM networks relies on the interaction between the video coding algorithm and the ATM networks. Two aspects of networks that determine the efficiency of video transmission are the resource allocation algorithm and the congestion control algorithm. These are explained in this report. Vector quantization (VQ) is one of the more popular compression techniques to appear in the last twenty years. Numerous compression techniques, which incorporate VQ, have been proposed. While the LBG VQ provides excellent compression, there are also several drawbacks to the use of the LBG quantizers including search complexity and memory requirements, and a mismatch between the codebook and the inputs. The latter mainly stems from the fact that the VQ is generally designed for a specific rate and a specific class of inputs. In this work, an adaptive technique is proposed for vector quantization of images and video sequences. This technique is an extension of the recursively indexed scalar quantization (RISQ) algorithm.

Sayood, Khalid↗

The effects of carbonaceous inclusions and their distributions on dynamic failure processes in boron carbide ceramics

Commercially available boron carbide ceramics typically have heterogeneous microstructures that contain distributions of processing-induced inclusions. The inclusions that are rich in carbon (i.e., carbonaceous) govern the underlying mechanisms of brittle fracture through wing crack formation, and thus dictate the mechanical response of the ceramic. In this study, we investigate the dynamic failure of five boron carbide ceramic materials with different inclusion populations. All of the materials were prepared by hot-pressing; four of these boron carbides contained different sizes and concentrations of carbonaceous inclusions, while one contained no carbonaceous inclusions. The heterogeneity distributions were characterized in some detail for statistical analysis using scanning electron microscopy and quantitative image analysis. A modified compression Kolsky bar setup with in situ ultra-high-speed microscopic imaging (10 million frames per second) was then used to study the influence of the inclusion distributions on the dynamic failure processes in these materials, at nominal high strain rates of 10 2 -10 3 s -1 . The in situ ultra-high-speed microscopy highlighted the link between micro and macroscale failure processes and demonstrated that the carbonaceous inclusions are indeed the preferential sites for nucleation of wing cracks, as previously hypothesized based on post-mortem observations. The relative orientation of an inclusion with respect to the compression axis was shown to affect the likelihood that it would participate in crack nucleation. In conclusion, all of the ceramics were also found to have orientation-dependent peak compressive stress, regardless of the presence of carbonaceous inclusions, suggesting that grain orientation distributions are also important.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Damage Tolerance of Sandwich Plates With Debonded Face Sheets

A nonlinear finite element analysis was performed to simulate axial compression of sandwich beams with debonded face sheets. The load - end-shortening diagrams were generated for a variety of specimens used in a previous experimental study. The energy release rate at the crack tip was computed using the J-integral, and plotted as a function of the load. A detailed stress analysis was performed and the critical stresses in the face sheet and the core were computed. The core was also modeled as an isotropic elastic-perfectly plastic material and a nonlinear post buckling analysis was performed. A Graeco-Latin factorial plan was used to study the effects of debond length, face sheet and core thicknesses, and core density on the load carrying capacity of the sandwich composite. It has been found that a linear buckling analysis is inadequate in determining the maximum load a debonded sandwich beam can carry. A nonlinear post-buckling analysis combined with an elastoplastic model of the core is required to predict the compression behavior of debonded sandwich beams.

Sankar, Bhavani V.↗

Design and development of a facility for compressible dynamic stall studies of a rapidly pitching airfoil

A facility for the study of dynamic stall of an airfoil undergoing a transient ramp-type pitching motion is described. The facility can produce pitch rates of 3600 deg/sec to an angle of attack of 60 deg by using a specially designed hydraulic drive with feedback control. The ramp motion generator can also generate arbitrary motion of the airfoil and thus can simulate an arbitrary aircraft maneuver. A unique airfoil support system allows unobstructed flow visualization including the complete airfoil contour, thus permitting the use of nonintrusive optical diagnostic methods for flow measurement close to the surface as well as simultaneous far-field measurements. Schlieren pictures obtained during the study reveal the instantaneous density gradients associated with dynamic stall, even under conditions of very low Mach numbers.

Chandrasekhara, M. S.↗

Turbulent boundary layer in an adverse pressure gradient without effect of wall curvature

The hypersonic compressible turbulent boundary layer in an adverse pressure gradient along a cylindrical axisymmetric body was studied. The tests were conducted in a Mach 6 contoured axisymmetric nozzle. An external compression cowl was used to produce the gradual adverse pressure gradient and a maximum pressure rise of 7 times the freestream static pressure was achieved in a test region of 23 cm. Boundary layer profiles of static pressure, total pressure, and total temperature, as well as wall transient heat transfer rates were measured. Comparisons of the velocity total temperature profiles to linear and quadratic relations were made. Measured heat transfer data were in good agreement with the prediction from the flat-plate reference enthalpy method. Integral parameters were also in good agreement with results of numerical solutions for compressible turbulent boundary layer equations.

Zakkay, V.↗

High strain-rate strength response of single crystal tantalum through in-situ hole closure imaging experiments

The properties of crystalline materials often depend on directionality and operating conditions. Specifically, the strength of materials can depend anisotropically on crystal direction and the loading condition. To probe these effects, a preliminary series of high strain-rate (> 105/s) strength plate-impact hole closure experiments were performed on high purity single crystal Tantalum cubes. The orientation of the single crystals with respect to impact/loading were varied to provide data to inform crystal plasticity modeling efforts. The experiments consist of in-situ high-resolution X-ray radiographic imaging of the hole collapse under dynamic compression conditions to infer the material strength via its resistance to closure at increasing levels of plastic strain. The experiments are compared against hydrocode simulation predictions. Here, a comparison with simple elastic perfectly plastic strength model predictions is presented to elucidate the response of the different crystal orientations at high strain-rate and large plastic strains.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Spike-and-Slab Shrinkage Priors for Structurally Sparse Bayesian Neural Networks

Network complexity and computational efficiency have become increasingly significant aspects of deep learning. Sparse deep learning addresses these challenges by recovering a sparse representation of the underlying target function by reducing heavily overparameterized deep neural networks. Specifically, deep neural architectures compressed via structured sparsity (e.g., node sparsity) provide low-latency inference, higher data throughput, and reduced energy consumption. In this article, we explore two well-established shrinkage techniques, Lasso and Horseshoe, for model compression in Bayesian neural networks (BNNs). To this end, we propose structurally sparse BNNs, which systematically prune excessive nodes with the following: 1) spike-and-slab group Lasso (SS-GL) and 2) SS group Horseshoe (SS-GHS) priors, and develop computationally tractable variational inference, including continuous relaxation of Bernoulli variables. We establish the contraction rates of the variational posterior of our proposed models as a function of the network topology, layerwise node cardinalities, and bounds on the network weights. Furthermore, we empirically demonstrate the competitive performance of our models compared with the baseline models in prediction accuracy, model compression, and inference latency.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Relativistic gas accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries from inspiral through merger

Accreting supermassive black hole binaries are powerful multimessenger sources emitting both gravitational and electromagnetic (EM) radiation. Understanding the accretion dynamics of these systems and predicting their distinctive EM signals is crucial to informing and guiding upcoming efforts aimed at detecting gravitational waves produced by these binaries. To this end, accurate numerical modeling is required to describe both the spacetime and the magnetized gas around the black holes. In this paper, we present two key advances in this field of research. First, we have developed a novel 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) framework that combines multiple numerical codes to simulate the inspiral and merger of supermassive black hole binaries starting from realistic initial data and running all the way through merger. Throughout the evolution, we adopt a simple but functional prescription to account for gas cooling through photon emission. Next, we have applied our new computational method to follow the time evolution of a circular, equal-mass, nonspinning black hole binary for ∼200 orbits, starting from a separation of 20⁢𝑟 𝑔 and reaching the postmerger evolutionary stage of the system. We have shown how mass continues to flow toward the binary even after the binary “decouples” from its surrounding disk, but the accretion rate onto the black holes diminishes. We have identified how the minidisks orbiting each black hole are slowly drained and eventually dissolve as the binary compresses. We confirm previous findings that the system’s luminosity decreases by a factor of a few during inspiral; however, we observe an abrupt increase by ∼50% in this quantity at the time of merger, likely accompanied by an equally abrupt change in spectrum. Lastly, we have demonstrated that during the inspiral, fluid ram pressure regulates the fraction of the magnetic flux transported to the binary that attaches to the black holes’ horizons.

Accretion disk & black-hole plasma↗

The design of a digital voice data compression technique for orbiter voice channels

Voice bandwidth compression techniques were investigated to anticipate link margin difficulties in the shuttle S-band communication system. It was felt that by reducing the data rate on each voice channel from the baseline 24 (or 32) Kbps to 8 Kbps, additional margin could be obtained. The feasibility of such an alternate voice transmission system was studied. Several factors of prime importance that were addressed are: (1) achieving high quality voice at 8 Kbps; (2) performance in the presence of the anticipated shuttle cabin environmental noise; (3) performance in the presence of the anticipated channel error statistics; and (4) minimal increase in size, weight, and power over the current baseline voice processor.

Source record↗

System design for the digitally implemented communications experiment /DICE/

Full-duplex digital television providing a teleconference capability is to be evaluated in an experimental program utilizing the Communications Technology Satellite. The digitally implemented communications experiment employs a QPSK modulator-demodulator capable of operation over a wide range of bit rates. In addition to simultaneous data transmission (used for digital high-speed facsimiles and remote computer terminals), voice transmission through four-to-one compression will be studied.

Gatfield, A. G.↗

High temporal resolution observations of electron heating at the bow shock

Results deduced from highly time-resolved electron plasma profiles of earth's bow shock obtained with fast-plasma-experiment instrumentation on ISEE 1 and 2 are presented. Emphasis is placed on those bow-shock crossings that occurred during periods of high-data-rate transmission, so that the detailed structure of the bow-shock transition for electrons is discerned. The measurements indicate that electron thermalization and density compression are generally synchronized, although exceptions to this rule occur. In a few examples where direct comparison with magnetic-field measurements is possible, the electron-temperature and density profiles at the bow shock are found to be nearly identical to that of the field intensity. The measurements also reveal an interesting feature of the bow-shock profile, viz., an electron-pressure overshoot lasting several tens of seconds and generally followed by an undershoot, which gives the shock profile the appearance of a damped wave.

Bame, S. J.↗

The solution of the three-dimensional viscous-compressible Navier-Stokes equations on a vector computer

The development of a vectorized computer code for the solution of the three-dimensional viscous-compressible Navier-Stokes equations is described. The code is applied on the CDC STAR-100 vector computer which is capable of achieving high result rates when a high degree of parallelism is present in the computations. The computational technique is an explicit time-split MacCormack predictor-corrector algorithm. Since a large volume of data is processed and virtual memory utilized, a data management scheme based on interleaving is used. The program has been applied to obtain the solution of the laminar supersonic flow about a family of three-dimensional corners. The equations of motion are expressed in a generalized form relative to a uniform rectangular computational domain. The metric coefficient and boundary conditions must be supplied for the corresponding physical domain. For calculations with 30,000 grid points, a computational rate of 0.00015 seconds per grid point per time step is observed.

Smith, R. E.↗

Statistical tests of ARIES data

Statistical tests are performed on Project ARIES preliminary baseline measurements in the Southern California triangle formed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, and the Goldstone tracking complex during 1976-1980. In addition to conventional one-dimensional tests a two-dimensional test which allows for an arbitrary correlation between errors in individual components is formulated using the Hotelling statistic. On two out of three baselines the mean rate of change in baseline vector is statistically significant. Apparent motions on all three baselines are consistent with a pure shear with north-south compression and east-west expansion of 1 x 10 to the -7th/year. The ARIES measurements are consistent with the USGS geodolite networks in Southern California and the SAFE laser satellite ranging experiment. All three experiments are consistent with a 6 cm/year motion between the Pacific and North American Plates and a band of diffuse shear 300 km wide, except that corresponding rotation of the entire triangle is not found.

Musman, S.↗