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At least 1,153 records · Page 64

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NASA NTRS1989

Size-frequency distributions of chondrules in CO3 chondrites

The size-frequency distributions of chondrules were determined for eleven CO3 chondrites (including ALHA77003, ALHA77307, ALH82101, ALH85003, Colony, Felix, Isna, Kainsaz, Lance, Ornans, and Warrenton), using the results of petrographic analyses of thin sections. The mean proportion of different chondrule types in CO3 chondrites were estimated to be 69 percent POP, 18 percent PP, 8 percent PO, 2 percent BO, 2 percent RP, 1 percent C, and less than 0.1 percent GOP. These proportions are very different from those in ordinary or EH and CV chondrites, with the smaller proportion of nonporphyritic chondrules than EH chondrites, but a larger proportion than CV chondrites. Relative proportions of chondrule types vary with size interval; thus, with decreasing chondrule size, PO chondrules decrease fairly regularly in abundance, while RP chondrules are most abundant in the smallest size intervals.

Rubin, Alan E.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Analysis of gamma prime shape changes in a single crystal Ni-base superalloy

The microstructural evolution of a commercial single crystal superalloy, NASAIR 100, is analyzed using the existing high-temperature lattice mismatch data and high-temperature moduli obtained from tests on single crystals of gamma and gamma prime. A multiparticle analysis of the microstructural evolution is performed using a novel microstructural lattice simulation technique, MCFET. Under a uniaxial stress, a regular array of gamma prime particles in the simulated microstructure is predicted to coalesce and form a plate morphology, with the broad faces of the plates and stress axis perpendicular in tension but parallel in compression. These results are consistent with changes in gamma prime shape observed in NASAIR 100 following creep testing at 1000 C.

Gayda, J.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Maximum entropy deconvolution of the optical jet of 3C 273

The technique of maximum entropy image restoration is applied to the problem of deconvolving the point spread function from a deep, high-quality V band image of the optical jet of 3C 273. The resulting maximum entropy image has an approximate spatial resolution of 0.6 arcsec and has been used to study the morphology of the optical jet. Four regularly-spaced optical knots are clearly evident in the data, together with an optical 'extension' at each end of the optical jet. The jet oscillates around its center of gravity, and the spatial scale of the oscillations is very similar to the spacing between the optical knots. The jet is marginally resolved in the transverse direction and has an asymmetric profile perpendicular to the jet axis. The distribution of V band flux along the length of the jet, and accurate astrometry of the optical knot positions are presented.

Evans, I. N.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Voyager 2 at Neptune - Imaging science results

Neptune's atmosphere is revealed by Voyager 2 images to contain clouds of methane ice above a lower deck of hydrogen sulfide or ammonia ices, and to be dominated by an anticyclonic storm system designated the 'Great Dark Spot'; this bears both similarities and differences to the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. Like the rings of Uranus, those of Neptune are composed of very dark, but in addition very dusty, material. Six new regular satellites have been discovered whose radii range from 25 to 200 km. Triton is noted to be a differentiated body showing evidence of early surface-melting episodes. At least two active plumes are found on Triton, which may be driven by solar heating.

Smith, B. A.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Voyager planetary radio astronomy at Neptune

Detection of very intense short radio bursts from Neptune was possible as early as 30 days before closest approach and at least 22 days after closest approach. The bursts lay at frequencies in the range 100 to 1300 kilohertz, were narrowband and strongly polarized, and presumably originated in southern polar regions of the planet. Episodes of smooth emissions in the frequency range from 20 to 865 kilohertz were detected during an interval of at least 10 days around closest approach. The bursts and the smooth emissions can be described in terms of rotation in a period of 16.11 + or - 0.05 hours. The bursts came at regular intervals throughout the encounter, including episodes both before and after closest approach. The smooth emissions showed a half-cycle phase shift between the five episodes before and after closest approach. This experiment detected the foreshock of Neptune's magnetosphere and the impacts of dust at the times of ring-plane crossings and also near the time of closest approach. Finally, there is no evidence for Neptunian electrostatic discharges.

Warwick, James W.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Experimental study of the dynamics of a ruby laser pumped by a CW argon-ion laser

A study of the dynamics of a ruby laser pumped by a CW argon-ion laser is presented. The ruby laser is predominantly stable but has two accessible unstable states. One state exhibits chaotic output, while the other results in regular self-pulsing. The conditions needed for instability are discussed and homodyne spectra and temporal maps of the phase-space attractors are obtained. In addition, a numerical simulation of nonlinear beam propagation in ruby is presented that shows that strong deviations from plane-wave behavior exist, and that transverse effects must be incorporated into theoretical models of the instability.

Afzal, R. S.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Sampling characteristics of satellite orbits

The irregular space-time sampling of any finite region by an orbiting satellite raises difficult questions as to which frequencies and wavenumbers can be determined and which will alias into others. Conventional sampling theorems must be extended to account for both irregular data distributions and observational noise - the sampling irregularity making the system much more susceptible to noise than in regularly sampled cases. The problem is formulated here in terms of least-squares and applied to spacecraft in 10-day and 17-day repeating orbits. The 'diamond-pattern' laid down spatially in such repeating orbits means that either repeat period adequately samples the spatial variables, but the slow overall temporal coverage in the 17-day pattern leads to much greater uncertainty than in the shorter repeat cycle. The result is not definitive and it is not concluded that a 10-day orbit repeat is the most appropriate one. A major conclusion, however, is that different orbital choices have potentially quite different sampling characteristics which need to be analyzed in terms of the spectral characteristics of the moving sea surface.

Wunsch, Carl↗

NASA NTRS1990

Fresh look at floating shock fitting

A fast implicit upwind procedure for the two-dimensional Euler equations is described that allows accurate computations of shocked flows on nonadapted meshes. Away from shocks, the second-order accurate upwinding is based on the split-coefficient-matrix (SCM) method. In the presence of shocks, the difference stencils are modified using a floating shock fitting technique. Rapid convergence to steady-state solutions is attained with a diagonalized approximate factorization (AF) algorithm. Results are presented for Riemann's problem, for a regular shock reflection at an inviscid wall, for supersonic flow past a cylinder, and for a transonic airfoil. All computed shocks are ideally sharp and in excellent agreement with other numerical results or 'exact' solutions. Most importantly, this has been accomplished on unusually crude meshes without any attempt to align grid lines with shock fronts or to cluster grid lines around shocks.

Hartwich, PETER-M.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Calculation of turbulence-driven secondary motion in ducts with arbitrary cross-section

Calculation methods for turbulent duct flows are generalized for ducts with arbitrary cross-sections. The irregular physical geometry is transformed into a regular one in computational space, and the flow equations are solved with a finite-volume numerical procedure. The turbulent stresses are calculated with an algebraic stress model derived by simplifying model transport equations for the individual Reynolds stresses. Two variants of such a model are considered. These procedures enable the prediction of both the turbulence-driven secondary flow and the anisotropy of the Reynolds stresses, in contrast to some of the earlier calculation methods. Model predictions are compared to experimental data for developed flow in triangular duct, trapezoidal duct and a rod-bundle geometry. The correct trends are predicted, and the quantitative agreement is mostly fair. The simpler variant of the algebraic stress model procured better agreement with the measured data.

Demuren, A. O.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Vibration analysis using digital correlation

This paper demonstrates the use of a computer-based optical method for locating the positions of nodes and antinodes in vibrating members. Structured light patterns are projected at an angle onto the vibrating surface using a 35 mm slide projector. The vibrating surface and the projected images are captured in a time averaged photograph which is subsequently digitized. The inherent fringe patterns are filtered to determine amplitudes of vibration, and computer programs are used to compare the time averaged images to images recorded prior to excitation to locate nodes and antinodes. Some of the influences of pattern regularity on digital correlation are demonstrated, and a speckle-based method for determining the mode shapes and the amplitudes of vibration with variable sensitivity is suggested.

Gilbert, John A.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Unsteady disturbances of streaming motions around bodies

The present investigation of flows around bodies with a stagnation point notes that the vortical part of such flows becomes singular along the entire body surface and its wake; as a result, the potential part of the flow will also be singular along the entire surface. A modified splitting of the velocity field is proposed which encompasses: (1) a vortical part having zero streamwise and normal components along the body surface; (2) an entropy-dependent part; and (3) a regular part similar to the potential part which satisfies a linear inhomogeneous wave equation with a modified source term.

Atassi, H. M.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Intertwining thesauri and dictionaries

The use of dictionaries and thesauri in information retrieval is discussed. The structure and functions of thesauri and dictionaries are described. Particular attention is given to the format of the NASA Thesaurus. The relationship between thesauri and dictionaries, the need to regularize terminology, and the capitalization of words are examined.

Buchan, R. L.↗

NASA NTRS1990

On the Lagrangian description of unsteady boundary-layer separation. I - General theory

Although unsteady, high-Reynolds number, laminar boundary layers have conventionally been studied in terms of Eulerian coordinates, a Lagrangian approach may have significant analytical and computational advantages. In Lagrangian coordinates the classical boundary layer equations decouple into a momentum equation for the motion parallel to the boundary, and a hyperbolic continuity equation (essentially a conserved Jacobian) for the motion normal to the boundary. The momentum equations, plus the energy equation if the flow is compressible, can be solved independently of the continuity equation. Unsteady separation occurs when the continuity equation becomes singular as a result of touching characteristics, the condition for which can be expressed in terms of the solution of the momentum equations. The solutions to the momentum and energy equations remain regular. Asymptotic structures for a number of unsteady 3-D separating flows follow and depend on the symmetry properties of the flow. In the absence of any symmetry, the singularity structure just prior to separation is found to be quasi 2-D with a displacement thickness in the form of a crescent shaped ridge. Physically the singularities can be understood in terms of the behavior of a fluid element inside the boundary layer which contracts in a direction parallel to the boundary and expands normal to it, thus forcing the fluid above it to be ejected from the boundary layer.

Van Dommelen, Leon L.↗

NASA NTRS1990

The augmented Lagrangian method for parameter estimation in elliptic systems

In this paper a new technique for the estimation of parameters in elliptic partial differential equations is developed. It is a hybrid method combining the output-least-squares and the equation error method. The new method is realized by an augmented Lagrangian formulation, and convergence as well as rate of convergence proofs are provided. Technically the critical step is the verification of a coercivity estimate of an appropriately defined Lagrangian functional. To obtain this coercivity estimate a seminorm regularization technique is used.

Ito, Kazufumi↗

NASA NTRS1989

Comparison of thermal (FLIR) and television images

The human eye is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation in the 0.4 to 0.7 micron band (light). Thermal imaging (TI) systems are sensitive to heat radiation in the infrared band (3-5 or 8-14 microns) and are capable of transforming the distribution of relative temperatures in a scene into a visible TV image. The present experiment was designed to investigate the impact of the difference between TIs and regular TV images on the detection and identification of natural and man-made targets. Parallel TV and TI videotapes were recorded during helicopter flights. Fifteen subjects who viewed both the TV and the TI images (separately), were asked to detect predefined targets and to identify features pointed out to them by the experimenter. In general, performance with TVs was superior to performance with TIs in terms of response times and errors. However, subjects required significantly less time to detect man-made objects with TIs than with TVs. The correlation between the performance of the same task with the two kinds of images was very low. The results are discussed in terms of image quality and in terms of humans' internal representations of natural categories.

Brickner, Michael S.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Apparent limitations of head-up-displays and thermal imaging systems

A simulated helicopter flight through a slalom course was presented on a Silicon Graphics IRIS 3130. The display represented the major visual characteristics of thermal images. Subjects were asked to maintain a designated altitude, while flying a slalom course between regularly spaced pylons. The presence of some of the high frequency details in the image improved subjects' ability to reach and maintain the correct altitude. A head-up-display helped in maintaining altitude, but impaired maneuvering around the poles. The results are interpreted in terms of the competition for visual resources between the HUD and the world view.

Brickner, Michael S.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Stabilization functions of unforced cumulus clouds - Their nature and components

The nature and the spatial distribution of cumuli within an unforced cumulus cloud field are investigated. The thermodynamic effects of convection are quantified as functions of changes of convective available potential energy (CAPE) induced by the convective overturning, and the time rate of change of CAPE is parameterized in terms of a kernel of influence or stabilization function. A three-dimensional cloud model is used to infer and quantify stabilization functions by performing single-cloud experiments. On the basis of the results obtained, a new hypothesis with respect to the spatial distribution of cumuli is postulated, which states that, under completely homogeneous external conditions and assuming a spatially random distribution of cloud-triggering mechanisms, the spatial distribution of cumuli in the resulting cloud field must be regular, as opposed to either random or clustered, because cumulus clouds tend to reduce the available energy for convection, thereby inhibiting further convection nearby.

Ramirez, Jorge A.↗

NASA NTRS1990

A comparison between bright points in a coronal hole and a quiet-sun region

A comparison is made of the morphological structure and temporal behavior of the emission from coronal bright points in a coronal hole and a quiet region, using data from the Harvard EUV experiment on Skylab. It is found that, in both regions, coronal bright points are located at network boundaries and cover a range of sizes from 10 to 40 in in linear extent. In a given bright pint, the peaks of emission in the six different lines, measured simultaneously through the same instrument slit, are not always cospatial, implying that bright points consist of a complex of small-scale loops at different temperatures. The intensity of bright points in both regions is also characterized by a significant temporal variability in all the wavelengths measured. This variability exhibits no regular periodicity. Yet the ratio of the varying (ac) to the constant (dc) components of the emission, in all the bright points studied, has a local maximum at 1-2 x 10 to the 5th k which coincides with the peak of the radiative loss function, and another local maximum at Mg x (1.4 x 10 to the 6th K). It is found that coronal bright points in a coronal hole or a quiet region are indistinguishable structures, and, therefore, conclude that they are independent of the overlying background corona.

Habbal, Shadia Rifai↗