Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Power Law”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 127 records · Page 7

Evidence for a continuous, power law, electron density irregularity spectrum

The spectral form of the irregularities in electron density that cause interplanetary scintillation (IPS) of small angular diameter radio sources is discussed. The intensity scintillation technique always yields an irregularity scale size, which is of the order of the first Fresnel zone for the wavelength at which the observations are taken. This includes not only the radio wavelength measurements of the structure of the interplanetary medium, but also radio wavelength measurements of the irregularity structure of the ionosphere and interstellar medium, and optical wavelength measurements of the irregularity structure of the atmosphere.

Cronyn, W. M.↗

Power law rheology of ice and the relaxation style and retention of craters on Ganymede

A numerical finite element model of viscous relaxation of craters in ice is presented which incorporates rheological data for ice at temperatures and pressures appropriated to the near-surface regions of Ganymede. For temperature gradients in reasonable agreement with those obtained from thermal and structural models of Ganymede, relaxation times greater than 10 to the 7th years were obtained for craters with diameters less than 100 km. For all craters with diameters greater than 10 km, the dependence of viscosity on stress was found to significantly shorten the relaxation time. The rheological laws which dominate crater relaxation are discussed for craters of various sizes. The results are compared with imagery from Voyager.

Thomas, Paul J.↗

The kink instability in infinite cylindrical flux tubes - Eigenvalues for power-law twist profiles

Simple, accurate methods of calculating ideal MHD instability eigenvalues for infinitely long cylindrical tubes with twist function T(r) are developed. The results show that the most rapidly growing and energetic instabilities occur in the Gold-Hoyle v = 0 field, with the instability progressively weakening with increasing v. However, the maximum force eigenvalue is always small, so that even in the Gold-Hoyle case only a small proportion of the available magnetic energy can be released in the linear phase. The results also confirm that the linear pinch is remarkably weak yet relatively resistant to line-tying. It is shown that the weakness of the force eigenvalue implies that the influence of uniform gas pressure on stability is negligible. Implications for the energy-release mechanism in solar flares are discussed.

Craig, I. J. D.↗

The relationship between plate velocity and trench viscosity in Newtonian and power-law subduction calculations

The relationship between oceanic trench viscosity and oceanic plate velocity is studied using a Newtonian rheology by varying the viscosity at the trench. The plate velocity is a function of the trench viscosity for fixed Rayleigh number and plate/slab viscosity. Slab velocities for non-Newtonian rheology calculations are significantly different from slab velocities from Newtonian rheology calculations at the same effective Rayleigh number. Both models give reasonable strain rates for the slab when compared with estimates of seismic strain rate. Non-Newtonian rheology eliminates the need for imposed weak zones and provides a self-consistent fluid dynamical mechanism for subduction in numerical convection models.

King, Scott D.↗

Compton scattering and the gamma-ray power-law spectrum in Markarian 421

The nearest BL Lac object, Mrk 421, has a gamma-ray spectrum which is approximately flat in EF-sub E from E less than about 50 MeV to E greater than about 1 TeV. Inverse Compton scattering can explain this smooth spectrum, despite the structure in the Klein-Nishina cross section, if the injected electron distribution function is proportional to gamma exp -2, where gamma is the electron Lorentz factor. When this is the case, the structure imprinted on the steady state electron distribution function by the structure in the Klein-Nishina cross section is almost exactly compensated in the radiated spectrum. Because particle acceleration in strong shocks injects particles with this distribution function, this shape injection function is in fact quite plausible. Other blazars may be explained by the same model if the cutoff below TeV energies observed in other objects is due to pair production on the cosmological IR background, as suggested by Stecker et al. (1992).

Zdziarski, Andrzej A.↗

Stochastic Mixing Model with Power Law Decay of Variance

Here we present a simple stochastic mixing model based on the law of large numbers (LLN). The reason why the LLN is involved in our formulation of the mixing problem is that the random conserved scalar c = c(t,x(t)) appears to behave as a sample mean. It converges to the mean value mu, while the variance sigma(sup 2)(sub c) (t) decays approximately as t(exp -1). Since the variance of the scalar decays faster than a sample mean (typically is greater than unity), we will introduce some non-linear modifications into the corresponding pdf-equation. The main idea is to develop a robust model which is independent from restrictive assumptions about the shape of the pdf. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we derive the integral equation from a stochastic difference equation describing the evolution of the pdf of a passive scalar in time. The stochastic difference equation introduces an exchange rate gamma(sub n) which we model in a first step as a deterministic function. In a second step, we generalize gamma(sub n) as a stochastic variable taking fluctuations in the inhomogeneous environment into account. In Section 3 we solve the non-linear integral equation numerically and analyze the influence of the different parameters on the decay rate. The paper finishes with a conclusion.

Fedotov, S.↗

HMI Data Driven Magnetohydrodynamic Model Predicted Active Region Photospheric Heating Rates: Their Scale Invariant, Flare Like Power Law Distributions, and Their Possible Association With Flares

There are many flare forecasting models. For an excellent review and comparison of some of them see Barnes et al. (2016). All these models are successful to some degree, but there is a need for better models. We claim the most successful models explicitly or implicitly base their forecasts on various estimates of components of the photospheric current density J, based on observations of the photospheric magnetic field B. However, none of the models we are aware of compute the complete J. We seek to develop a better model based on computing the complete photospheric J. Initial results from this model are presented in this talk. We present a data driven, near photospheric, 3 D, non-force free magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model that computes time series of the total J, and associated resistive heating rate in each pixel at the photosphere in the neutral line regions (NLRs) of 14 active regions (ARs). The model is driven by time series of B measured by the Helioseismic & Magnetic Imager (HMI) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite. Spurious Doppler periods due to SDO orbital motion are filtered out of the time series of B in every AR pixel. Errors in B due to these periods can be significant.

Goodman, Michael L.↗