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At least 1,387 records · Page 77

Helicopter rotor loads using discretized matched asymptotic expansions

The numerical practicality of a matched asymptotic expansion approach for the computation of unsteady three dimensional airloads on a helicopter rotor was improved. This effort utilizes a discretized repesentation of the doublet strength distribution and helical streamlines to decrease the computational requirements of the original analysis. The continuous variation of the doublet strength was approximated by piecewise constant or piecewise quadratic distributions, and the helical trajectory of a fluid particle was approximated by connected straight line segments. As a direct result of these simplified representations the computational time required for the execution of a typical flight condition was reduced by an order of magnitude with respect to the requirements of the original analysis. Airloads which were computed using the discretized method for a two bladed model rotor and a full scale four bladed rotor are in close agreement with measured results and airloads from the original asymptotic analysis. For conditions characterized by significant rotor/wake interaction the piecewise constant representation requires a reduced azimuth spacing to maintain acceptable accuracy.

Pierce, G. A.↗

Thermal Analysis Methods for Aerobraking Heating

As NASA begins exploration of other planets, a method of non-propulsively slowing vehicles at the planet, aerobraking, may become a valuable technique for managing vehicle design mass and propellant. An example of this is Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which will launch in late 2005 and reach Mars in March of 2006. In order to save propellant, MRO will use aerobraking to modify the initial orbit at Mars. The spacecraft will dip into the atmosphere briefly on each orbit, and during the drag pass, the atmospheric drag on the spacecraft will slow it, thus lowering the orbit apoapsis. The largest area on the spacecraft, and that most affected by the heat generated during the aerobraking process, is the solar arrays. A thermal analysis of the solar arrays was conducted at NASA Langley, to simulate their performance throughout the entire roughly 6-month period of aerobraking. Several interesting methods were used to make this analysis more rapid and robust. Two separate models were built for this analysis, one in Thermal Desktop for radiation and orbital heating analysis, and one in MSC.Patran for thermal analysis. The results from the radiation model were mapped in an automated fashion to the Patran thermal model that was used to analyze the thermal behavior during the drag pass. A high degree of automation in file manipulation as well as other methods for reducing run time were employed, since toward the end of the aerobraking period the orbit period is short, and in order to support flight operations the runs must be computed rapidly. All heating within the Patran Thermal model was combined in one section of logic, such that data mapped from the radiation model and aeroheating model, as well as skin temperature effects on the aeroheating and surface radiation, could be incorporated easily. This approach calculates the aeroheating at any given node, based on its position and temperature as well as the density and velocity at that trajectory point. Run times on several different processors, computer hard drives, and operating systems (Windows versus Linux) were evaluated.

Amundsen, Ruth M.↗

Radiation Quality Effects on Transcriptome Profiles in 3-D Cultures After Charged Particle Irradiation

In this work, we evaluated the differential effects of low- and high-LET radiation on 3-D organotypic cultures in order to investigate radiation quality impacts on gene expression and cellular responses. Current risk models for assessment of space radiation-induced cancer have large uncertainties because the models for adverse health effects following radiation exposure are founded on epidemiological analyses of human populations exposed to low-LET radiation. Reducing these uncertainties requires new knowledge on the fundamental differences in biological responses (the so-called radiation quality effects) triggered by heavy ion particle radiation versus low-LET radiation associated with Earth-based exposures. In order to better quantify these radiation quality effects in biological systems, we are utilizing novel 3-D organotypic human tissue models for space radiation research. These models hold promise for risk assessment as they provide a format for study of human cells within a realistic tissue framework, thereby bridging the gap between 2-D monolayer culture and animal models for risk extrapolation to humans. To identify biological pathway signatures unique to heavy ion particle exposure, functional gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used with whole transcriptome profiling. GSEA has been used extensively as a method to garner biological information in a variety of model systems but has not been commonly used to analyze radiation effects. It is a powerful approach for assessing the functional significance of radiation quality-dependent changes from datasets where the changes are subtle but broad, and where single gene based analysis using rankings of fold-change may not reveal important biological information.

Patel, Zarana S.↗

Concurrent processing adaptation of aeroplastic analysis of propfans

Discussed here is a study involving the adaptation of an advanced aeroelastic analysis program to run concurrently on a shared memory multiple processor computer. The program uses a three-dimensional compressible unsteady aerodynamic model and blade normal modes to calculate aeroelastic stability and response of propfan blades. The identification of the computational parallelism within the sequential code and the scheduling of the concurrent subtasks to minimize processor idle time are discussed. Processor idle time in the calculation of the unsteady aerodynamic coefficients was reduced by the simple strategy of appropriately ordering the computations. Speedup and efficiency results are presented for the calculation of the matched flutter point of an experimental propfan model. The results show that efficiencies above 70 percent can be obtained using the present implementation with 7 processors. The parallel computational strategy described here is also applicable to other aeroelastic analysis procedures based on panel methods.

Janetzke, David C.↗

Concurrent processing adaptation of aeroelastic analysis of propfans

This paper reports on a study involving the adaptation of an advanced aeroelastic analysis program to run concurrently on a shared memory multiple processor computer. The program uses a three-dimensional compressible unsteady aerodynamic model and blade normal modes to calculate aeroelastic stability and response of propfan blades. The identification of the computational parallelism within the sequential code and the scheduling of the concurrent subtasks to minimize processor idle time are discussed. Processor idle time in the calculation of the unsteady aerodynamic coefficients was reduced by the simple strategy of appropriately ordering the computations. Speedup and efficiency results are presented for the calculation of the matched flutter point of an experimental propfan model. The results show that efficiencies above 70 percent can be obtained using the present implementation with 7 processors. The parallel computational strategy described here is also applicable to other aeroelastic analysis procedures based on parallel methods.

Murthy, Durbha V.↗

Concurrent processing adaptation of aeroelastic analysis of propfans

Discussed here is a study involving the adaptation of an advanced aeroelastic analysis program to run concurrently on a shared memory multiple processor computer. The program uses a three-dimensional compressible unsteady aerodynamic model and blade normal modes to calculate aeroelastic stability and response of propfan blades. The identification of the computational parallelism within the sequential code and the scheduling of the concurrent subtasks to minimize processor idle time are discussed. Processor idle time in the calculation of the unsteady aerodynamic coefficients was reduced by the simple strategy of appropriately ordering the computations. Speedup and efficiency results are presented for the calculation of the matched flutter point of an experimental propfan model. The results show that efficiencies above 70 percent can be obtained using the present implementation with 7 processors. The parallel computational strategy described here is also applicable to other aeroelastic analysis procedures based on panel methods.

Murthy, D. V.↗

Interplay of the Spin Density Wave and a Possible Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov State in CeCoIn 5 in Rotating Magnetic Field

The d-wave superconductor CeCoIn 5 has been proposed as a strong candidate for supporting the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state near the low-temperature boundary of its upper critical field. Neutron diffraction, however, finds spin-density-wave (SDW) order in this part of the phase diagram for field in the a-b plane, and evidence for the SDW disappears as the applied field is rotated toward the tetragonal c axis. It is important to understand the interplay between the SDW and a possible FFLO state in CeCoIn 5 , as the mere existence of an SDW does not necessarily exclude an FFLO state. In this work, based on a model constructed on the basis of available experiments, we show that an FFLO state competes with an SDW phase. The SDW state in CeCoIn 5 is stabilized when the field is directed close to the a-b plane. When the field is rotated toward the c axis, the FFLO state emerges, and the SDW phase disappears. In the FFLO state, the nodal planes with extra quasiparticles (where the superconducting order parameter is zero) are perpendicular to the field, and in the SDW phase, the quasiparticle density of states is reduced. We test this model prediction by measuring heat transported by normal quasiparticles in the superconducting state. As a function of field, we observe a reduction of thermal conductivity for field close to the a-b plane and an enhancement of thermal conductivity when field is close to the c axis, consistent with theoretical expectations. Our modeling and experiments, therefore, indicate the existence of the FFLO state when field is parallel to the c axis.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A physics-informed and hierarchically regularized data-driven model for predicting fluid flow through porous media

This paper presents a new deep learning data-driven model for predicting structure dependent pore-fluid velocity fields in rock. The model is based on a Convolutional Auto-Encoder (CAE) artificial neural network capable of learning from image data generated by direct numerical simulations of fluid flow through pore-structures, such as by Lattice Boltzmann or molecular dynamics methods. The main novelty of the model in comparison to previous CAE-based data-driven approaches consists of three parts. The first is a methodology for decomposing the full-domain of the porous media into sub-regions, or “sub-domains”, in order to reduce the overall size of the CAE, batch process the sub-domains in parallel, and enable the CAE to learn local and generalizable nonlinear mappings of pore-fluid velocities. The second consists of embedding the finite difference solutions of the incompressible Navier-Stokes and continuity equations into convolutional layers prior to the CAE in order to provide the CAE with knowledge of fluid dynamics physics (PhyFlow). The third main novelty is that the training of the CAE is regularized with a hierarchical loss function that encourages the learning of fluid flow patterns (in a way similar to ranked modes in principal component analysis), ranking from most to least important. This is shown to increase the stability in learning, reduce over-fitting, and promote interpretability of the CAE neural network layers (HierCAE). The comprehensive new data-driven model, which we call the PhyFlow-HierCAE model, is shown to exhibit improved accuracy and generalizability of flow field predictions over conventional CAE models, attributable to the embedded physical knowledge and the hierarchical regularization, as well as realize orders of magnitude speed-ups in computation times as a surrogate for the direct numerical simulations. Examples of training and forward predictions on unseen pore-structures are provided and evaluated for data from Lattice Boltzmann and molecular dynamics simulations of pore-fluid flow. The model is shown to be a fast and accurate emulator (or “surrogate”) for predicting effective permeability of unseen pore-structures based on learning from relatively small direct numerical simulation datasets.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Commensuration Effects in Layered Nanoparticle Solids.

We have developed a hierarchical nanoparticle transport simulator (HINTS) and adapted it to study commensuration effects in two classes of nanoparticle (NP) solids: (1) a bilayer NP solid (BNS) with an energy offset and (2) a BNS as part of a field effect transistor (FET). HINTS integrates the ab initio characterization of single NPs with the phonon-assisted tunneling transition model of the NP-NP transitions into a kinetic Monte Carlo based simulation of the charge transport in NP solids. First, we studied a BNS with an interlayer energy offset Delta, possibly caused by a fixed electric field. Our results include the following. First, in the independent energy-offset model, we observed the emergence of commensuration effects when scanning the electron filling factor (FF) across integer values. These commensuration effects were profound as they reduced the mobility by several orders of magnitude. We analyzed these commensuration effects in a five-dimensional parameter space, as a function of the on-site charging energy E-C, energy offset Delta, disorder D, the electron FF, and temperature k(B)T. We demonstrated the complexity of our model by showing that at integer FFs commensuration effects are present in some regions of the parameter space, while they vanish in other regions, thus defining distinct dynamical phases of the model. We determined the phase boundaries between these dynamical phases. Second, using these results as a foundation, we shifted our focus to the experimentally much-studied NP-FETs. NP-FETs are also characterized by an interlayer energy offset Delta, which, in contrast to our first model, is set by the gate voltage V-G and thereby related to the electron FF. We repeated many of our simulations and again demonstrated the emergence of commensuration effects and distinct dynamical phases in these NP-FETs. Notably, the commensuration effects in the NP-FETs showed many similarities to those in the independent energy-offset BNS.

Qu, Luman↗

Shape restricted additive hazards models: Monotone, unimodal, and U‐shape hazard functions

We consider estimation of the semiparametric additive hazards model with an unspecified baseline hazard function where the effect of a continuous covariate has a specific shape but otherwise unspecified. Such estimation is particularly useful for a unimodal hazard function, where the hazard is monotone increasing and monotone decreasing with an unknown mode. A popular approach of the proportional hazards model is limited in such setting due to the complicated structure of the partial likelihood. Our model defines a quadratic loss function, and its simple structure allows a global Hessian matrix that does not involve parameters. Thus, once the global Hessian matrix is computed, a standard quadratic programming method can be applicable by profiling all possible locations of the mode. However, the quadratic programming method may be inefficient to handle a large global Hessian matrix in the profiling algorithm due to a large dimensionality, where the dimension of the global Hessian matrix and number of hypothetical modes are the same order as the sample size. We propose the quadratic pool adjacent violators algorithm to reduce computational costs. The proposed algorithm is extended to the model with a time‐dependent covariate with monotone or U‐shape hazard function. In simulation studies, our proposed method improves computational speed compared to the quadratic programming method, with bias and mean square error reductions. We analyze data from a recent cardiovascular study.

Mathematical & Computational Biology↗

Calculations of particle-laden flows by second-moment closures

A differential second-moment closure is applied to calculate nonswirling turbulent particle-laden jet flow. The closure is effected by extending constant-density single-phase turbulence models to the continuous (carrier) phase of two-phase flow. The dispersed (discrete) phase is treated by stochastic-Lagrangian technique. To reduce the effects of numerical (false) diffusion on the predicted results, a higher order differencing scheme, namely the flux-spline, is employed. In addition, an experimental study is conducted to provide data of good quality, especially near the inlet, for model assessment. The experiment consists of a confined coaxial jet flow of air with glass beads. The beads' diameter is 105 microns and is injected from the inner jet with a mass loading ratio of 0.9. The computed results are in good agreement with experimental data, especially for the carrier phase. However, the predicted turbulence fluctuations associated with the discrete phase are lower than the data at the downstream region of the flow field.

Nikjooy, M.↗

Orbit determination for low-thrust spacecraft: Concepts and analysis

Earth-based orbit determination capability for SEP spacecraft in multistation tracking and in thrust subsystem error modeling is described. Five different tracking strategies are applied to a 15 day segment of an Encke rendezvous mission. Both optimal and suboptimal orbit determination performance are determined for a wide range of process noise parameter values. The multi-station tracking techniques are found to be extremely effective, reducing orbit determination errors by orders of magnitude over that obtained with conventional single-station tracking. Explicitly differenced multistation data (QVLBI) is found to be least sensitive to gross modeling errors, but if a reasonably good process noise model is available, explicit differencing is not required.

Mcdanell, J. P.↗

An evaluation of multi-fidelity methods for quantifying uncertainty in projections of ice-sheet mass change

Abstract. This study investigated the computational benefits of using multi-fidelity statistical estimation (MFSE) algorithms to quantify uncertainty in the mass change of Humboldt Glacier, Greenland, between 2007 and 2100 using a single climate change scenario. The goal of this study was to determine whether MFSE can use multiple models of varying cost and accuracy to reduce the computational cost of estimating the mean and variance of the projected mass change of a glacier. The problem size and complexity were chosen to reflect the challenges posed by future continental-scale studies while still facilitating a computationally feasible investigation of MFSE methods. When quantifying uncertainty introduced by a high-dimensional parameterization of the basal friction field, MFSE was able to reduce the mean-squared error in the estimates of the statistics by well over an order of magnitude when compared to a single-fidelity approach that only used the highest-fidelity model. This significant reduction in computational cost was achieved despite the low-fidelity models used being incapable of capturing the local features of the ice-flow fields predicted by the high-fidelity model. The MFSE algorithms were able to effectively leverage the high correlation between each model's predictions of mass change, which all responded similarly to perturbations in the model inputs. Consequently, our results suggest that MFSE could be highly useful for reducing the cost of computing continental-scale probabilistic projections of sea-level rise due to ice-sheet mass change.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Baselining the Indirect Effect by Improving Quantification of Sea Spray and Marine Sources at Ascension Island (Final Report)

Oceans cover two-thirds of the Earth and understanding the interactions of aerosols with clouds in these large marine regions requires quantifying the man-made contributions to the budget of cloud-drop forming particles (known as cloud condensation nuclei, or CCN) relative to the non-manmade “baseline” conditions and understanding the meteorology of boundary layer clouds. Modeling studies have shown substantial uncertainties and sensitivities to natural marine CCN sources, meaning that to reduce uncertainties in indirect effects we must be able to better quantify the CCN budget in ocean regions. While models provide important constraints on these uncertainties, actually reducing uncertainties requires substantial observations in open-ocean and coastal regions in order to establish the baseline on which manmade emissions are added. The tropical South Atlantic Ocean is one of the least-sampled regions of the planet, making the comprehensive measurements of the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC) campaign provides the longest record of aerosol size distribution measurements from a differential mobility analyzer in a cloud-influenced marine location in the ARM database, with 17 months of ground-based aerosol size distribution measurements. This project addressed the research topic of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions (ACI) by supporting three publications from the LASIC measurements: 1. The ARM measurements were combined with a new value-added technique that was pioneered by the Russell group for quantifying sea salt. This quantification of sea salt uses supermicron scattering measurements for retrieving reasonable sea spray mass concentrations, providing the best-available, observationally-constrained estimate of the sea spray mode properties when supermicron size distribution measurements are not available. 2. The fitted modes of the distribution were used to investigate the signatures of cloud processing for very clean to very smoky aerosol conditions, revealing not only differences in the particles that activate in clouds but also in the mechanisms that control that droplet formation process. In clean air, the size required to form a cloud droplet is influenced by the number of particles, as well as how quickly particles take up water during growth in cloud. 3. Building on this aerosol characterization, cloud and meteorological conditions were used to evaluate aerosol-related changes in cloud albedo and optical depth. We introduced a new method of decomposing the impact of aerosols on clouds known as the Twomey effect by incorporating retrieved supersaturation from two independent sets of observations to constrain the feedback of aerosol particles on cloud properties. The method quantifies the reduction of the Twomey effect at high aerosol concentrations, which has never been explained quantitatively by observations. In addition, the results provide the first direct validation for the conditions observed in the tropical South Atlantic of a parcel-based approach that is embedded in many climate models. Together these findings illustrate how ARM extended field campaigns in stratocumulus-covered regions can be used to constrain ACI processes with direct observations, providing specific radiative effects without models. By making such process-specific constraints available to improve ACI in global climate models, ARM observations play a key role in supporting model development.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Integrated Security-Safety Consequence Study of a Heat Pipe Reactor

This report presents a preliminary demonstration of integrated security/safety consequence modeling to support potential physical security exemption justifications under the new Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations Part 53 licensing pathway, which allows exemptions if sabotage-induced radiological consequences do not exceed 25 rem at the site boundary two hours after release without mitigative actions. A hypothetical heat pipe microreactor subjected to direct sabotage by a 150 lbs. TNT-equivalent high-explosive device was analyzed using a simplified radionuclide release estimate based on DOE-HDBK-3010-94, implemented in the MELCOR severe accident analysis code to model release transport and attenuation through reactor/building compartments, with MELCOR outputs coupled to MACCS to compute offsite doses and the distance-to-threshold metric D 25rem . Six scenarios were evaluated to examine sensitivities to release pathway/building configuration and radionuclide form (vapor versus aerosols with different size distributions). Results show a positive correlation between leak path factor and D 25rem and indicate that reactor building compartmentalization can substantially reduce consequences (a single-story configuration reduced D 25rem by roughly an order of magnitude relative to a cavity-only configuration), while vapor versus aerosol assumptions had limited impact for the modeled two-story case on the spatial grid used.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Learning Hidden Structure in Multi-Fidelity Information Sources for Efficient Uncertainty Quantification (LDRD 218317)

This report summarizes the work done under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project entitled "Learning Hidden Structure in Multi-Fidelity Information Sources for Efficient Uncertainty Quantification". In this project we investigated multi-fidelity strategies for fusing data from information sources of varying cost and accuracy. Most existing strategies exploit hierarchical relationships between models, for example that occur when different models are generated by refining a numerical discretization parameter. In this work we focused on encoding the relationships between information sources using directed acyclic graphs. The multi-fidelity networks can have general structure and represent a significantly greater variety of modeling relationships than recursive networks used in the current state literature. Numerical results show that a non-hierarchical multi-fidelity Monte Carlo strategy can reduce the cost of estimating uncertainty in predictions of a model of plasma expanding in a vacuum by almost two orders of magnitude.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

A tentative unified sea model for scattering and emission

This work is an attempt to relate active and passive observations of the sea surface to each other, considering that more information can be obtained from a set of instruments when they are not just considered as a juxtaposition of separate and independent boxes, but as a single complex instrument. A careful review of several approaches to the solution of the scattering problem for a random rough surface has been performed. Inherent simplifications, and inconsistencies, are pointed out. To reduce the computation time to reasonable values, an approximate model is selected and some numerical results will be presented in order to illustrate the benefit that can be gained by a unified approach.

Guissard, A.↗

Ganymede and Callisto - Surface textural dichotomies and photometric analysis

Complete solar phase curves of the Ganymede and Callisto leading and trailing hemispheres, which have been obtained by reducing Voyager imaging observations and combining them with ground-based telescopic data, are presently fit to scattering models in order to derive hemispherical values of the single scattering albedo, the single particle phase function (SPPF), the compaction state (CS) of the optically active portion of the regolith, and the mean slope angle of macroscopic features. While Callisto's leading side is composed of particles that are more strongly backscattering than the trailing side, no hemispheric differences are found in the CS, surface roughness, or SPPF.

Buratti, Bonnie J.↗