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At least 1,603 records · Page 89
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Testing predictions of electron scale turbulent pedestal transport in two DIII-D ELMy H-modes

In this study, we present linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic analyses in the pedestal region of two DIII-D ELMy H-mode discharges using the CGYRO code. The otherwise matched discharges employ different divertor configurations to investigate the impact of varying recycling and particle source on pedestal profiles. Linear gyrokinetic simulations find electrostatic ion-scale instabilities (ion temperature gradient and trapped electron modes, ITG-TEM) are present just inside the top of the pedestal with growth rates that are enhanced significantly by parallel velocity shear. In the sharp gradient region, E x B shearing rates are comparable or larger than ion scale growth rates, suggesting the suppression of ITG-TEM modes in this region. Instead, the electron temperature profiles are found to be correlated with and just above the electron temperature gradient (ETG) instability thresholds. Using gradients varied within experimental uncertainties, nonlinear electron-scale gyrokinetic simulations predict electron heat fluxes from ETG turbulence, that when added to neoclassical ion thermal transport simulated by NEO, account for 30-60% of the total experimental heat flux. In addition, the neoclassical electron particle flux is found to contribute significantly to the experimental fluxes inferred from SOLPS-ITER analysis. Additional nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations are run varying input gradients to develop a threshold-based reduced model for ETG transport, finding a relatively simple dependence on η e = L ne /L Te . Predictive transport simulations are used to validate this pedestal-specific ETG model, in conjunction with a model for neoclassical particle transport. In both discharges, the predicted electron temperatures are always overpredicted, indicative of the insufficient stiffness in the ETG pedestal model to account for all of the experimental electron thermal transport. In the case of the closed divertor discharge with lower particle source, the predicted electron density is close to the experiment, consistent with the magnitude of neoclassical particle transport in that discharge. However, the density profiles are overpredicted in the open divertor discharge (larger particle source), due to insufficient model transport. In conclusion, the implications for other mechanisms accounting for the remainder of transport in the sharp gradient region in the two discharges are discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1987

Simulations of auroral plasma processes - Electric fields, waves and particles

Plasma processes driven by current sheets of finite thicknesses in an ambient magnetized plasma are studied using a 2 1/2 dimensional particle-in-cell code, and similarities are found between simulated plasma processes and those observed in the auroral plasma. Current sheets are shown to be bounded by large perpendicular electric fields occurring near their edges above the conducting boundary. Shaped potential structures form when the current sheets are narrow, and when the current sheets are wide, potential structures develop a significant parallel potential drop such that the electrons are accelerated upwards. Downward parallel electric fields of variable strength are noted in the downward current region, and double layer formation is seen in both narrow and wide current sheets. High frequency oscillations near the electron plasma frequency and its harmonic are seen, and low frequency waves are observed.

Singh, Nagendra↗
NASA NTRS1988

Cascade model of gamma-ray bursts: Power-law and annihilation-line components

If, in a neutron star magnetosphere, an electron is accelerated to an energy of 10 to the 11th or 12th power eV by an electric field parallel to the magnetic field, motion of the electron along the curved field line leads to a cascade of gamma rays and electron-positron pairs. This process is believed to occur in radio pulsars and gamma ray burst sources. Results are presented from numerical simulations of the radiation and photon annihilation pair production processes, using a computer code previously developed for the study of radio pulsars. A range of values of initial energy of a primary electron was considered along with initial injection position, and magnetic dipole moment of the neutron star. The resulting spectra was found to exhibit complex forms that are typically power law over a substantial range of photon energy, and typically include a dip in the spectrum near the electron gyro-frequency at the injection point. The results of a number of models are compared with data for the 5 Mar., 1979 gamma ray burst. A good fit was found to the gamma ray part of the spectrum, including the equivalent width of the annihilation line.

Harding, A. K.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Cascade model of gamma-ray bursts

If, in a neutron star magnetosphere, an electron is accelerated to an energy of 10 to the 11th or 12th power eV by an electric field parallel to the magnetic field, motion of the electron along the curved field line leads to a cascade of gamma rays and electron-positron pairs. This process is believed to occur in radio pulsars and gamma ray burst sources. Results are presented from numerical simulations of the radiation and photon annihilation pair production processes, using a computer code previously developed for the study of radio pulsars. A range of values of initial energy of a primary electron was considered along with initial injection position, and magnetic dipole moment of the neutron star. The resulting spectra was found to exhibit complex forms that are typically power law over a substantial range of photon energy, and typically include a dip in the spectrum near the electron gyro-frequency at the injection point. The results of a number of models are compared with data for the 5 Mar., 1979 gamma ray burst. A good fit was found to the gamma ray part of the spectrum, including the equivalent width of the annihilation line.

Sturrock, P. A.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Particle Acceleration, Magnetic Field Generation, and Emission in Relativistic Pair Jets

Shock acceleration is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration. Using a 3-D relativistic electromagnetic particle (REMP) code, we have investigated particle acceleration associated with a relativistic jet front propagating into an ambient plasma. We find that the growth times depend on the Lorenz factors of jets. The jets with larger Lorenz factors grow slower. Simulations show that the Weibel instability created in the collisionless shock front accelerates jet and ambient particles both perpendicular and parallel to the jet propagation direction. The small scale magnetic field structure generated by the Weibel instability is appropriate to the generation of "jitter" radiation from deflected electrons (positrons) as opposed to synchrotron radiation. The jitter radiation resulting from small scale magnetic field structures may be important for understanding the complex time structure and spectral evolution observed in gamma-ray bursts or other astrophysical sources containing relativistic jets and relativistic collisionless shocks.

Nishikawa, K. I.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Extravehicular Mobility Unit Penetration Probability from Micrometeoroids and Orbital Debris: Revised Analytical Model and Potential Space Suit Improvements

The NASA Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) micrometeoroid and orbital debris protection ability has recently been assessed against an updated, higher threat space environment model. The new environment was analyzed in conjunction with a revised EMU solid model using a NASA computer code. Results showed that the EMU exceeds the required mathematical Probability of having No Penetrations (PNP) of any suit pressure bladder over the remaining life of the program (2,700 projected hours of 2 person spacewalks). The success probability was calculated to be 0.94, versus a requirement of >0.91, for the current spacesuit s outer protective garment. In parallel to the probability assessment, potential improvements to the current spacesuit s outer protective garment were built and impact tested. A NASA light gas gun was used to launch projectiles at test items, at speeds of approximately 7 km per second. Test results showed that substantial garment improvements could be made, with mild material enhancements and moderate assembly development. The spacesuit s PNP would improve marginally with the tested enhancements, if they were available for immediate incorporation. This paper discusses the results of the model assessment process and test program. These findings add confidence to the continued use of the existing NASA EMU during International Space Station (ISS) assembly and Shuttle Operations. They provide a viable avenue for improved hypervelocity impact protection for the EMU, or for future space suits.

Chase, Thomas D.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Theoretical development of Monte Carlo codes for modeling cumulus cloud fields

Reflected fluxes are calculated for stratocumulus cloud fields as a function of skycover, cloud aspect ratio, and cloud shape. Cloud liquid water volume is held invariant as cloud shape is varied so that the results can be utilized more effectively by general circulation models and climate models. On the basis of required accuracy in the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment program, an order of magnitude value of 10 W/sq m is used to estimate significant differences between plane parallel and broken cloudiness. This limit is exceeded for cloud covers between 10% and 90%, indicating that plane paralel calculations are not satisfactory at most values of cloud cover. The choice of cloud shape also leads to large differences in reflected fluxes. These differences are traced to the anisotropic intensity pattern out the cloud sides, to the size and shape of the holes between clouds, and to variations in cloud area as viewed from the solar direction. An empirical relationship for effective cloud cover is given at solar zenith angle of theta = 60 deg. This relationship allows for the relatively accurate (delta F = 10 - 15 W/sq m.) computation of broken cloud field reflected fluxes from plane parallel calculations.

Welch, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Explicit and implicit solution of the Navier-Stokes equations on a massively parallel computer

The design, implementation, and performance of a two-dimensional time-accurate Navier-Stokes solver for the CM2 supercomputer are described. The program uses a single processor for each grid point. Two different time-stepping methods have so far been implemented: an explicit third-order Runge-Kutta method and an implicit approximation-factorization method. The CM2 results are checked against those of a mature well-vectorized Cray 2 program, both for correctness and performance. The code is found to be correct, and the performance in some cases is up to several times that of the Cray 2.

Levit, Creon↗
DOE OSTI2022

Global gyrokinetic study of shaping effects on electromagnetic modes at NSTX aspect ratio with ad hoc parallel magnetic perturbation effects

Plasma shaping may have a stronger effect on global turbulence in tight-aspect-ratio tokamaks than in conventional-aspect-ratio tokamaks due to the higher toroidicity and more acute poloidal asymmetry in the magnetic field. In addition, previous local gyrokinetic studies have shown that it is necessary to include parallel magnetic field perturbations in order to accurately compute growth rates of electromagnetic modes in tight-aspect-ratio tokamaks. In this work, the effects of elongation and triangularity on global, ion-scale, linear electromagnetic modes are studied at National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) aspect ratio and high plasma β using the global gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code XGC. The effects of compressional magnetic perturbations are approximated via a well-known modification to the particle drifts that was developed for flux-tube simulations [Joiner et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 072104 (2010)], without proof of its validity in a global simulation, with the gyrokinetic codes GENE and GEM being used for local verification and global cross-verification. Magnetic equilibria are re-constructed for each distinct plasma profile that is used. Coulomb collision effects are not considered. Within the limitations imposed by the present study, it is found that linear growth rates of electromagnetic modes (collisionless microtearing modes and kinetic ballooning modes) are significantly reduced in a high-elongation and high-triangularity NSTX-like geometry compared to a circular NSTX-like geometry. For example, growth rates of kinetic ballooning modes at high- β are reduced to the level of that of collisionless trapped electron modes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

PsDNS

PsDNS is a Python package which makes it easy to solve partial differential equation using a pseudo-spectral method. The code uses Python classes and Numpy-like arrays to provide a simple interface with which users can construct equations, integrators, and diagnostics. It also includes implementation for common problems, in particular, the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation in a periodic domain, which is commonly used as a benchmark problem for turbulence research. PsDNS uses MPI to allow massively parallel computation for large problems.

Israel, Daniel↗
DOE OSTI2024

Simulating of magnetic reconnection in solar flares

Magnetic reconnection is an astrophysical process where neighboring magnetic field lines running anti-parallel are reconfigured. Observations of solar flares are what pushed for serious research regarding magnetic reconnection as it seemed to be the underlying mechanism. The reconfiguration of the field lines results in an explosive release of energy as magnetic field energy is converted into plasma kinetic and thermal energies. Our work begins with Athena++, an astrophysical magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation code, and an existing magnetic reconnection setup.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1990

A parallel-vector algorithm for rapid structural analysis on high-performance computers

A fast, accurate Choleski method for the solution of symmetric systems of linear equations is presented. This direct method is based on a variable-band storage scheme and takes advantage of column heights to reduce the number of operations in the Choleski factorization. The method employs parallel computation in the outermost DO-loop and vector computation via the 'loop unrolling' technique in the innermost DO-loop. The method avoids computations with zeros outside the column heights, and as an option, zeros inside the band. The close relationship between Choleski and Gauss elimination methods is examined. The minor changes required to convert the Choleski code to a Gauss code to solve non-positive-definite symmetric systems of equations are identified. The results for two large-scale structural analyses performed on supercomputers, demonstrate the accuracy and speed of the method.

Storaasli, Olaf O.↗
NASA NTRS1990

A parallel-vector algorithm for rapid structural analysis on high-performance computers

A fast, accurate Choleski method for the solution of symmetric systems of linear equations is presented. This direct method is based on a variable-band storage scheme and takes advantage of column heights to reduce the number of operations in the Choleski factorization. The method employs parallel computation in the outermost DO-loop and vector computation via the loop unrolling technique in the innermost DO-loop. The method avoids computations with zeros outside the column heights, and as an option, zeros inside the band. The close relationship between Choleski and Gauss elimination methods is examined. The minor changes required to convert the Choleski code to a Gauss code to solve non-positive-definite symmetric systems of equations are identified. The results for two large scale structural analyses performed on supercomputers, demonstrate the accuracy and speed of the method.

Storaasli, Olaf O.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Link monitor and control operator assistant: A prototype demonstrating semiautomated monitor and control

This article describes the approach, results, and lessons learned from an applied research project demonstrating how artificial intelligence (AI) technology can be used to improve Deep Space Network operations. Configuring antenna and associated equipment necessary to support a communications link is a time-consuming process. The time spent configuring the equipment is essentially overhead and results in reduced time for actual mission support operations. The NASA Office of Space Communications (Code O) and the NASA Office of Advanced Concepts and Technology (Code C) jointly funded an applied research project to investigate technologies which can be used to reduce configuration time. This resulted in the development and application of AI-based automated operations technology in a prototype system, the Link Monitor and Control Operator Assistant (LMC OA). The LMC OA was tested over the course of three months in a parallel experimental mode on very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) operations at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Center. The tests demonstrated a 44 percent reduction in pre-calibration time for a VLBI pass on the 70-m antenna. Currently, this technology is being developed further under Research and Technology Operating Plan (RTOP)-72 to demonstrate the applicability of the technology to operations in the entire Deep Space Network.

Lee, L. F.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Robust Multigrid Smoothers for Three Dimensional Elliptic Equations with Strong Anisotropies

We discuss the behavior of several plane relaxation methods as multigrid smoothers for the solution of a discrete anisotropic elliptic model problem on cell-centered grids. The methods compared are plane Jacobi with damping, plane Jacobi with partial damping, plane Gauss-Seidel, plane zebra Gauss-Seidel, and line Gauss-Seidel. Based on numerical experiments and local mode analysis, we compare the smoothing factor of the different methods in the presence of strong anisotropies. A four-color Gauss-Seidel method is found to have the best numerical and architectural properties of the methods considered in the present work. Although alternating direction plane relaxation schemes are simpler and more robust than other approaches, they are not currently used in industrial and production codes because they require the solution of a two-dimensional problem for each plane in each direction. We verify the theoretical predictions of Thole and Trottenberg that an exact solution of each plane is not necessary and that a single two-dimensional multigrid cycle gives the same result as an exact solution, in much less execution time. Parallelization of the two-dimensional multigrid cycles, the kernel of the three-dimensional implicit solver, is also discussed. Alternating-plane smoothers are found to be highly efficient multigrid smoothers for anisotropic elliptic problems.

Llorente, Ignacio M.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Progress Toward Overset-Grid Moving Body Capability for USM3D Unstructured Flow Solver

A static and dynamic Chimera overset-grid capability is added to an established NASA tetrahedral unstructured parallel Navier-Stokes flow solver, USM3D. Modifications to the solver primarily consist of a few strategic calls to the Donor interpolation Receptor Transaction library (DiRTlib) to facilitate communication of solution information between various grids. The assembly of multiple overlapping grids into a single-zone composite grid is performed by the Structured, Unstructured and Generalized Grid AssembleR (SUGGAR) code. Several test cases are presented to verify the implementation, assess overset-grid solution accuracy and convergence relative to single-grid solutions, and demonstrate the prescribed relative grid motion capability.

Pandyna, Mohagna J.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Nonlocal, diamagnetic electromagnetic effects in magnetically insulated transmission lines

We identify the time-dependent physics responsible for the critical reduction of current losses in magnetically insulated transmission lines (MITLs) due to uninsulated space charge-limited currents of electrons emitted by field stress. A drive current of sufficiently short pulse length introduces a strong enough time dependence that steady-state results alone become inadequate for the complete understanding of current losses. The time-dependent physics can be described as a nonlocal, diamagnetic electromagnetic response of space charge limited currents. As the pulse length is increased or equivalently, the MITL length reduced, these time-dependent effects diminish and current losses converge to those predicted by the well-known Child–Langmuir law in the external (vacuum) fields. We present a simple one-dimensional (1D) model that encapsulates the essence of this physics. We find excellent agreement with 2D particle-in-cell simulations for two MITL geometries, Cartesian parallel plate and azimuthally symmetric straight coaxial. Based on the 1D model, we explore various scaling dependencies of MITL losses with relevant parameters, e.g., peak current, pulse length, geometrical dimensions, etc. We propose an improved physics model of magnetic insulation in the form of a Hull curve, which could also help improve predictions of current losses by common circuit element codes, such as BERTHA. Finally, we describe how to calculate the temperature rise due to electron impact within the 1D model.

Computer simulation↗
NASA NTRS1987

Excitation of compressional waves and the formation of shocklets in the earth's foreshock

Large-amplitude waves in the earth's foreshock are sometimes observed in highly time-developed form, implying that nonlinearities are sufficiently strong to modify their waveforms before the solar wind carries them out of the foreshock. It is presently suggested that parallel propagating waves grow to finite amplitude in the reflected and intermediate ion zones of the earth's foreshock, and refract as they are carried by the solar wind into the 'diffuse' ion region, thereby becoming increasingly oblique and compressional. The time evolution of oblique, low-frequency compressive waves is simulated by means of a one-dimensional hybrid code in which main ions are treated as superparticles, while diffuse ions are seen as a double-adiabatic fluid and electrons as an isothermal fluid.

Hada, T.↗