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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.

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At least 1,621 records · Page 90
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Hybrid Particle Method for Computational Shock Physics

A long-standing area of research for Eulerian shock wave physics codes has been the treatment of strength and damage for materials. Here we present a method that will aid in the analysis of strength and failure in shock physics applications where excessive diffusion of critical variables can occur and control the solution outcome. Eulerian methods excel for large deformation simulations in general but are inaccurate in capturing structural behavior. Lagrangian methods provide better structural response, but finite element meshes can become tangled. Therefore, a technique for merging Lagrangian and Eulerian treatments of material response, within a single numerical framework, was implemented in the Multiple Component computational shock physics hydrocode. The capability is a Lagrangian/Eulerian Particle Method (LEPM) that uses particles to interface a Lagrangian treatment of material strength with a more traditional Eulerian treatment of the Equation of State (EOS). Lagrangian numerical methods avoid the advection diffusion found in Eulerian methods, which typically strongly affects strength constitutive law internal variables, such as equivalent plastic strain, porosity and/or damage. The Lagrangian capability enhances existing capabilities and permits accurate predictions of high rate, large deformation and/or shock of mechanical structures.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1992

Experimental dehydration of natural obsidian and estimation of DH2O at low water contents

Water diffusion experiments were carried out by dehydrating rhyolitic obsidian from Valles Caldera (New Mexico, USA) at 510-980 degrees C. The starting glass wafers contained approximately 0.114 wt% total water, lower than any glasses previously investigated for water diffusion. Weight loss due to dehydration was measured as a function of experiment duration, which permits determination of mean bulk water diffusivity, mean Dw. These diffusivities are in the range of 2.6 to 18 X 10(-14) m2/s and can be fit with the following Arrhenius equation: ln mean Dw (m2/s) = -(25.10 +/- 1.29) - (46,480 +/- 11,400) (J/mol) / RT, except for two replicate runs at 510 degrees C which give mean Dw values much lower than that defined by the above equation. When interpreted according to a model of water speciation in which molecular H2O is the diffusing species with concentration-independent diffusivity while OH units do not contribute to the transport but react to provide H2O, the data (except for the 510 degrees C data) are in agreement with extrapolation from previous results and hence extend the previous data base and provide a test of the applicability of the model to very low water contents. Mean bulk water diffusivities are about two orders of magnitude less than molecular H2O diffusivities because the fraction of molecular H2O out of total water is very small at 0.114 wt% total water and less. The 510 degrees C experimental results can be interpreted as due to slow kinetics of OH to H2O interconversion at low temperatures.

NASA Program Exobiology↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Numerical Computation of Clear-Sky Transmittance and Reflectance of Solar Radiation for the Modeling of PV System Performance

Modeling of photovoltaics (PV) system performance requires numerical computation of plane-of-array (POA) irradiances that are influenced by atmospheric absorption and scattering. Clear-sky transmittance and reflectance of diffuse irradiance are essential for the understanding of solar radiation related to multiple reflection between land surface and clouds. This study analytically solves the radiative transfer equation for clear-sky conditions and numerically computes the transmittance and reflectance of diffuse irradiance as functions of the optical thickness of the atmosphere. The computation will be implemented in all-sky radiative transfer models to improve their computational efficiency.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Brownian dynamics of confined rigid bodies

We introduce numerical methods for simulating the diffusive motion of rigid bodies of arbitrary shape immersed in a viscous fluid. We parameterize the orientation of the bodies using normalized quaternions, which are numerically robust, space efficient, and easy to accumulate. We construct a system of overdamped Langevin equations in the quaternion representation that accounts for hydrodynamic effects, preserves the unit-norm constraint on the quaternion, and is time reversible with respect to the Gibbs-Boltzmann distribution at equilibrium. We introduce two schemes for temporal integration of the overdamped Langevin equations of motion, one based on the Fixman midpoint method and the other based on a random finite difference approach, both of which ensure that the correct stochastic drift term is captured in a computationally efficient way. We study several examples of rigid colloidal particles diffusing near a no-slip boundary and demonstrate the importance of the choice of tracking point on the measured translational mean square displacement (MSD). We examine the average short-time as well as the long-time quasi-two-dimensional diffusion coefficient of a rigid particle sedimented near a bottom wall due to gravity. For several particle shapes, we find a choice of tracking point that makes the MSD essentially linear with time, allowing us to estimate the long-time diffusion coefficient efficiently using a Monte Carlo method. However, in general, such a special choice of tracking point does not exist, and numerical techniques for simulating long trajectories, such as the ones we introduce here, are necessary to study diffusion on long time scales.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1978

The radial diffusion coefficient of 1.3 - 2.3 MeV protons in recurrent proton streams

The paper presents anisotropy measurements of 1.3-2.3 MeV protons in the interplanetary space during recurrent events for which the radial intensity variation is measured within the radial range from about 0.3 to about 4 AU for the period from June, 1973 through April, 1976. The simultaneous measurements of the diffusive anisotropy and the radial gradient are used to make a direct estimate of the interplanetary radial diffusion coefficient, which is independent of any particular solution of the propagation equation. IMP 7 and 8 is required to be sunward of the earth and hence outside of the magnetosphere; if both spacecraft are sunward, measurements from the one farthest from the magnetosphere are used. The resulting values for the radial diffusivity coefficient near 1 AU lie in the range (3 to 9) x 10 to the 20th sq cm/sec, corresponding to scattering mean free paths between 0.03 and 0.1 AU with a mean of 0.06 AU.

Mewaldt, R. A.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Kinetic model describing self-limiting CO 2 diffusion in supported amine adsorbents

A reaction–diffusion shrinking core model describing the decay in diffusivity of supported amine sorbents upon CO 2 sorption under both simulated direct air capture and point source capture conditions is described. The decay in CO 2 diffusivity is associated with crosslinking in the aminopolymer samples and general pore blockage in the amino-silane derived samples, which occurs as CO 2 is adsorbed. The model is used to extract four kinetic parameters that govern the CO 2 uptake kinetics and working capacity: an apparent reaction rate constant, an initial effective diffusivity, and two dimensionless decay parameters. Ideally, an initially reaction limited system would allow for direct determination of the intrinsic reaction rate constant; however, sorption experiments suggest mass transfer resistances related to gas mixing, external boundary layers and intraparticle diffusion are present. Reaction rate constants are determined and agree well with theoretical values predicted with the Eyring equation parameterized using density functional theory energies from literature sources. The kinetic performance is expressed as the average effective diffusivity as a function of average conversion, which can be correlated to the dispersion of sorption sites on the support and the morphology of the active sorbent phase. Four supports are impregnated or grafted with amines, SBA-15, single-walled zeolite nanotubes (ZNT), Syloid SiO 2 , and γ-Al 2 O 3 . Due to its pore structure, γ-Al 2 O 3 supported amines can be modeled at the μm scale or at the nm scale, where the shell balance is on the μm-sized macroporous particle aggregate or on the nm-sized amine film on the surface of the Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles, which comprise the spherical particle aggregates. Faster diffusion rates are maintained under 400 ppm rather than 10% CO 2 due to a slower reaction rate giving a slower decay in diffusivity. In conclusion, this work provides a first principles kinetic analysis of CO 2 sorption where previous models are semi-empirical and use arbitrary kinetic parameters.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1974

Solar modulation

The important aspects of solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays are outlined. The conditions in the interplanetary medium that affect the modulation are summarized, and equations are developed to describe the behavior of cosmic rays in the solar system, including the effects of diffusion, convection, and energy loss due to adiabatic deceleration in the expanding solar wind. The particle diffusion coefficient is determined from the power spectra of interplanetary magnetic field irregularities. After some solutions for the modulation equations have been derived, the probable forms of the unmodulated cosmic ray spectra are discussed. Other topics include solar cycle variations, energy loss effects, anisotrophies, and gradients.

Fisk, L. A.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Chaotic Motion of Relativistic Electrons Driven by Whistler Waves

Canonical equations governing an electron motion in electromagnetic field of the whistler mode waves propagating along the direction of an ambient magnetic field are derived. The physical processes on which the equations of motion are based .are identified. It is shown that relativistic electrons interacting with these fields demonstrate chaotic motion, which is accompanied by the particle stochastic heating and significant pitch angle diffusion. Evolution of distribution functions is described by the Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov equations. It is shown that the whistler mode waves could provide a viable mechanism for stochastic energization of electrons with energies up to 50 MeV in the Jovian magnetosphere.

Khazanov, G. V.↗
DOE OSTI2018

On the Small Mass Limit of Quantum Brownian Motion with Inhomogeneous Damping and Diffusion

We study the small mass limit (or: the Smoluchowski–Kramers limit) of a class of quantum Brownian motions with inhomogeneous damping and diffusion. For Ohmic bath spectral density with a Lorentz–Drude cutoff, we derive the Heisenberg–Langevin equations for the particle’s observables using a quantum stochastic calculus approach. We set the mass of the particle to equal m=m{sub 0}ϵ, the reduced Planck constant to equal ℏ=ϵ and the cutoff frequency to equal Λ=E{sub Λ}/ϵ, where m{sub 0} and E{sub Λ} are positive constants, so that the particle’s de Broglie wavelength and the largest energy scale of the bath are fixed as ϵ→0. We study the limit as ϵ→0 of the rescaled model and derive a limiting equation for the (slow) particle’s position variable. We find that the limiting equation contains several drift correction terms, the quantum noise-induced drifts, including terms of purely quantum nature, with no classical counterparts.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
NASA NTRS1980

Radiative transfer in dusty nebulae. III - The effects of dust albedo

The effects of an albedo of internal dust, such as ionization structure and temperature of dust grain, were studied by the quasi-diffusion method with an iterative technique for solving the radiative heat transfer equations. It was found that the generalized on-the-spot approximation solution is adequate for most astrophysical applications for a zero albedo; for a nonzero albedo, the Eddington approximation is more accurate. The albedo increases the average energy of the diffuse photons, increasing the ionization level of hydrogen and heavy elements if the Eddington approximation is applied; the dust thermal gradient is reduced so that the infrared spectrum approaches blackbody spectrum with an increasing albedo.

Petrosian, V.↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Variable Eddington Factor Model for Thermal Radiative Transfer with Closure Based on Data-Driven Shape Function

Here, a new variable Eddington factor (VEF) model is presented for nonlinear problems of thermal radiative transfer (TRT). The VEF model is data-driven and acts on known (a-priori) radiation-diffusion solutions for material temperatures in the TRT problem. A linear auxiliary problem is constructed for the radiative transfer equation (RTE) whose emission source and opacities are evaluated at these known material temperatures. The solution to this RTE approximates the specific intensity distribution in phase-space and time. It is applied as a shape function to define the Eddington tensor for the presented VEF model. The shape function computed via the auxiliary RTE problem will capture some degree of transport effects within the TRT problem. The VEF moment equations closed with this approximate Eddington tensor will thus carry with them these captured transport effects. In this study, the temperature data comes from multigroup P 1 , P 1/3 , and flux-limited diffusion radiative transfer models. The proposed VEF model can be interpreted as a transport-corrected diffusion reduced-order model. Numerical results are presented on the Fleck-Cummings test problem which models a supersonic wavefront of radiation. The VEF model is shown to improve accuracy by 1–2 orders of magnitude compared to the considered radiation-diffusion model solutions to the TRT problem.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1976

A model study of diurnal behavior of the ionosphere and the protonosphere coupling

A new method to study dynamic behavior of the ionosphere-protonosphere coupling within the plasmasphere is developed and used to calculate ion distributions above 500 km using observed electron densities at 500 km. The method is based on the relation between the total magnetic flux tube content of H(+) above some reference height (e.g., 3000 km) and the H(+) flux at that height, which is uniquely determined by the coupled momentum and continuity equations for the quasi-steady state. The O(+) profile is perturbed from diffusive equilibrium only by ion drag with H(+). The time dependency is taken into account by applying self-consistent boundary conditions which are obtained from the solution of the time-dependent equation for the tube content of H(+). Calculations are carried out for two models. The first model deals with the ion dynamics in a tube of force which rotates with the earth. In the second model, effects of the cross-L plasma drifts are considered. Both models produce diurnal variations of H(+) and O(+) densities near 1000 km similar to observational results.

Marubashi, K.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Helioseismic Constraints on New Solar Models from the MoSEC Code

Evolutionary solar models are computed using a new stellar evolution code, MOSEC (Modular Stellar Evolution Code). This code has been designed with carefully controlled truncation errors in order to achieve a precision which reflects the increasingly accurate determination of solar interior structure by helioseismology. A series of models is constructed to investigate the effects of the choice of equation of state (OPAL or MHD-E, the latter being a version of the MHD equation of state recalculated by the author), the inclusion of helium and heavy-element settling and diffusion, and the inclusion of a simple model of mixing associated with the solar tachocline. The neutrino flux predictions are discussed, while the sound speed of the computed models is compared to that of the sun via the latest inversion of SOI-NMI p-mode frequency data. The comparison between models calculated with the OPAL and MHD-E equations of state is particularly interesting because the MHD-E equation of state includes relativistic effects for the electrons, whereas neither MHD nor OPAL do. This has a significant effect on the sound speed of the computed model, worsening the agreement with the solar sound speed. Using the OPAL equation of state and including the settling and diffusion of helium and heavy elements produces agreement in sound speed with the helioseismic results to within about +.-0.2%; the inclusion of mixing slightly improves the agreement.

Elliott, J. R.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Coherent quantum transport in disordered systems: A unified polaron treatment of hopping and band-like transport

Quantum transport in disordered systems is studied using a polaron-based master equation. The polaron approach is capable of bridging the results from the coherent band-like transport regime governed by the Redfield equation to incoherent hopping transport in the classical regime. A non-monotonic dependence of the diffusion coefficient is observed both as a function of temperature and system-phonon coupling strength. In the band-like transport regime, the diffusion coefficient is shown to be linearly proportional to the system-phonon coupling strength and vanishes at zero coupling due to Anderson localization. In the opposite classical hopping regime, we correctly recover the dynamics described by the Fermi’s Golden Rule and establish that the scaling of the diffusion coefficient depends on the phonon bath relaxation time. In both the hopping and band-like transport regimes, it is demonstrated that at low temperature, the zero-point fluctuations of the bath lead to non-zero transport rates and hence a finite diffusion constant. Application to rubrene and other organic semiconductor materials shows a good agreement with experimental mobility data.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2019

Heating and ablation of high- Z cryogenic pellets in high temperature plasmas

A kinetic model is developed here to determine the power deposition from energetic electrons into the neutral gas shield of an ablating high-Z pellet. For high-Z, the velocity distribution of the hot electrons is nearly isotropic, and we use this feature to develop solutions to the kinetic equation. In contrast to pre-existing models, we consider the effect of gyro-motion as well as elastic scattering of the hot electrons. Two limits are considered: when the gyro-frequency is much greater than the elastic collision frequency, the hot electrons diffuse longitudinally along the field lines as they slow down; but if the gyro-frequency is much less than the elastic collision frequency, the hot electrons diffuse radially. In both limits, it is possible to express the kinetic equation describing the hot electrons independently of the gas density profile, and therefore, the power deposition model is universal in this respect. The emphasis on elastic scattering yields an ablation rate which scales as Z -7/6 which is different than Z -2/3 shown in Sergeev et al (2006 Plasma Phys. Rep. 32 5). It is also demonstrated that the sheath potential required to maintain ambipolarity in the cloud scales as Z -1/3 . Fluid simulations yield ablation rates that scale with the four-thirds power of the pellet radius in agreement with [2].

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1993

Modeling of outgassing and matrix decomposition in carbon-phenolic composites

A new release rate equation to model the phase change of water to steam in composite materials was derived from the theory of molecular diffusion and equilibrium moisture concentration. The new model is dependent on internal pressure, the microstructure of the voids and channels in the composite materials, and the diffusion properties of the matrix material. Hence, it is more fundamental and accurate than the empirical Arrhenius rate equation currently in use. The model was mathematically formalized and integrated into the thermostructural analysis code CHAR. Parametric studies on variation of several parameters have been done. Comparisons to Arrhenius and straight-line models show that the new model produces physically realistic results under all conditions.

Mcmanus, Hugh L.↗
DOE OSTI2018

An adaptive local reduced basis method for solving PDEs with uncertain inputs and evaluating risk

Many physical systems are modeled using partial differential equations (PDEs) with uncertain or random inputs. For such systems, naively propagating a fixed number of samples of the input probability law (or an approximation thereof) through the PDE is often inadequate to accurately quantify the "risk" associated with critical system responses. In this paper, we develop a goal-oriented, adaptive sampling and local reduced basis approximation for PDEs with random inputs. Our method determines a set of samples and an associated (implicit) Voronoi partition of the parameter domain on which we build local reduced basis approximations of the PDE solution. The samples are selected in an adaptive manner using an a posteriori error indicator. A notable advantage of the proposed approach is that the computational cost of the approximation during the adaptive process remains constant. We provide theoretical error bounds for our approximation and numerically demonstrate the performance of our method when compared to widely used adaptive sparse grid techniques. In addition, we tailor our approach to accurately quantify the risk of quantities of interest that depend on the PDE solution. We demonstrate our method on an advection-diffusion example and a Helmholtz example. Keywords: stochastic partial differential equation, adaptive sampling, reduced basis, a posteriori error estimation, coherent risk measure, conditional value-at-risk.

42 ENGINEERING↗