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At least 1,765 records · Page 98

Exploratory flight investigation of aircraft response to the wing vortex wake generated by the augmentor wing jet STOL research aircraft

A brief exploratory flight program was conducted at Ames Research Center to investigate the vortex wake hazard of a powered-lift STOL aircraft. The study was made by flying an instrumented Cessna 210 aircraft into the wake of the augmentor wing jet STOL research aircraft at separation distances from 1 to 4 n.mi. Characteristics of the wake were evaluated in terms of the magnitude of the upset of the probing aircraft. Results indicated that within 1 n.mi. separation the wake could cause rolling moments in excess of roll control power and yawing moments equivalent to rudder control power of the probe aircraft. Subjective evaluations by the pilots of the Cessna 210 aircraft, supported by response measurements, indicated that the upset caused by the wake of the STOL aircraft was comparable to that of a DC-9 in the landing configuration.

Jacobsen, R. A.↗

Shake test of rotor test apparatus with balance dampers in the 40 by 80 foot wind tunnel

A shake test was conducted to determine the dynamic characteristics of a rotor test apparatus on two strut systems with balance dampers in the Ames 40- by 80-ft wind tunnel. The rotor-off hub transfer function (acceleration per unit force as a function of frequency) was measured in the longitudinal and lateral directions, using a combination of broadband and discrete frequency excitation techniques. The dynamic data are summarized for the configurations tested, giving the following properties for each mode identified: the natural frequency, the hub response at resonance, the fixed system damping, the damping ratio, and the modal mass. The complete transfer functions are presented, and the detailed test results are included as an appendix.

Johnson, W.↗

A short course in lunar geology for earth science instructors

A four-day short course in lunar geology was developed, leading to the publication of a primer in lunar geology. The course was offered to 22 sponsored participants (community college teachers) and to representatives from the Lunar Science Institute, Houston, Texas, and from the Educational Program Office of NASA-Ames, on April 25-28, 1974. A follow-up survey of the course participants was made in two steps: on the last day of the course, and one year later. In general, the participants felt that the course was well organized and that the speakers were effective. Most of the participants introduced some aspects of what they learned into their own teaching material. Finally, a well-panel display about 7 1/2 feet high and 16 feet long designed to acquaint the viewer with elementary facts of lunar geology was constructed and permanently installed at the Space Science Center of Foothill College.

Greeley, R.↗

The pioneer projects: Economical exploration of the solar system

The interplanetary Pioneer missions are reviewed in terms of management implications and cost control. The responsibilities, organizational structure, and management practices of the Pioneer Projects are presented. The lines of authority and areas of responsibility of the principal organizational elements supporting the Pioneer missions are identified, and the methods employed for maintaining effective and timely interactions among these elements are indicated. The technical and administrative functions of the various organizational elements of the Pioneer Project Office at Ames Research Center are described in terms of their management responsibilities and interactions with other elements of the Project Office and with external organizations having Pioneer Project responsibilities. The management and control of activities prior to and during the hardware procurement phase are described to indicate the basis for obtaining visibility of the technical progress, utilization of resources, and cost performance of the contractors and other institutions supporting the Pioneer projects.

Spahr, J. R.↗

Wind tunnel investigation of a large-scale upper surface blown-flap model having four engines

Investigations were conducted in the Ames 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel to determine the aerodynamic characteristics of a large-scale subsonic jet transport model with an upper surface blown flap system. The model had a 25 deg swept wing of aspect ratio 7.28 and four turbofan engines. The lift of the flap system was augmented by turning the turbofan exhaust over the Coanda surface. Results were obtained for several flap deflections with several wing leading-edge configurations at jet momentum coefficients from 0 to 4.0. Three-component longitudinal data are presented with four engines operating. In addition, longitudinal and lateral data are presented with an engine out. The maximum lift and stall angle of the four engine model were lower than those obtained with a two engine model that was previously investigated. The addition of the outboard nacelles had an adverse effect on these values. Efforts to improve these values were successful. A maximum lift of 8.8 at an angle-of-attack of 27 deg was obtained with a jet thrust coefficient of 2 for the landing flap configuration.

Aoyagi, K.↗

Eleventh Annual Conference on Manual Control

This volume contains a compilation of written versions of papers presented at the Eleventh Annual Conference on Manual Control in a meeting held at NASA-Ames Research Center, May 21-23, 1975. Five main topics were discussed during this three-day conference. These were covered in sessions on Concurrent Tasks, Physiological Systems, Controls and Displays, Performance/Workload Evaluation, and System Identification. Forty-nine papers are included with presentations on results of analytical studies to develop and evaluate human operator models for a range of control task, vehicle dynamics and display situations; results of tests of physiological control systems and applications to medical problems; and on results of simulator and flight tests to determine display, control and dynamics effects on operator performance and workload for aircraft, automobile and remote control systems.

Source record↗

Flight management - Pilot procedures and system interfaces for the 1980-1990's

In the air transportation system of the 1980-1990's, aircraft must perform with greater precision in time and position than is possible today. Rapid development in electronics technology makes renovation in airborne-system concepts feasible. The Ames Research Center is conducting research on pilot procedures and pilot-system interfaces for such systems. Research on various pilot-system interface devices and manned simulations was conducted to study rules of distributed decision making authority among pilots and controllers with various airborne display concepts, and a pilot-oriented command logic for the control of avionic systems was studied. Results are summarized, and ongoing work and future research plans described.

Wempe, T. E.↗

Initial observations of plasma electrons from the Pioneer 10 flyby of Jupiter

Initial results are presented from the electron measurements made by the Ames Research Center Plasma Analyzer during the inbound passage of Pioneer 10 in the vicinity of Jupiter. The observations indicate that as in the case of the earth's magnetosheath, there is an increase in electron temperature across the Jovian bow shock. During the second extended magnetosheath traversal (approximately 54 to 46.5 Jupiter radii) the electron temperatures were generally higher than those observed during the first magnetosheath traversal (109 to 96 Jupiter radii). These higher electron temperatures are in agreement with the measured higher magnitude of the magnetic field and ion density during this traversal. These observations are consistent with the contraction of the Jovian magnetosphere due to an increase in the solar wind dynamic pressure.

Intriligator, D. S.↗

Dynamic Discharge Arc Driver

A computer program using nonlinear RLC circuit analysis was developed to accurately model the electrical discharge performance of the Ames 1-MJ energy storage and arc-driver system. Solutions of circuit parameters are compared with experimental circuit data and related to shock speed measurements. Computer analysis led to the concept of a Dynamic Discharge Arc Driver (DDAD) capable of increasing the range of operation of shock-driven facilities. Utilization of mass addition of the driver gas offers a unique means of improving driver performance. Mass addition acts to increase the arc resistance, which results in better electrical circuit damping with more efficient Joule heating, producing stronger shock waves. Preliminary tests resulted in an increase in shock Mach number from 34 to 39 in air at an initial pressure of 2.5 torr.

Dannenberg, R. E.↗

CTS digital video college curriculum-sharing experiment

NASA-Ames Research Center, Stanford University, and Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, are participating in a joint experiment to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of college curriculum sharing using compressed digital television and the Communications Technology Satellite (CTS). Each university will offer televised courses to the other during the 1976-1977 academic year via CTS, a joint program by NASA and the Canadian Department of Communications. The video compression techniques to be demonstrated will enable economical interconnection of educational institutions using existing and planned domestic satellites.

Lumb, D. R.↗

The ASSESS program documenting and evaluating low cost techniques for conducting research in the flight environment

The Airborne Science Office (ASO) of the Ames Research Center has for 10 years operated an airborne scientific research program in infrared astronomy and other disciplines. The Lear Jet, CV-990, and C-141 flying laboratories are flown by ASO crews, while the major responsibility for defining, developing, and operating the experimental equipment is placed on individual researchers, who have included scientists from many countries. The ASSESS (Airborne Science/Shuttle Experiment Systems Simulation) program consists of two phases: Phase A documents the present management and operational practices of the ASO, and Phase B consists of airborne research missions constrained (for example, by crew confinement) to simulate certain aspects of experimental operations on Shuttle/Spacelab missions. Various parallels between the Airborne Science Program and Spacelab are pointed out and their applications to Spacelab planning are discussed.

Weaver, L. B.↗

A numerical method for solving the Navier-Stokes equations with application to shock-boundary layer interactions

A numerical method for solving the compressible form of the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations is described. This method was originally presented in 1970 and has since been modified during the development of computer programs at Ames for implementing models that account for the effects of turbulence in shock-induced separated flows. Although this paper does not describe the turbulence models themselves, a complete description of the basic numerical method is given with emphasis on the choice of a computational mesh for high Reynolds number flows, finite-difference approximations for mixed partial derivatives, extension of the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy stability condition for viscous flows, mesh boundary conditions, and numerical smoothing for strong shock-wave calculations.

Maccormack, R. W.↗

A high altitude base pressure experiment

A high-altitude base-pressure experiment has been successfully conducted on a high-performance Air Force reentry vehicle. Low Reynolds number laminar-flow flight data were obtained at an altitude of about 248,000 ft. The experiment utilized the NASA Ames vibrating diaphragm transducer specifically designed to measure base pressure at altitudes in excess of 200,000 ft with a threshold sensitivity level of 0.0002 psia. The flight data have provided needed low Reynolds number information from Reynolds numbers of about 70,000 to 10,000,000. These new data verify that a 'maximum' exists in the base pressure ratio versus Reynolds number curve at low Reynolds numbers and hypersonic Mach numbers (free-stream Mach numbers greater than 20) in qualitative agreement with the theory of Crooco and Lees (1952).

Cassanto, J. M.↗

The CO2 gasdynamic laser as a high-intensity radiation facility

The basic theory of CO2 gasdynamic lasers is discussed and related to the design of the Ames laser, which is described in detail. Results of the experimental calibration of the laser are reported and compared with theoretical predictions, and the agreement is excellent. Finally, several applications of the laser as a radiation source for materials testing, both with and without air flow, are described.

Lundell, J. H.↗

A computer-controlled, on-board data acquisition system for wind-tunnel testing

A computer-controlled data acquisition system has been developed for the 40x80-foot wind tunnel at Ames Research Center. The system, consisting of several small onboard units installed in the model and a data-managing, data-displaying ground station, is capable of sampling up to 256 channels of raw data at a total sample rate of 128,000 samples/sec. Complete signal conditioning is contained within the on-board units. The sampling sequence and channel gain selection is completely random and under total control of the ground station. Outputs include a bar-graph display, digital-to-analog converters, and digital interface to the tunnel's central computer, an SEL 840MP. The system can be run stand-alone or under the control of the SEL 840MP.

Finger, H. J.↗

An integrated PCM data system for full scale aeronautics testing

An integrated PCM data system is being developed at Ames Research Center to gather test data on advanced STOL propulsive lift, VTOL, rotary wing, and V/STOL control systems concepts as they pass through wind-tunnel, test-stand, flight-simulator and flight-test phases. Identical airborne signal conditioning and PCM encoding is used on test aircraft and wind tunnel models. An 80,000 word/second PCM installation will be the first all PCM-instrumented rotary wing development project. The system uses both dedicated and time-shared computers for fast data analysis with maximum use of resources. This system development shows one way to bring separate data user groups together over a common data base, while sharing computing resources for minimum cost.-

Reynolds, D. R.↗

In situ observations of the scale-size of plasma turbulence in the asteroid belt /1.6-3 astronomical units/

Pioneer 10 observations from the Ames Research Center Plasma Analyzer experiment between 1 and 3 AU in 1972 have been used to estimate the power spectra of the streaming speed of solar wind protons. A power-law spectrum is obtained in the 10,000 to 0.001 Hz frequency range which is similar to that obtained for the solar wind proton number density and streaming speed at 1 AU in 1965 December and 1966 January. The power spectra indicate that significant turbulence on the scale of about 1,000,000 km or more is present throughout this range of heliocentric distances, implying the importance of the role of large-scale turbulence between 1 and 3 AU. The power spectra also present qualitatively information concerning the cosmic-ray diffusion tensor at these extended distances.

Intriligator, D. S.↗

The radial gradient and the role of turbulence in the solar system

Pioneer 10 observations from the Ames Research Center Plasma Analyzer experiment between 1 and 3 AU have been used to estimate the power spectra of the solar wind proton streaming speed. The power spectra indicate that significant turbulence on the scale of 1,000,000 km or more is present throughout this range of heliocentric distances, implying the importance of the role of large scale turbulence between 1 and 3 AU.

Intriligator, D. S.↗