SEARCH · Engineering Papers
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.
We discuss recent developments in the field of ab initio electronic structure theory and its use for studies of materials for nuclear energy applications. We review state-of-the-art simulation methods that allow for an efficient treatment of effects due to chemical and magnetic disorder, and illustrate their predictive power with examples of two materials systems, Fe-Cr-Ni alloys and Zr-Nb alloys.
Interfaces and stress transfer between cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) dictate the mechanical properties of hierarchical cellulose materials such as neat films and nanocomposites. An interesting question that remains is how the behavior of these interfaces changes due to environmental stimuli, most notably moisture. We present analyses on the traction-separation behavior between Iβ CNC elementary fibrils, providing insight into how the presence of a single atomic layer of water at these interfaces can drastically change the mechanical behavior. We find that molecular water at the interface between hydrophilic CNC surfaces has a negligible effect on the tensile separation adhesion energy. However, when water cannot hydrogen bond easily to the surface (i.e., hydrophobic surface), it tends to maintain hydrogen bonds with other water molecules across the interface and form a capillary bridge that serves to increase the energy required to separate the crystals. Under shear loading, water lowers the energy barriers to sliding by reducing the atomic friction and consequently the interlayer shear modulus between crystals. Our simulations indicate that these nanoscale interfaces and physical phenomena such as interfacial adhesion, interlayer shear properties, and stick-slip friction behavior can be drastically altered by the presence of water.
As a vessel operates in the open seas, a marine diesel engine simulator whose engine rotation is controlled to transmit through propeller shaft is a new methodology for the self propulsion tests to track the fuel saving in a real time. Considering the circumstance, this paper presents the real time of marine diesel engine simulator system to track the real performance of a ship through a computer-simulated model. A mathematical model of marine diesel engine and the propeller are used in the simulation to estimate fuel rate, engine rotating speed, thrust and torque of the propeller thus achieve the target vessel’s speed. The input and output are a real time control system of fuel saving rate and propeller rotating speed representing the marine diesel engine characteristics. The self-propulsion tests in calm waters were conducted using a vessel model to validate the marine diesel engine simulator. The simulator then was used to evaluate the fuel saving by employing a new mathematical model of turbochargers for the marine diesel engine simulator. The control system developed will be beneficial for users as to analyze different condition of vessel’s speed to obtain better characteristics and hence optimize the fuel saving rate.
At National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), a multi-ampere negative ion source is used to support the R&D on H{sup −} production, extraction, and acceleration. In this contribution, we study the characteristics of the acceleration system of this source, in order to characterize the beam optics at different operational conditions. A dedicated experimental campaign was carried out at NIFS, using as main diagnostic the infra-red imaging of the beam profiles. The experimental measurements are also compared with 3D numerical simulations, in order to validate the codes and to assess their degree of reliability. The simulations show a satisfactory agreement with the experimental results.
Alternative methods for determining the critical micelle concentration (cmc) are investigated using canonical and grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice surfactant model. A common measure of the cmc is the “free” (unassociated) surfactant concentration in the presence of micellar aggregates. Many prior simulations of micellizing systems have observed a decrease in the free surfactant concentration with overall surfactant loading for both ionic and nonionic surfactants, contrary to theoretical expectations from mass-action models of aggregation. In the present study, we investigate a simple lattice nonionic surfactant model in implicit solvent, for which highly reproducible simulations are possible in both the canonical (NVT) and grand canonical (μVT) ensembles. We confirm the previously observed decrease of free surfactant concentration at higher overall loadings and propose an algorithm for the precise calculation of the excluded volume and effective concentration of unassociated surfactant molecules in the accessible volume of the solution. We find that the cmc can be obtained by correcting the free surfactant concentration for volume exclusion effects resulting from the presence of micellar aggregates. We also develop an improved method for determination of the cmc based on the maximum in curvature for the osmotic pressure curve determined from μVT simulations. Excellent agreement in cmc and other micellar properties between NVT and μVT simulations of different system sizes is observed. The methodological developments in this work are broadly applicable to simulations of aggregating systems using any type of surfactant model (atomistic/coarse grained) or solvent description (explicit/implicit)
Detailed positive corona discharge characteristics, such as the corona onset voltage, pulse amplitude, repetition frequency, average corona current, rise time, and half-wave time, are systematically studied under different air humidity with a single artificial defect electrode. The experimental results indicate that the pulse amplitude decreases with the increase of air humidity; meanwhile, the repetition frequency increases as the air humidity increases. This phenomenon is different from that of negative corona discharge. Therefore, to have an insight into the mechanism of humidity influence on positive corona discharge, a positive corona discharge model based on the continuity equations is utilized. The simulations present a dynamic development of positive corona discharge and, meanwhile, reveal the humidity influence on positive corona discharge.
A polarimeter has been designed to measure Faraday rotation and help to understand the profile of its safety factor, q, on the recently built SPECTOR magnetized target fusion machine at General Fusion. The polarimeter uses two counter-rotating, circularly polarized, 118.8 μm beams to probe the plasma. Grad-Shafranov simulations have been used to investigate the effect of measurement error and chord geometry.
We have carried out numerical simulations of oblique incidence of a laser pulse with an intensity of I = 1.33 × 10{sup 23} W cm{sup -2} on a planar plasma layer and found the plasma density and the angle of incidence of p-polarised laser pulses that correspond to the highest gamma-ray generation efficiency and high gamma-ray directivity. The shape of the plasma surface has been determined by simulation and conditions have been considered that lead to an increase in generation efficiency. (extreme laser radiation: physics and fundamental applications)
Analysis of the rotation curves (RCs) of spiral galaxies provides an efficient diagnostic for studying the properties of dark matter halos and their relations with baryonic material. Since the cored pseudo-isothermal (Iso) model usually provides a better description of observed RCs than does the cuspy Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) model, there have been concerns that the {Lambda}CDM primordial density fluctuation spectrum may not be the correct one. We have modeled the RCs of galaxies from The H I Nearby Galaxy Survey (THINGS) with the Einasto halo model, which has emerged as the best-fitting model of the halos arising in dissipationless cosmological N-body simulations. We find that the RCs are significantly better fit with the Einasto halo than with either Iso or NFW halo models. In our best-fit Einasto models, the radius of density slope -2 and the density at this radius are highly correlated. The Einasto index, which controls the overall shape of the density profile, is near unity on average for intermediate and low mass halos. This is not in agreement with the predictions from {Lambda}CDM simulations. The indices of the most massive halos are in rough agreement with those cosmological simulations and appear correlated with the halo virial mass. We find that a typical Einasto density profile declines more strongly in its outermost parts than any of the Iso or NFW models whereas it is relatively shallow in its innermost regions. The core nature of those regions of halos thus extends the cusp-core controversy found for the NFW model with low surface density galaxies to the Einasto halo with more massive galaxies like those of THINGS. The Einasto concentrations decrease as a function of halo mass, in agreement with trends seen in numerical simulations. However, they are generally smaller than values expected for simulated Einasto halos. We thus find that, so far, the Einasto halo model provides the best match to the observed RCs and can therefore be considered as a new standard model for dark matter halos.
Faraday rotation measure synthesis is a method for analyzing multichannel polarized radio emissions, and it has emerged as an important tool in the study of Galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields. The method requires the recovery of the Faraday dispersion function from measurements restricted to limited wavelength ranges, which is an ill-conditioned deconvolution problem. Here, we discuss a recovery method that assumes a sparse approximation of the Faraday dispersion function in an overcomplete dictionary of functions. We discuss the general case when both thin and thick components are included in the model, and we present the implementation of a greedy deconvolution algorithm. We illustrate the method with several numerical simulations that emphasize the effect of the covered range and sampling resolution in the Faraday depth space, and the effect of noise on the observed data.
We present an in-depth study of the hard-binary population of the old (7 Gyr) open cluster NGC 188. Utilizing 85 spectroscopic binary orbits out of a complete sample of 129 detected binary members, we study the cluster binary frequency and the distributions of binary orbital elements among the main-sequence (MS), giant, and blue straggler (BS) populations. The results are derived from our ongoing radial velocity survey of the cluster, which spans in magnitude from the brightest stars in the cluster to V = 16.5 (about 1.1-0.9 M{sub Sun} ), and extends to a projected radius of 17 pc ({approx}13 core radii). Our detectable binaries have periods ranging from a few days to of order 10{sup 4} days, and thus are hard binaries that dynamically power the cluster. The MS solar-type hard binaries in NGC 188 are nearly indistinguishable from similar binaries in the Galactic field. We observe a global solar-type MS hard-binary frequency in NGC 188 of 23% {+-} 2%, which when corrected for incompleteness results in a frequency of 29% {+-} 3% for binaries with periods less than 10{sup 4} days. For MS hard binaries in the cluster, we observe a log-period distribution that rises toward our detection limit, a roughly Gaussian eccentricity distribution centered on e = 0.35 (for binaries with periods longer than the circularization period), and a secondary-mass distribution that rises toward lower-mass companions. Importantly, the NGC 188 BS binaries show significantly different characteristics than the solar-type MS binaries in NGC 188. We observe a BS hard-binary frequency of 76% {+-} 19%, three times that of the MS. The excess of this binary frequency over the normal MS binary frequency is valid at the >99% confidence level. Furthermore, the BS binary eccentricity-log-period distribution is distinct from that of the MS at the 99% confidence level, with the majority of the BS binaries having periods of order 1000 days and lower eccentricities. The secondary-mass distribution for these long-period BS binaries is narrow and peaked with a mean value of about 0.5 M{sub Sun }. Predictions for mass-transfer products are most closely consistent with the binary properties of these NGC 188 BSs, which comprise two-thirds of the BS population. Additionally, we compare the NGC 188 binaries to those evolved within the sophisticated Hurley et al. (2005) N-body open cluster simulation. The MS hard-binary population predicted by the simulation is significantly different from the MS hard-binary population observed in NGC 188, in frequency and distributions of period and eccentricity. Many of these differences result from the adopted initial binary population, while others reflect on the physics used in the simulation (e.g., tidal circularization). Additional simulations with initial conditions that are better motivated by observations are necessary to properly investigate the dynamical evolution of a rich binary population in open clusters like NGC 188.
Young open clusters located in the outer Galaxy provide us with an opportunity to study star formation activity in a different environment from the solar neighborhood. We present a UBVI and Hα photometric study of the young open clusters NGC 1624 and NGC 1931 that are situated toward the Galactic anticenter. Various photometric diagrams are used to select the members of the clusters and to determine the fundamental parameters. NGC 1624 and NGC 1931 are, on average, reddened by 〈E(B−V)〉 = 0.92 ± 0.05 and 0.74 ± 0.17 mag, respectively. The properties of the reddening toward NGC 1931 indicate an abnormal reddening law (R{sub V,cl} = 5.2 ± 0.3). Using the zero-age main sequence fitting method we confirm that NGC 1624 is 6.0 ± 0.6 kpc away from the Sun, whereas NGC 1931 is at a distance of 2.3 ± 0.2 kpc. The results from isochrone fitting in the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram indicate the ages of NGC 1624 and NGC 1931 to be less than 4 and 1.5–2.0 Myr, respectively. We derived the initial mass function (IMF) of the clusters. The slope of the IMF (Γ{sub NGC 1624} = −2.0 ± 0.2 and Γ{sub NGC 1931} = −2.0 ± 0.1) appears to be steeper than that of the Salpeter/Kroupa IMF. We discuss the implication of the derived IMF based on simple Monte-Carlo simulations and conclude that the property of star formation in the clusters does not seem to be significantly different from that in the solar neighborhood.
We explore the vicinity of the Milky Way through the use of spectrophotometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and high-quality proper motions derived from multi-epoch positions extracted from the Guide Star Catalog II database. In order to identify and characterize streams as relics of the Milky Way formation, we start with classifying, selecting, and studying 2417 subdwarfs with [Fe/H] < −1.5 up to 3 kpc away from the Sun as tracers of the local halo system. Then, through phase-space analysis, we find statistical evidence of five discrete kinematic overdensities among 67 of the fastest-moving stars and compare them to high-resolution N-body simulations of the interaction between a Milky Way–like galaxy and orbiting dwarf galaxies with four representative cases of merging histories. The observed overdensities can be interpreted as fossil substructures consisting of streamers torn from their progenitors; such progenitors appear to be satellites on prograde and retrograde orbits on different inclinations. In particular, of the five detected overdensities, two appear to be associated, yielding 21 additional main-sequence members, with the stream of Helmi et al. that our analysis confirms is on a high-inclination prograde orbit. The three newly identified kinematic groups could be associated with the retrograde streams detected by Dinescu and Kepley et al.; whatever their origin, the progenitor(s) would be on retrograde orbit(s) and inclination(s) within the range 10{sup ∘}÷60{sup ∘}. Finally, we use our simulations to investigate the impact of observational errors and compare the current picture to the promising prospect of highly improved data expected from the Gaia mission.
In the theory of structure formation, galaxies are biased tracers of the underlying matter density field. The statistical relation between galaxy and matter density field is commonly referred to as galaxy bias. In this paper, we test the linear bias model with weak-lensing and galaxy clustering measurements in the 2 deg{sup 2} COSMOS field. We estimate the bias of galaxies between redshifts z = 0.2 and z = 1 and over correlation scales between R = 0.2 h{sup -1} Mpc and R = 15 h{sup -1} Mpc. We focus on three galaxy samples, selected in flux (simultaneous cuts I{sub 814W} < 26.5 and K{sub s} < 24) and in stellar mass (10{sup 9} < M{sub *} < 10{sup 10} h{sup -2} M{sub Sun} and 10{sup 10} < M{sub *} < 10{sup 11} h{sup -2} M{sub Sun }). At scales R > 2 h{sup -1} Mpc, our measurements support a model of bias increasing with redshift. The Tinker et al. fitting function provides a good fit to the data. We find the best-fit mass of the galaxy halos to be log (M{sub 200}/h{sup -1} M{sub Sun }) = 11.7{sup +0.6}{sub -1.3} and log (M{sub 200}/h{sup -1} M{sub Sun }) = 12.4{sup +0.2}{sub -2.9}, respectively, for the low and high stellar-mass samples. In the halo model framework, bias is scale dependent with a change of slope at the transition scale between the one and the two halo terms. We detect a scale dependence of bias with a turndown at scale R = 2.3 {+-} 1.5 h{sup -1} Mpc, in agreement with previous galaxy clustering studies. We find no significant amount of stochasticity, suggesting that a linear bias model is sufficient to describe our data. We use N-body simulations to quantify both the amount of cosmic variance and systematic errors in the measurement.
We report on the discovery of stellar occultations, observed with Kepler, which recur periodically at 15.685 hr intervals, but which vary in depth from a maximum of 1.3% to a minimum that can be less than 0.2%. The star that is apparently being occulted is KIC 12557548, a V = 16 mag K dwarf with T{sub eff,s} {approx_equal} 4400 K. The out-of-occultation behavior shows no evidence for ellipsoidal light variations, indicating that the mass of the orbiting object is less than {approx}3 M{sub J} (for an orbital period of 15.7 hr). Because the eclipse depths are highly variable, they cannot be due solely to transits of a single planet with a fixed size. We discuss but dismiss a scenario involving a binary giant planet whose mutual orbit plane precesses, bringing one of the planets into and out of a grazing transit. This scenario seems ruled out by the dynamical instability that would result from such a configuration. We also briefly consider an eclipsing binary, possibly containing an accretion disk, that either orbits KIC 12557548 in a hierarchical triple configuration or is nearby on the sky, but we find such a scenario inadequate to reproduce the observations. The much more likely explanation-but one which still requires more quantitative development-involves macroscopic particles escaping the atmosphere of a slowly disintegrating planet not much larger than Mercury in size. The particles could take the form of micron-sized pyroxene or aluminum oxide dust grains. The planetary surface is hot enough to sublimate and create a high-Z atmosphere; this atmosphere may be loaded with dust via cloud condensation or explosive volcanism. Atmospheric gas escapes the planet via a Parker-type thermal wind, dragging dust grains with it. We infer a mass-loss rate from the observations of order 1 M{sub Circled-Plus} Gyr{sup -1}, with a dust-to-gas ratio possibly of order unity. For our fiducial 0.1 M{sub Circled-Plus} planet (twice the mass of Mercury), the evaporation timescale may be {approx}0.2 Gyr. Smaller mass planets are disfavored because they evaporate still more quickly, as are larger mass planets because they have surface gravities too strong to sustain outflows with the requisite mass-loss rates. The occultation profile evinces an ingress-egress asymmetry that could reflect a comet-like dust tail trailing the planet; we present simulations of such a tail.
We present results from the first self-consistent multi-fluid simulations of chromospheric magnetic reconnection in a weakly ionized reacting plasma. We simulate two-dimensional magnetic reconnection in a Harris current sheet with a numerical model which includes ion-neutral scattering collisions, ionization, recombination, optically thin radiative loss, collisional heating, and thermal conduction. In the resulting tearing mode reconnection the neutral and ion fluids become decoupled upstream from the reconnection site, creating an excess of ions in the reconnection region and therefore an ionization imbalance. Ion recombination in the reconnection region, combined with Alfvenic outflows, quickly removes ions from the reconnection site, leading to a fast reconnection rate independent of Lundquist number. In addition to allowing fast reconnection, we find that these non-equilibria partial ionization effects lead to the onset of the nonlinear secondary tearing instability at lower values of the Lundquist number than has been found in fully ionized plasmas. These simulations provide evidence that magnetic reconnection in the chromosphere could be responsible for jet-like transient phenomena such as spicules and chromospheric jets.
Astrophysical disks with localized radial structure, such as protoplanetary disks containing dead zones or gaps due to disk-planet interaction, may be subject to the non-axisymmetric Rossby wave instability (RWI) that leads to vortex formation. The linear instability has recently been demonstrated in three-dimensional (3D) barotropic disks. It is the purpose of this study to generalize the 3D linear problem to include an energy equation, thereby accounting for baroclinity in three dimensions. Linear stability calculations are presented for radially structured, vertically stratified, geometrically thin disks with non-uniform entropy distribution in both directions. Polytropic equilibria are considered but adiabatic perturbations assumed. The unperturbed disk has a localized radial density bump, making it susceptible to the RWI. The linearized fluid equations are solved numerically as a partial differential equation eigenvalue problem. Emphasis on the ease of method implementation is given. It is found that when the polytropic index is fixed and adiabatic index increased, non-uniform entropy has negligible effect on the RWI growth rate, but pressure and density perturbation magnitudes near a pressure enhancement increase away from the midplane. The associated meridional flow is also qualitatively changed from homentropic calculations. Meridional vortical motion is identified in the nonhomentropic linear solution, as well as in a nonlinear global hydrodynamic simulation of the RWI in an initially isothermal disk evolved adiabatically. Numerical results suggest that buoyancy forces play an important role in the internal flow of Rossby vortices.
The random walk of magnetic field lines is examined numerically and analytically in the context of reduced magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) turbulence, which provides a useful description of plasmas dominated by a strong mean field, such as in the solar corona. A recently developed non-perturbative theory of magnetic field line diffusion is compared with the diffusion coefficients obtained by accurate numerical tracing of magnetic field lines for both synthetic models and direct numerical simulations of RMHD. Statistical analysis of an ensemble of trajectories confirms the applicability of the theory, which very closely matches the numerical field line diffusion coefficient as a function of distance z along the mean magnetic field for a wide range of the Kubo number R. This theory employs Corrsin's independence hypothesis, sometimes thought to be valid only at low R. However, the results demonstrate that it works well up to R = 10, both for a synthetic RMHD model and an RMHD simulation. The numerical results from the RMHD simulation are compared with and without phase randomization, demonstrating a clear effect of coherent structures on the field line random walk for a very low Kubo number.