6,570 research outputs found
Study of metallic structural design concepts for an arrow wing supersonic cruise configuration
A structural design study was made, to assess the relative merits of various metallic structural concepts and materials for an advanced supersonic aircraft cruising at Mach 2.7. Preliminary studies were made to ensure compliance of the configuration with general design criteria, integrate the propulsion system with the airframe, select structural concepts and materials, and define an efficient structural arrangement. An advanced computerized structural design system was used, in conjunction with a relatively large, complex finite element model, for detailed analysis and sizing of structural members to satisfy strength and flutter criteria. A baseline aircraft design was developed for assessment of current technology. Criteria, analysis methods, and results are presented. The effect on design methods of using the computerized structural design system was appraised, and recommendations are presented concerning further development of design tools, development of materials and structural concepts, and research on basic technology
What is there in the black box of dark energy: variable cosmological parameters or multiple (interacting) components?
The coincidence problems and other dynamical features of dark energy are
studied in cosmological models with variable cosmological parameters and in
models with the composite dark energy. It is found that many of the problems
usually considered to be cosmological coincidences can be explained or
significantly alleviated in the aforementioned models.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, talk given at IRGAC2006 (Barcelona, July 11-15,
2006), to appear in J. Phys.
Study of advanced composite structural design concepts for an arrow wing supersonic cruise configuration
Based on estimated graphite and boron fiber properties, allowable stresses and strains were established for advanced composite materials. Stiffened panel and conventional sandwich panel concepts were designed and analyzed, using graphite/polyimide and boron/polyimide materials. The conventional sandwich panel was elected as the structural concept for the modified wing structure. Upper and lower surface panels of the arrow wing structure were then redesigned, using high strength graphite/polyimide sandwich panels, retaining the titanium spars and ribs from the prior study. The ATLAS integrated analysis and design system was used for stress analysis and automated resizing of surface panels. Flutter analysis of the hybrid structure showed a significant decrease in flutter speed relative to the titanium wing design. The flutter speed was increased to that of the titanium design by selective increase in laminate thickness and by using graphite fibers with properties intermediate between high strength and high modulus values
Cosmologies with a time dependent vacuum
The idea that the cosmological term, Lambda, should be a time dependent
quantity in cosmology is a most natural one. It is difficult to conceive an
expanding universe with a strictly constant vacuum energy density, namely one
that has remained immutable since the origin of time. A smoothly evolving
vacuum energy density that inherits its time-dependence from cosmological
functions, such as the Hubble rate or the scale factor, is not only a
qualitatively more plausible and intuitive idea, but is also suggested by
fundamental physics, in particular by quantum field theory (QFT) in curved
space-time. To implement this notion, is not strictly necessary to resort to ad
hoc scalar fields, as usually done in the literature (e.g. in quintessence
formulations and the like). A "running" Lambda term can be expected on very
similar grounds as one expects (and observes) the running of couplings and
masses with a physical energy scale in QFT. Furthermore, the experimental
evidence that the equation of state of the dark energy could be evolving with
time/redshift (including the possibility that it might currently behave
phantom-like) suggests that a time-variable Lambda term (possibly accompanied
by a variable Newton's gravitational coupling G=G(t)) could account in a
natural way for all these features. Remarkably enough, a class of these models
(the "new cosmon") could even be the clue for solving the old cosmological
constant problem, including the coincidence problem.Comment: LaTeX, 15 pages, 4 figure
Perturbations in the relaxation mechanism for a large cosmological constant
Recently, a mechanism for relaxing a large cosmological constant (CC) has
been proposed [arxiv:0902.2215], which permits solutions with low Hubble rates
at late times without fine-tuning. The setup is implemented in the LXCDM
framework, and we found a reasonable cosmological background evolution similar
to the LCDM model with a fine-tuned CC. In this work we analyse analytically
the perturbations in this relaxation model, and we show that their evolution is
also similar to the LCDM model, especially in the matter era. Some tracking
properties of the vacuum energy are discussed, too.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX; discussion improved, accepted by CQ
The independent association of overweight and obesity with breathlessness in adults: a cross-sectional, population-based study
Obesity is an independent risk factor for chronic breathlessness and should be assessed in people with this symptom
Radiation study of swept-charge devices for the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) instrument
The Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) will be launched as part of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chandrayaan-1 payload in September 2008, arriving at the Moon within 7 days to begin a two year mission in lunar orbit conducting mineralogical surface mapping over the range of 1 - 10 keV. The detector plane of the instrument consists of twenty four e2v technologies CCD54 swept-charge devices (SCDs). Such devices were first flown in the Demonstration of a Compact Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (D-CIXS) instrument onboard SMART-1 [4, 5]. The detector plane in each case provides a total X-ray collection area of 26.4 cm2. The SCD is capable of providing near Fano-limited spectroscopy at -10°C, and at -20°C, near the Chandrayaan-1 mission average temperature, it achieves a total system noise of 6.2 electrons r.m.s. and a FWHM of 134 eV at Mn-Kalpha. This paper presents a brief overview of the C1XS mission and a detailed study of the effects of proton irradiation on SCD operational performance
Hubble expansion and structure formation in the "running FLRW model" of the cosmic evolution
A new class of FLRW cosmological models with time-evolving fundamental
parameters should emerge naturally from a description of the expansion of the
universe based on the first principles of quantum field theory and string
theory. Within this general paradigm, one expects that both the gravitational
Newton's coupling, G, and the cosmological term, Lambda, should not be strictly
constant but appear rather as smooth functions of the Hubble rate. This
scenario ("running FLRW model") predicts, in a natural way, the existence of
dynamical dark energy without invoking the participation of extraneous scalar
fields. In this paper, we perform a detailed study of these models in the light
of the latest cosmological data, which serves to illustrate the
phenomenological viability of the new dark energy paradigm as a serious
alternative to the traditional scalar field approaches. By performing a joint
likelihood analysis of the recent SNIa data, the CMB shift parameter, and the
BAOs traced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we put tight constraints on the
main cosmological parameters. Furthermore, we derive the theoretically
predicted dark-matter halo mass function and the corresponding redshift
distribution of cluster-size halos for the "running" models studied. Despite
the fact that these models closely reproduce the standard LCDM Hubble
expansion, their normalization of the perturbation's power-spectrum varies,
imposing, in many cases, a significantly different cluster-size halo redshift
distribution. This fact indicates that it should be relatively easy to
distinguish between the "running" models and the LCDM cosmology using realistic
future X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich cluster surveys.Comment: Version published in JCAP 08 (2011) 007: 1+41 pages, 6 Figures, 1
Table. Typos corrected. Extended discussion on the computation of the
linearly extrapolated density threshold above which structures collapse in
time-varying vacuum models. One appendix, a few references and one figure
adde
Effective growth of matter density fluctuations in the running LCDM and LXCDM models
We investigate the matter density fluctuations \delta\rho/\rho for two dark
energy (DE) models in the literature in which the cosmological term \Lambda is
a running parameter. In the first model, the running LCDM model, matter and DE
exchange energy, whereas in the second model, the LXCDM model, the total DE and
matter components are conserved separately. The LXCDM model was proposed as an
interesting solution to the cosmic coincidence problem. It includes an extra
dynamical component, the "cosmon" X, which interacts with the running \Lambda,
but not with matter. In our analysis we make use of the current value of the
linear bias parameter, b^2(0)= P_{GG}/P_{MM}, where P_{MM} ~
(\delta\rho/\rho)^2 is the present matter power spectrum and P_{GG} is the
galaxy fluctuation power spectrum. The former can be computed within a given
model, and the latter is found from the observed LSS data (at small z) obtained
by the 2dF galaxy redshift survey. It is found that b^2(0)=1 within a 10%
accuracy for the standard LCDM model. Adopting this limit for any DE model and
using a method based on the effective equation of state for the DE, we can set
a limit on the growth of matter density perturbations for the running LCDM
model, the solution of which is known. This provides a good test of the
procedure, which we then apply to the LXCDM model in order to determine the
physical region of parameter space, compatible with the LSS data. In this
region, the LXCDM model is consistent with known observations and provides at
the same time a viable solution to the cosmic coincidence problem.Comment: LaTeX, 38 pages, 8 figures. Version accepted in JCA
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