Aerospace Medicine and Biology. A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 244 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1981. Aerospace medicine and aerobiology topics are included. Listings for physiological factors, astronaut performance, control theory, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics are included

Aeronautical Engineering. A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 156

This bibliography lists 288 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in December 1982

USSR Space Life Sciences Digest, issue 32

This is the thirty-second issue of NASA's USSR Space Life Sciences Digest. It contains abstracts of 34 journal or conference papers published in Russian and of 4 Soviet monographs. Selected abstracts are illustrated with figures and tables from the original. The abstracts in this issue have been identified as relevant to 18 areas of space biology and medicine. These areas include: adaptation, aviation medicine, biological rhythms, biospherics, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, developmental biology, exobiology, habitability and environmental effects, human performance, hematology, mathematical models, metabolism, microbiology, musculoskeletal system, neurophysiology, operational medicine, and reproductive system

Preliminary design of two Space Shuttle fluid physics experiments

The mid-deck lockers of the STS and the requirements for operating an experiment in this region are described. The design of the surface tension induced convection and the free surface phenomenon experiments use a two locker volume with an experiment unique structure as a housing. A manual mode is developed for the Surface Tension Induced Convection experiment. The fluid is maintained in an accumulator pre-flight. To begin the experiment, a pressurized gas drives the fluid into the experiment container. The fluid is an inert silicone oil and the container material is selected to be comparable. A wound wire heater, located axisymmetrically above the fluid can deliver three wattages to a spot on the fluid surface. These wattages vary from 1-15 watts. Fluid flow is observed through the motion of particles in the fluid. A 5 mw He/Ne laser illuminates the container. Scattered light is recorded by a 35mm camera. The free surface phenomena experiment consists of a trapezoidal cell which is filled from the bottom. The fluid is photographed at high speed using a 35mm camera which incorporated the entire cell length in the field of view. The assembly can incorporate four cells in one flight. For each experiment, an electronics block diagram is provided. A control panel concept is given for the surface induced convection. Both experiments are within the mid-deck locker weight and c-g limits

The formation and disintegration of magnetic bright points observed by Sunrise/IMaX

The evolution of the physical parameters of magnetic bright points (MBPs) located in the quiet Sun (mainly in the interwork) during their lifetime is studied. First we concentrate on the detailed description of the magnetic field evolution of three MBPs. This reveals that individual features follow different, generally complex, and rather dynamic scenarios of evolution. Next we apply statistical methods on roughly 200 observed MBP evolutionary tracks. MBPs are found to be formed by the strengthening of an equipartition field patch, which initially exhibits a moderate downflow. During the evolution, strong downdrafts with an average velocity of 2.4 km/s set in. These flows, taken together with the concurrent strengthening of the field, suggest that we are witnessing the occurrence of convective collapses in these features, although only 30% of them reach kG field strengths. This fraction might turn out to be larger when the new 4 m class solar telescopes are operational as observations of MBPs with current state of the art instrumentation could still be suffering from resolution limitations. Finally, when the bright point disappears (although the magnetic field often continues to exist) the magnetic field strength has dropped to the equipartition level and is generally somewhat weaker than at the beginning of the MBP's evolution. Noteworthy is that in about 10% of the cases we observe in the vicinity of the downflows small-scale strong (exceeding 2 km/s) intergranular upflows related spatially and temporally to these downflows.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures; final version published in "The Astrophysical Journal

Design and Development of a Human Building Interaction Laboratory

A future is envisioned where buildings are assembled on-site from factory manufactured modular elements that integrate the smart technology needed to enable scalable, cost-effective solutions with autonomous, occupant-responsive, healthy, and sustainable features. The use of modular elements would mean that buildings are assembled rather than constructed on-site with better quality control, less material waste, and more predictable schedules. The use of manufactured building elements can enable more cost-effective integration of new sensors, embedded intelligence, networking, adaptive interfaces, renewable energy, energy recovery, comfort delivery, and resiliency technologies, making high-performance buildings more affordable. To explore and evaluate these modular and intelligent comfort delivery concepts and advanced approaches for interaction with occupants, a new human-building interaction laboratory (HBIL) has been designed and is under development. The facility has a modular construction layout with thermally active panels. The interior surface temperature of each panel can be individually controlled using a hydronic system. Such configuration allows us to emulate different climate zones and building type conditions and perform studies such as the effect of different active building surfaces on thermal comfort, localized comfort delivery, and occupant comfort control, among others. Moreover, each panel is reconfigurable to allow investigating different interior surface treatments for different visual and acoustic comfort conditions. In this paper, the overall design approach of the facility is presented. Furthermore, a prototype panel has been constructed to validate the design and assess the dynamic and steady-state thermal performance. Test results for the prototype panel are also presented here with a discussion on their agreement with design phase modeling results

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 141)

This special bibliography lists 267 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in April 1975

Modelling heat transfer and respiration of occupants in indoor climate

Although the terms "Human Thermal Comfort" and "Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)" can be highly subjective, they still dictate the indoor climate design (HVAC design) of a building. In order to evaluate human thermal comfort and IAQ, one of three main tools are used, a) direct questioning the subjects about their thermal and air quality sensation (voting, sampling etc.), b) measuring the human thermal comfort by recording the physical parameters such as relative humidity, air and radiation temperature, air velocities and concentration gradients of pollutants or c) by using numerical simulations either including or excluding detailed thermo-physiological models. The application of the first two approaches can only take place in post commissioning and/or testing phases of the building. Use of numerical techniques can however be employed at any stage of the building design. With the rapid development in computational hard- and software technology, the costs involved in numerical studies has reduced compared to detailed tests. Employing numerical modelling to investigate human thermal comfort and IAQ however demand thorough verification and validation studies. Such studies are used to understand the limitations and application of numerical modelling of human thermal comfort and IAQ in indoor climates. This PhD research is an endeavour to verify, validate and apply, numerical simulation for modelling heat transfer and respiration of occupants in indoor climates. Along with the investigations concerning convective and radiation heat transfer between the occupants and their surroundings, the work focuses on detailed respiration modelling of sedentary human occupants. The objectives of the work have been to: verify the convective and radiation numerical models; validate them for buoyancy-driven flows due to human occupants in indoor climates; and apply these validated models for investigating human thermal comfort and IAQ in a real classroom for which field study data was available. On the basis of the detailed verification, validation and application studies, the findings are summarized as a set of guidelines for simulating human thermal comfort and IAQ in indoor climates. This PhD research involves the use of detailed human body geometries and postures. Modelling radiation and investigating the effect of geometrical posture has shown that the effective radiation area varies significantly with posture. The simulation results have shown that by using an effective radiation area factor of 0.725, estimated previously (Fanger, 1972) for a standing person, can lead to an underestimation of effective radiation area by 13% for the postures considered. Numerical modelling of convective heat transfer and respiration processes for sedentary manikins have shown that the SST turbulence model (Menter, 1994) with appropriate resolution of near wall region can simulate the local air velocity, temperature and heat transfer coefficients to a level of detail required for prediction of thermal comfort and IAQ. The present PhD work has shown that in a convection dominated environment, the detailed seated manikins give rise to an asymmetrical thermal plume as compared to the thermal plumes generated by simplified manikins or point sources. Validated simulation results obtained during the present PhD work have shown that simplified manikins can be used without significant limitations while investigating IAQ of complete indoor spaces. The use of simplified manikins however does not seem appropriate when simulating detailed respiration effects in the immediate vicinity of seated humans because of the underestimation in the amount of re-inhaled CO2 and pollutants from the surroundings. Furthermore, the results have shown that due to the simplification in geometrical form of the nostrils, the CO2 concentration is much higher near the face region (direct jet along the nostrils) as compared to a detailed geometry (sideways jet). Simulating the complete respiration cycle has shown that a pause between exhalation and inhalation has a significant effect on the amount of re-inhaled CO2. Previous results have shown the amount of re-inhaled CO2 to range between 10 - 19%. The present study has shown that by considering the pause, this amount of re-inhaled CO2 falls down to values lower than 1%. A comparison between the simplified and detailed geometry has shown that a simplified geometry can cause an underestimation in the amount of re-inhaled CO2 by more than 37% as compared to a detailed geometry. The major contribution to knowledge delivered by this PhD work is the provision of a validated seated computational thermal manikin. This PhD work follows a structured verification and validation approach for conducting CFD simulations to predict human thermal comfort and indoor air quality. The work demonstrates the application of the validated model to a classroom case with multiple occupancy and compares the measured results with the simulation results. The comparison of CFD results with measured data advocates the use of CFD and visualizes the importance of modelling thermal manikins in indoor HVAC design rather than designing the HVAC by considering empty spaces as the occupancy has a strong influence on the indoor air flow. This PhD work enables the indoor climate researchers and building designers to employ simplified thermal manikin to correctly predict the mean flow characteristics in indoor surroundings. The present work clearly demonstrates the limitation of the PIV measurement technique, the importance of using detailed CFD manikin geometry when investigating the phenomena of respiration in detail and the effect of thermal plume around the seated manikin. This computational thermal manikin used in this work is valid for a seated adult female geometry

High-Performance Integrated Window and Façade Solutions for California

The researchers developed a new generation of high-performance façade systems and supporting design and management tools to support industry in meeting California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets, reduce energy consumption, and enable an adaptable response to minimize real-time demands on the electricity grid. The project resulted in five outcomes: (1) The research team developed an R-5, 1-inch thick, triplepane, insulating glass unit with a novel low-conductance aluminum frame. This technology can help significantly reduce residential cooling and heating loads, particularly during the evening. (2) The team developed a prototype of a windowintegrated local ventilation and energy recovery device that provides clean, dry fresh air through the façade with minimal energy requirements. (3) A daylight-redirecting louver system was prototyped to redirect sunlight 15–40 feet from the window. Simulations estimated that lighting energy use could be reduced by 35–54 percent without glare. (4) A control system incorporating physics-based equations and a mathematical solver was prototyped and field tested to demonstrate feasibility. Simulations estimated that total electricity costs could be reduced by 9-28 percent on sunny summer days through adaptive control of operable shading and daylighting components and the thermostat compared to state-of-the-art automatic façade controls in commercial building perimeter zones. (5) Supporting models and tools needed by industry for technology R&D and market transformation activities were validated. Attaining California’s clean energy goals require making a fundamental shift from today’s ad-hoc assemblages of static components to turnkey, intelligent, responsive, integrated building façade systems. These systems offered significant reductions in energy use, peak demand, and operating cost in California

New devices for flow measurements: Hot film and burial wire sensors, infrared imagery, liquid crystal, and piezo-electric model

An experimental program aimed at identifying areas in low speed aerodynamic research where infrared imaging systems can make significant contributions is discussed. Implementing a new technique, a long electrically heated wire was placed across a laminar flow. By measuring the temperature distribution along the wire with the IR imaging camera, the flow behavior was identified