11,106 research outputs found
The motion of a plate in a rotating fluid at an arbitrary angle of attack
Slow motion of a thin plate at a finite angle of attack in a rotating container filled with a viscous incompressible fluid is analysed. The Rossby and Ekman numbers are assumed to be small. The solution method is developed by studying horizontal translation of an elliptical plate. The plate is shown to carry a stagnant Taylor column with it as it moves. Detailed analysis of the structure of the vertical shear column bounding the Taylor column is circumvented by integrating the equations of motion across the shear column. A jump condition based upon mass conservation in the shear column which relates the geostrophic regions inside and outside the Taylor column results. This jump condition and its method of derivation can be used to analyse arbitrary (slow) motion of any thin plate at any angle of attack.
The fluid motion resulting when a disk moves using all six degrees of freedom at an infinitesimal angle of attack is discussed. The forces and moments on the disk are calculated and the streamlines of the geostrophic flow are displayed
Comply-and-Explain: Should Directors Have a Duty to Inform?
Wilcox discusses the compliance of the duty to inform of directors of publicly held companies. The expected long-term impact of a duty to inform would be to operationalize corporate governance policies and accustom boards to provide greater transparency about their deliberations and decisions on matters relating to governance, business oversight, and strategy. Regardless of whether a directors\u27 duty to inform can be inferred from the Model Business Corporation Act or other provisions of state law, it could be implemented through the adoption of a charter or bylaw amendment initiated by the board or by shareholders
Motion picture history of the erection and operation of the Smith-Putnam wind generator
A color movie presentation is discussed that presents the various stages in assemblying the major subsystems of a synchronous wind generator, such as installing the rotor blades and the rotating platform at the top of the tower. In addition scenes are shown of the wind generator in operation
Turbulence and transition modeling for high-speed flows
Research conducted during the past three and a half years aimed at developing and testing a turbulence/transition model applicable to high-speed turbulent flows is summarized. The first two years of the project focused on fully turbulent flows, while emphasis shifted to boundary-layer development in the transition region during the final year and a half. A brief summary of research accomplished during the first three years is included and publications that describe research results in greater detail are cited. Research conducted during the final six months of the period of performance is summarized. The primary results of the last six months of the project are elimination of the k-omega model's sensitivity to the freestream value of omega and development of a method for triggering transition at a specified location, independent of the freestream turbulence level
Solving 1D Conservation Laws Using Pontryagin's Minimum Principle
This paper discusses a connection between scalar convex conservation laws and
Pontryagin's minimum principle. For flux functions for which an associated
optimal control problem can be found, a minimum value solution of the
conservation law is proposed. For scalar space-independent convex conservation
laws such a control problem exists and the minimum value solution of the
conservation law is equivalent to the entropy solution. This can be seen as a
generalization of the Lax--Oleinik formula to convex (not necessarily uniformly
convex) flux functions. Using Pontryagin's minimum principle, an algorithm for
finding the minimum value solution pointwise of scalar convex conservation laws
is given. Numerical examples of approximating the solution of both
space-dependent and space-independent conservation laws are provided to
demonstrate the accuracy and applicability of the proposed algorithm.
Furthermore, a MATLAB routine using Chebfun is provided (along with
demonstration code on how to use it) to approximately solve scalar convex
conservation laws with space-independent flux functions
Mitigating the Curse of Dimensionality: Sparse Grid Characteristics Method for Optimal Feedback Control and HJB Equations
We address finding the semi-global solutions to optimal feedback control and
the Hamilton--Jacobi--Bellman (HJB) equation. Using the solution of an HJB
equation, a feedback optimal control law can be implemented in real-time with
minimum computational load. However, except for systems with two or three state
variables, using traditional techniques for numerically finding a semi-global
solution to an HJB equation for general nonlinear systems is infeasible due to
the curse of dimensionality. Here we present a new computational method for
finding feedback optimal control and solving HJB equations which is able to
mitigate the curse of dimensionality. We do not discretize the HJB equation
directly, instead we introduce a sparse grid in the state space and use the
Pontryagin's maximum principle to derive a set of necessary conditions in the
form of a boundary value problem, also known as the characteristic equations,
for each grid point. Using this approach, the method is spatially causality
free, which enjoys the advantage of perfect parallelism on a sparse grid.
Compared with dense grids, a sparse grid has a significantly reduced size which
is feasible for systems with relatively high dimensions, such as the -D
system shown in the examples. Once the solution obtained at each grid point,
high-order accurate polynomial interpolation is used to approximate the
feedback control at arbitrary points. We prove an upper bound for the
approximation error and approximate it numerically. This sparse grid
characteristics method is demonstrated with two examples of rigid body attitude
control using momentum wheels
Alternative potentials for the electromagnetic field
The electromagnetic field can be expressed in terms of two complex potentials
which are related to the Debye potentials. The evolution
equations for these potentials are derived, which are separable either in
parabolic coordinates (leading to the radiation fields) or in radial
coordinates (multipole fields). Potentials corresponding to focused wave fields
as well as plane waves are discussed. A conserved radiation density can be
constructed in terms of these potentials, which is positive (negative) for
positive (negative) helicity radiation.Comment: 13 pages, plainTex, slightly amended version of origina
Vorticity interaction effects on blunt bodies
Numerical solutions of the viscous shock layer equations governing laminar and turbulent flows of a perfect gas and radiating and nonradiating mixtures of perfect gases in chemical equilibrium are presented for hypersonic flow over spherically blunted cones and hyperboloids. Turbulent properties are described in terms of the classical mixing length. Results are compared with boundary layer and inviscid flowfield solutions; agreement with inviscid flowfield data is satisfactory. Agreement with boundary layer solutions is good except in regions of strong vorticity interaction; in these flow regions, the viscous shock layer solutions appear to be more satisfactory than the boundary layer solutions. Boundary conditions suitable for hypersonic viscous shock layers are devised for an advanced turbulence theory
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