1,859 research outputs found
Dynamic testing of docking system hardware
Extensive dynamic testing was conducted to verify the flight readiness of the Apollo docking hardware. Testing was performed on a unique six degree-of-freedom motion simulator controlled by a computer that calculated the associated spacecraft motions. The test system and the results obtained by subjecting flight-type docking hardware to actual impact loads and resultant spacecraft dynamics are described
Optimisation of confinement in a fusion reactor using a nonlinear turbulence model
The confinement of heat in the core of a magnetic fusion reactor is optimised
using a multidimensional optimisation algorithm. For the first time in such a
study, the loss of heat due to turbulence is modelled at every stage using
first-principles nonlinear simulations which accurately capture the turbulent
cascade and large-scale zonal flows. The simulations utilise a novel approach,
with gyrofluid treatment of the small-scale drift waves and gyrokinetic
treatment of the large-scale zonal flows. A simple near-circular equilibrium
with standard parameters is chosen as the initial condition. The figure of
merit, fusion power per unit volume, is calculated, and then two control
parameters, the elongation and triangularity of the outer flux surface, are
varied, with the algorithm seeking to optimise the chosen figure of merit. A
two-fold increase in the plasma power per unit volume is achieved by moving to
higher elongation and strongly negative triangularity.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, accepted to JP
Phase mixing vs. nonlinear advection in drift-kinetic plasma turbulence
A scaling theory of long-wavelength electrostatic turbulence in a magnetised,
weakly collisional plasma (e.g., ITG turbulence) is proposed, with account
taken both of the nonlinear advection of the perturbed particle distribution by
fluctuating ExB flows and of its phase mixing, which is caused by the streaming
of the particles along the mean magnetic field and, in a linear problem, would
lead to Landau damping. It is found that it is possible to construct a
consistent theory in which very little free energy leaks into high velocity
moments of the distribution function, rendering the turbulent cascade in the
energetically relevant part of the wave-number space essentially fluid-like.
The velocity-space spectra of free energy expressed in terms of Hermite-moment
orders are steep power laws and so the free-energy content of the phase space
does not diverge at infinitesimal collisionality (while it does for a linear
problem); collisional heating due to long-wavelength perturbations vanishes in
this limit (also in contrast with the linear problem, in which it occurs at the
finite rate equal to the Landau-damping rate). The ability of the free energy
to stay in the low velocity moments of the distribution function is facilitated
by the "anti-phase-mixing" effect, whose presence in the nonlinear system is
due to the stochastic version of the plasma echo (the advecting velocity
couples the phase-mixing and anti-phase-mixing perturbations). The partitioning
of the wave-number space between the (energetically dominant) region where this
is the case and the region where linear phase mixing wins its competition with
nonlinear advection is governed by the "critical balance" between linear and
nonlinear timescales (which for high Hermite moments splits into two
thresholds, one demarcating the wave-number region where phase mixing
predominates, the other where plasma echo does).Comment: 45 pages (single-column), 3 figures, replaced with version published
in JP
Freely decaying turbulence in two-dimensional electrostatic gyrokinetics
In magnetized plasmas, a turbulent cascade occurs in phase space at scales
smaller than the thermal Larmor radius ("sub-Larmor scales") [Phys. Rev. Lett.
103, 015003 (2009)]. When the turbulence is restricted to two spatial
dimensions perpendicular to the background magnetic field, two independent
cascades may take place simultaneously because of the presence of two
collisionless invariants. In the present work, freely decaying turbulence of
two-dimensional electrostatic gyrokinetics is investigated by means of
phenomenological theory and direct numerical simulations. A dual cascade
(forward and inverse cascades) is observed in velocity space as well as in
position space, which we diagnose by means of nonlinear transfer functions for
the collisionless invariants. We find that the turbulence tends to a
time-asymptotic state, dominated by a single scale that grows in time. A theory
of this asymptotic state is derived in the form of decay laws. Each case that
we study falls into one of three regimes (weakly collisional, marginal, and
strongly collisional), determined by a dimensionless number D*, a quantity
analogous to the Reynolds number. The marginal state is marked by a critical
number D* = D0 that is preserved in time. Turbulence initialized above this
value become increasingly inertial in time, evolving toward larger and larger
D*; turbulence initialized below D0 become more and more collisional, decaying
to progressively smaller D*.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures; replaced to match published versio
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