A technique for simulating turbulence for aerospace vehicle flight simulation studies

An atmospheric turbulence model which accommodates variability of turbulence properties along an aerospace vehicle trajectory was developed. The technique involves the use of Dryden spectral forms in which the defining parameters are the standard deviations (sigma) and integral scales (L) of turbulence. These spectra are expressed as nondimensional functions of the nondimensional frequency Omega = omega L/V where omega is dimensional radian frequency and V is the true air speed of the aerospace vehicle. The nondimensional spectra are factored by standard techniques to obtain nondimensional linear recursive filters in the time domain whereby band-limited white-like noise can be operated upon to obtain nondimensional longitudinal, lateral, and vertical turbulence velocities, as functions of nondimensional time, tV/L, where t is time. Application of the technique to the simulation of the space shuttle orbiter entry flight phase is discussed

The responses of balloon and falling sphere wind sensors in turbulent flows

Responses of balloon and falling sphere wind sensors in atmospheric turbulence, analyzed with Fourier transformatio

Spherical balloon response to three-dimensional time-dependent flows

The concept of the Lagrangian displacement of a balloon is introduced. It is shown that the general balloon response problem is extremely complicated because the wind-forcing functions in the balloon equations of motion are functions of the wind velocity vector and its Eulerian first derivatives evaluated at the location of the balloon. The linear perturbation equations for a spherical balloon are derived by perturbing the components of velocity of the balloon about a terminal velocity state which is in equilibrium with a space-time invariant mean horizontal flow. The atmospheric flow is also perturbed such that the resulting equations can be used to analyze the responses of spherical balloons to three-dimensional time-dependent flows. The wind field is represented in terms of a four-fold Fourier integral that involves three orthogonal wave numbers and a frequency, while the balloon components of velocity are represented as Fourier integrals involving a frequency which, in turn, is a function of the wind field wave numbers and frequency and the unperturbed flow components of velocity

Simplified model of statistically stationary spacecraft rotation and associated induced gravity environments

A stochastic model of spacecraft motion was developed based on the assumption that the net torque vector due to crew activity and rocket thruster firings is a statistically stationary Gaussian vector process. The process had zero ensemble mean value, and the components of the torque vector were mutually stochastically independent. The linearized rigid-body equations of motion were used to derive the autospectral density functions of the components of the spacecraft rotation vector. The cross-spectral density functions of the components of the rotation vector vanish for all frequencies so that the components of rotation were mutually stochastically independent. The autospectral and cross-spectral density functions of the induced gravity environment imparted to scientific apparatus rigidly attached to the spacecraft were calculated from the rotation rate spectral density functions via linearized inertial frame to body-fixed principal axis frame transformation formulae. The induced gravity process was a Gaussian one with zero mean value. Transformation formulae were used to rotate the principal axis body-fixed frame to which the rotation rate and induced gravity vector were referred to a body-fixed frame in which the components of the induced gravity vector were stochastically independent. Rice's theory of exceedances was used to calculate expected exceedance rates of the components of the rotation and induced gravity vector processes

Rough-to-smooth transition of an equilibrium neutral constant stress layer

Purpose of research on rough-to-smooth transition of an equilibrium neutral constant stress layer is to develop a model for low-level atmospheric flow over terrains of abruptly changing roughness, such as those occurring near the windward end of a landing strip, and to use the model to derive functions which define the extent of the region affected by the roughness change and allow adequate prediction of wind and shear stress profiles at all points within the region. A model consisting of two bounding logarithmic layers and an intermediate velocity defect layer is assumed, and dimensionless velocity and stress distribution functions which meet all boundary and matching conditions are hypothesized. The functions are used in an asymptotic form of the equation of motion to derive a relation which governs the growth of the internal boundary layer. The growth relation is used to predict variation of surface shear stress

An arbitrary curvilinear coordinate particle in cell method

A new approach to the kinetic simulation of plasmas in complex geometries, based on the Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulation method, is explored. In this method, called the Arbitrary Curvilinear Coordinate PIC (ACC-PIC) method, all essential PIC operations are carried out on a uniform, unitary square logical domain and mapped to a nonuniform, boundary fitted physical domain. We utilize an elliptic grid generation technique known as Winslow\u27s method to generate boundary-fitted physical domains. We have derived the logical grid macroparticle equations of motion based on a canonical transformation of Hamilton\u27s equations from the physical domain to the logical. These equations of motion are not seperable, and therefore unable to be integrated using the standard Leapfrog method. We have developed an extension of the semi-implicit Modified Leapfrog (ML) integration technique to preserve the symplectic nature of the logical grid particle mover. We constructed a proof to show that the ML integrator is symplectic for systems of arbitrary dimension. We have constructed a generalized, curvilinear coordinate formulation of Poisson\u27s equations to solve for the electrostatic fields on the uniform logical grid. By our formulation, we supply the plasma charge density on the logical grid as a source term. By the formulations of the logical grid particle mover and the field equations, the plasma particles are weighted to the uniform logical grid and the self-consistent mean fields obtained from the solution of the Poisson equation are interpolated to the particle position on the logical grid. This process coordinates the complexity associated with the weighting and interpolation processes on the nonuniform physical grid. In this work, we explore the feasibility of the ACC-PIC method as a first step towards building a production level, time-adaptive-grid, 3D electromagnetic ACC-PIC code. We begin by combining the individual components to construct a 1D, electrostatic ACC-PIC code on a stationary nonuniform grid. Several standard physics tests were used to validate the accuracy of our method in comparison with a standard uniform grid PIC code. We then extend the code to two spatial dimensions and repeat the physics tests on a rectangular domain with both orthogonal and nonorthogonal meshing in comparison with a standard 2D uniform grid PIC code. As a proof of principle, we then show the time evolution of an electrostatic plasma oscillation on an annular domain obtained using Winslow\u27s method

Instrument concept for geophysical fluid flow experiments on the first spacelab mission

A concept is provided for a geophysical fluid flow cell (GFFC) and sufficient detail is given to allow the start of a design effort. A brief background of the scientific studies to be conducted with the GFFC and its theoretical basis for operation are also included