Low-velocity impact craters in ice and ice-saturated sand with implications for Martian crater count ages

We produced a series of decimeter-sized impact craters in blocks of ice near 0°C and −70°C and in ice-saturated sand near −70°C as a preliminary investigation of cratering in materials analogous to those found on Mars and the outer solar system satellites. The projectiles used were standard 0.22 and 0.30 caliber bullets fired at velocities between 0.3 and 1.5 km/s, with kinetic energies at impact between 10^9 and 4×10^(10) ergs. Crater diameters in the ice-saturated sand were ∼2 times larger than craters in the same energy and velocity range in competent blocks of granite, basalt and cement. Craters in ice were ∼3 times larger. If this dependence of crater size on strength persists to large hypervelocity impact craters, then surfaces of geologic units composed of ice or ice-saturated soil would have greater crater count ages than rocky surfaces with identical influx histories. The magnitude of the correction to crater counts required by this strength effect is comparable to the magnitudes of corrections required by variations in impact velocity and surface gravity used in determining relative interplanetary chronologies. The relative sizes of craters in ice and ice-saturated sand imply that the tensile strength of ice-saturated sand is a strong inverse function of temperature. If this is true, then Martian impact crater energy versus diameter scaling may also be a function of latitude

Experimental simulation of volcanic steam blasts and jets at high pressure ratios

End-member compositions of plumes from volcanic eruptions range from nearly pure steam to heavily particle-laden gas flows. In all cases, if the plumes erupt from a high-pressure reservoir, they are initially supersonic jets that may have complex internal flow structures not easily documented in the field. In the laboratory, some properties of volcanic jets can be investigated with particle-laden flows, but other properties can only be investigated in optically transparent flows. We examine the relation of unsteady jet structure to reservoir conditions for optically transparent flows. We have developed an experimental shock tube facility capable of achieving pressure ratios up to ~150 with reservoirs of different shapes. Time-resolved schlieren visualization is combined with pitot pressure measurements to interrogate the structure of the underexpanded jet flow. We have done preliminary experiments at a pressure ration of 40 with air, with two reservoirs that are 12.6 and 20 cm in length. These initially produce well-defined supersonic jets that have properties (shape of the underexpanded jet; barrel shocks, Mach disk shocks) which we have bench-marked against other experiments and simulations. Estimated durations of the supersonic portions of the flow from pressure decay calculations are ~45 and ~75 ms, respectively. On these time-scales, the experimental jets collapse; the plume boundary and internal barrel shocks tighten and the Mach disk shock moves toward the vent, until subsonic conditions occur

Unsteady high-pressure flow experiments with applications to explosive volcanic eruptions

Motivated by the hypothesis that volcanic blasts can have supersonic regions, we investigate the role of unsteady flow in jets from a high-pressure finite reservoir. We examine the processes for formation of far-field features, such as Mach disk shocks, by using a shock tube facility and numerical experiments to investigate phenomena to previously unobtained pressure ratios of 250:1. The Mach disk shock initially forms at the edges of the vent and moves toward the centerline. The shock is established within a few vent diameters and propagates downstream toward the equilibrium location as the jet develops. The start-up process is characterized by two different timescales: the duration of supersonic flow at the nozzle exit and the formation time of the Mach disk shock. The termination process also is characterized by two different timescales: the travel time required for the Mach disk shock to reach its equilibrium position and the time at which the Mach disk shock begins significantly to collapse away from its equilibrium position. The critical comparisons for the formation of steady state supersonic regions are between the two start-up timescales and the termination timescales. We conclude that for typical vulcanian eruptions and the Mount St. Helens directed blast, the Mach disk shock could have formed near the vent, and that there was time for it to propagate a distance comparable to its equilibrium location. These experiments provide a framework for analysis of short-lived volcanic eruptions and data for benchmarking simulations of jet structures in explosive volcanic blasts

Experiments on the Gas Dynamics of the Mt. St. Helens 1980 Lateral Blast

Field evidence suggests that the lateral blast in the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption behaved like an underexpanded jet flow. We conduct two experiments to investigate this hypothesis. In our first experiment, we use the compressible flow--shallow-water analogy to measure the geometry of the shock structure around the underexpanded jet, which is comparable with the position of the interface between the direct and channelized blast zones described by Kieffer (1981). Also, Kieffer and Sturtevant (1988) identified furrows created by the blast which were possibly formed by scouring due to Goertler vortices induced by curvature in the terrain. In our second experiment, carried out in a compressible flow laboratory, we investigate an additional Goertler vortex generation mechanism due to the curvature of the shear layer adjacent to the intercepting shocks in the underexpanded jet. These experiments allow for a more-detailed scrutiny of the underexpanded jet--lateral blast analogy proposed by Kieffer (1981)

The Effects of Kinesio Tape on Postural Control in Female Athletes With Chronic Ankle Instability

Please refer to the pdf version of the abstract located adjacent to the title

Entropic phase separation of linked beads

We study theoretically a model system of a transient network of microemulsion droplets connected by telechelic polymers and explain recent experimental findings. Despite the absence of any specific interactions between either the droplets or polymer chains, we predict that as the number of polymers per drop is increased, the system undergoes a first order phase separation into a dense, highly connected phase, in equilibrium with dilute droplets, decorated by polymer loops. The phase transition is purely entropic and is driven by the interplay between the translational entropy of the drops and the configurational entropy of the polymer connections between them. Because it is dominated by entropic effects, the phase separation mechanism of the system is extremely robust and does not depend on the particlular physical realization of the network. The discussed model applies as well to other polymer linked particle aggregates, such as nano-particles connected with short DNA linkers

Experimental Observation of “Shadowing” in Optical Transition Radiation

We report the observation of shadowing between two optical transition radiation (OTR) sources from a 205 MeV electron beam. The total optical intensity is measured as a function of the distance $d$ between the sources, covering the range $0 \lt d \lt 4L_{\nu}$, where $L_{\nu}$ is the formation length of the particles. Data show that the total optical intensity starts decreasing due to shadowing when $d$ approaches $L_{\nu}$ until it becomes undetectable for very short distances $d/L_{\nu} \rightarrow 0$. A model based solely on interference between the two OTR sources is in good agreement with experimental data. To the knowledge of the authors this is the first systematic experimental observation of shadowing in OTR

Visual Similarity Perception of Directed Acyclic Graphs: A Study on Influencing Factors

While visual comparison of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) is commonly encountered in various disciplines (e.g., finance, biology), knowledge about humans' perception of graph similarity is currently quite limited. By graph similarity perception we mean how humans perceive commonalities and differences in graphs and herewith come to a similarity judgment. As a step toward filling this gap the study reported in this paper strives to identify factors which influence the similarity perception of DAGs. In particular, we conducted a card-sorting study employing a qualitative and quantitative analysis approach to identify 1) groups of DAGs that are perceived as similar by the participants and 2) the reasons behind their choice of groups. Our results suggest that similarity is mainly influenced by the number of levels, the number of nodes on a level, and the overall shape of the graph.Comment: Graph Drawing 2017 - arXiv Version; Keywords: Graphs, Perception, Similarity, Comparison, Visualizatio