Expert system decision support for low-cost launch vehicle operations

Progress in assessing the feasibility, benefits, and risks associated with AI expert systems applied to low cost expendable launch vehicle systems is described. Part one identified potential application areas in vehicle operations and on-board functions, assessed measures of cost benefit, and identified key technologies to aid in the implementation of decision support systems in this environment. Part two of the program began the development of prototypes to demonstrate real-time vehicle checkout with controller and diagnostic/analysis intelligent systems and to gather true measures of cost savings vs. conventional software, verification and validation requirements, and maintainability improvement. The main objective of the expert advanced development projects was to provide a robust intelligent system for control/analysis that must be performed within a specified real-time window in order to meet the demands of the given application. The efforts to develop the two prototypes are described. Prime emphasis was on a controller expert system to show real-time performance in a cryogenic propellant loading application and safety validation implementation of this system experimentally, using commercial-off-the-shelf software tools and object oriented programming techniques. This smart ground support equipment prototype is based in C with imbedded expert system rules written in the CLIPS protocol. The relational database, ORACLE, provides non-real-time data support. The second demonstration develops the vehicle/ground intelligent automation concept, from phase one, to show cooperation between multiple expert systems. This automated test conductor (ATC) prototype utilizes a knowledge-bus approach for intelligent information processing by use of virtual sensors and blackboards to solve complex problems. It incorporates distributed processing of real-time data and object-oriented techniques for command, configuration control, and auto-code generation

AC-Tolerant Multifilament Coated Conductors

We report the magnetization losses in an experimental multifilament coated conductor. A 4 mm wide and 10 cm long YBCO coated conductor was subdivided into eight 0.5 mm wide filaments by laser ablation and subjected to post-ablation treatment. As the result, the hysteresis loss was reduced, as expected, in proportion to the width of the filaments. However, the coupling loss was reduced dramatically, and became practically negligible, in the range of a sweep rate up to 20 T/s. This represents a drastic improvement on previous multifilament conductors in which often the coupling losses became equal to the hysteresis loss at a sweep rate as low as 3-4 T/s. These results demonstrate that there is an effective and practical way to suppress coupling losses in coated multifilament conductors.Comment: This paper is based on a talk given at 2006 Applied Superconductivity Conference in Seattle, WA (August 27-September 1, 2006). To be published in IEEE Trans. Appl. Superconductivit

A Neutral Polyampholyte in an ionic solution

The behavior of a neutral polyampholyte ($PA$) chain with $N$ monomers, in an ionic solution, is analyzed in the framework of the full Debye-H$\ddot u$ckel-Bjerrum-Flory $(DHBjF)$ theory. A $PA$ chain, that in addition to the neutral monomers, also contains an equal number of positively and negatively charged monomers, is dissolved in an ionic solution. For \underline{high} concentrations of salt and at high temperatures, the $PA$ exists in an extended state. As the temperature is decreased, the electrostatic energy becomes more relevant and at a $T=T_{\theta}$ the system collapses into a dilute globular state, or microelectrolyte. This state contains a concentration of salt higher than the surrounding medium. As the temperature is decreased even further, association between the monomers of the polymer and the ions of the salt becomes relevant and there is a crossover from this globular state to a low temperature extended state. For \underline{low} densities of salt, the system is collapsed for almost all temperatures and exhibits a first-order phase transition to an extended state at an unphysical low temperature.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex with epsf, 9 Postscript figures. Submitted to PR

Evolution of the bursting-layer wave during a Type 1 X-ray burst

In a popular scenario due to Heyl, quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs) which are seen during type 1 X-ray bursts are produced by giant travelling waves in neutron-star oceans. Piro and Bildsten have proposed that during the burst cooling the wave in the bursting layer may convert into a deep crustal interface wave, which would cut off the visible QPOs. This cut-off would help explain the magnitude of the QPO frequency drift, which is otherwise overpredicted by a factor of several in Heyl's scenario. In this paper, we study the coupling between the bursting layer and the deep ocean. The coupling turns out to be weak and only a small fraction of the surface-wave energy gets transferred to that of the crustal-interface wave during the burst. Thus the crustal-interface wave plays no dynamical role during the burst, and no early QPO cut-off should occur.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to MNRA

Kinetic Inflation in Stringy and Other Cosmologies

An inflationary epoch driven by the kinetic energy density in a dynamical Planck mass is studied. In the conformally related Einstein frame it is easiest to see the demands of successful inflation cannot be satisfied by kinetic inflation alone. Viewed in the original Jordan-Brans-Dicke frame, the obstacle is manifest as a kind of graceful exit problem and/or a kind of flatness problem. These arguments indicate the weakness of only the simplest formulation. {}From them can be gleaned directions toward successful kinetic inflation.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX, CITA-94-2

Electrostatics of ions inside the nanopores and trans-membrane channels

A model of a finite cylindrical ion channel through a phospholipid membrane of width $L$ separating two electrolyte reservoirs is studied. Analytical solution of the Poisson equation is obtained for an arbitrary distribution of ions inside the trans-membrane pore. The solution is asymptotically exact in the limit of large ionic strength of electrolyte on the two sides of membrane. However, even for physiological concentrations of electrolyte, the electrostatic barrier sizes found using the theory are in excellent agreement with the numerical solution of the Poisson equation. The analytical solution is used to calculate the electrostatic potential energy profiles for pores containing charged protein residues. Availability of a semi-exact interionic potential should greatly facilitate the study of ionic transport through nanopores and ion channels

Spin frequency evolution and pulse profile variations of the recently re-activated radio magnetar XTE J1810-197

After spending almost a decade in a radio-quiet state, the Anomalous X-ray Pulsar XTE J1810-197 turned back on in early December 2018. We have observed this radio magnetar at 1.5 GHz with ~daily cadence since the first detection of radio re-activation on 8 December 2018. In this paper, we report on the current timing properties of XTE J1810-197 and find that the magnitude of the spin frequency derivative has increased by a factor of 2.6 over our 48-day data set. We compare our results with the spin-down evolution reported during its previous active phase in the radio band. We also present total intensity pulse profiles at five different observing frequencies between 1.5 and 8.4 GHz, collected with the Lovell and the Effelsberg telescopes. The profile evolution in our data set is less erratic than what was reported during the previous active phase, and can be seen varying smoothly between observations. Profiles observed immediately after the outburst show the presence of at least five cycles of a very stable ~50-ms periodicity in the main pulse component that lasts for at least tens of days. This remarkable structure is seen across the full range of observing frequencies.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, updated with additional analysis of the 50-ms oscillation, accepted for publication in MNRA

The effects of superconductor-stabilizer interfacial resistance on quench of current-carrying coated conductor

We present the results of numerical analysis of a model of normal zone propagation in coated conductors. The main emphasis is on the effects of increased contact resistance between the superconducting film and the stabilizer on the speed of normal zone propagation, the maximum temperature rise inside the normal zone, and the stability margins. We show that with increasing contact resistance the speed of normal zone propagation increases, the maximum temperature inside the normal zone decreases, and stability margins shrink. This may have an overall beneficial effect on quench protection quality of coated conductors. We also briefly discuss the propagation of solitons and development of the temperature modulation along the wire.Comment: To be published in Superconductor Science and Technology. This preprint contains one animated figure (Fig. 6(a)). when asked whether you want to play the content, click "Play". Acrobat Reader (Windows and Mac, but not Linux) will play embedded flash movies. In the printed copy Fig. 6(b) will show the temperature profile at gamma t=15

Use of 2G coated conductors for efficient shielding of DC magnetic fields

This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation of the performance of two types of magnetic screens assembled from YBa2Cu3O7-d (YBCO) coated conductors. Since effective screening of the axial DC magnetic field requires the unimpeded flow of an azimuthal persistent current, we demonstrate a configuration of a screening shell made out of standard YBCO coated conductor capable to accomplish that. The screen allows the persistent current to flow in the predominantly azimuthal direction at a temperature of 77 K. The persistent screen, incorporating a single layer of superconducting film, can attenuate an external magnetic field of up to 5 mT by more than an order of magnitude. For comparison purposes, another type of screen which incorporates low critical temperature quasi-persistent joints was also built. The shielding technique we describe here appears to be especially promising for the realization of large scale high-Tc superconducting screens.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure