Evaluation of seals for high-performance cryogenic turbomachines

An approach to computing flow and dynamic characteristics for seals or bearings is discussed. The local average velocity was strongly influenced by inlet and exit effects and fluid injection, which in turn drove zones of secondary flow. For the restricted three-dimensional model considered, the integral averaged results were in reasonable agreement with selected data. Unidirectional pressure measurements alone were insufficient to define such flow variations. However, for seal and bearing leakage correlations the principles of corresponding states were found to be useful. Also discussed are three phenomena encountered during testing of three eccentric nonrotating seal configurations for the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) Program. Fluid injection, choking within a seal, and pressure profile crossover are related to postulated zones of secondary flow or separation and to direct stiffness

A Survey of 56 Mid-latitude EGRET Error Boxes for Radio Pulsars

We have conducted a radio pulsar survey of 56 unidentified gamma-ray sources from the 3rd EGRET catalog which are at intermediate Galactic latitudes (5 deg. < |b| < 73 deg.). For each source, four interleaved 35-minute pointings were made with the 13-beam, 1400-MHz multibeam receiver on the Parkes 64-m radio telescope. This covered the 95% error box of each source at a limiting sensitivity of about 0.2 mJy to pulsed radio emission for periods P > 10 ms and dispersion measures < 50 pc cm-3. Roughly half of the unidentified gamma-ray sources at |b| > 5 deg. with no proposed active galactic nucleus counterpart were covered in this survey. We detected nine isolated pulsars and four recycled binary pulsars, with three from each class being new. Timing observations suggest that only one of the pulsars has a spin-down luminosity which is even marginally consistent with the inferred luminosity of its coincident EGRET source. Our results suggest that population models, which include the Gould belt as a component, overestimate the number of isolated pulsars among the mid-latitude Galactic gamma-ray sources and that it is unlikely that Gould belt pulsars make up the majority of these sources. However, the possibility of steep pulsar radio spectra and the confusion of terrestrial radio interference with long-period pulsars (P > 200 ms) having very low dispersion measures (< 10 pc cm-3, expected for sources at a distance of less than about 1 kpc) prevent us from strongly ruling out this hypothesis. Our results also do not support the hypothesis that millisecond pulsars make up the majority of these sources. Non-pulsar source classes should therefore be further investigated as possible counterparts to the unidentified EGRET sources at intermediate Galactic latitudes.Comment: 24 pages, including 4 figures and 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

Critical property of spin-glass transition in a bond-disordered classical antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with a biquadratic interaction

Motivated by puzzling spin-glass behaviors observed in many pyrochlore-based magnets, effects of magnetoelastic coupling to local lattice distortions were recently studied by the authors for a bond-disordered antiferromagnet on a pyrochlore lattice [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 047204 (2011)]. Here, we extend the analyses with focusing on the critical property of the spin-glass transition which occurs concomitantly with a nematic transition. Finite-size scaling analyses are performed up to a larger system size with 8192 spins to estimate the transition temperature and critical exponents. The exponents are compared with those in the absence of the magnetoelastic coupling and with those for the canonical spin-glass systems. We also discuss the temperature dependence of the specific heat in comparison with that in canonical spin-glass systems as well as an experimental result.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, proceedings for LT2

Some estimates of Wang-Yau quasilocal energy

Given a spacelike 2-surface $\Sigma$ in a spacetime $N$ and a constant future timelike unit vector $T_0$ in $\R^{3,1}$, we derive upper and lower estimates of Wang-Yau quasilocal energy $E(\Sigma, X, T_0)$ for a given isometric embedding $X$ of $\Sigma$ into a flat 3-slice in $\R^{3,1}$. The quantity $E(\Sigma, X, T_0)$ itself depends on the choice of $X$, however the infimum of $E(\Sigma, X, T_0)$ over $T_0$ does not. In particular, when $\Sigma$ lies in a time symmetric 3-slice in $N$ and has nonnegative Brown-York quasilocal mass \mby(\Sigma), our estimates show that $\inf\limits_{T_0}E(\Sigma, X, T_0)$ equals \mby (\Sigma). We also study the spatial limit of $\inf\limits_{T_0}E(S_r,X_r,T_0)$, where $S_r$ is a large coordinate sphere in a fixed end of an asymptotically flat initial data set $(M, g, p)$ and $X_r$ is an isometric embeddings of $S_r$ into $\mathbb{R}^3 \subset \mathbb{R}^{3,1}$. We show that if $(M, g, p)$ has future timelike ADM energy-momentum, then $\lim\limits_{r\to\infty}\inf\limits_{T_0}E(S_r,X_r,T_0)$ equals the ADM mass of $(M, g, p)$.Comment: 17 page

Dual Fermion Dynamical Cluster Approach for Strongly Correlated Systems

We have designed a new multi-scale approach for Strongly Correlated Systems by combining the Dynamical Cluster Approximation (DCA) and the recently introduced dual-fermion formalism. This approach employs an exact mapping from a real lattice to a DCA cluster of linear size Lc embedded in a dual fermion lattice. Short-length-scale physics is addressed by the DCA cluster calculation, while longer-length-scale physics is addressed diagrammatically using dual fermions. The bare and dressed dual Fermionic Green functions scale as O(1/Lc) so perturbation theory on the dual lattice converges very quickly. E.g., the dual Fermion self-energy calculated with simple second order perturbation theory is of order O(1/Lc^3), with third order and three body corrections down by an additional factor of O(1/Lc^2)

Participatory agro-climate information services: A key component in climate resilient agriculture

The brief promotes participatory agro-climate information services as a key component in achieving climate-smart agriculture. The brief emphasizes that actionable agro-climate information starts with—and responds to—gender-based needs of farmers, integrated at all stages of the value chain. Timely forecasts and accurate agroclimate advisories have been proven to provide farmers with production, adaptation, and mitigation benefits

Numerical modeling of multidimensional flow in seals and bearings used in rotating machinery

The rotordynamic behavior of turbomachinery is critically dependent on fluid dynamic rotor forces developed by various types of seals and bearings. The occurrence of self-excited vibrations often depends on the rotor speed and load. Misalignment and rotor wobbling motion associated with differential clearance were often attributed to stability problems. In general, the rotative character of the flowfield is a complex three dimensional system with secondary flow patterns that significantly alter the average fluid circumferential velocity. A multidimensional, nonorthogonal, body-fitted-grid fluid flow model is presented that describes the fluid dynamic forces and the secondary flow pattern development in seals and bearings. Several numerical experiments were carried out to demonstrate the characteristics of this complex flowfield. Analyses were performed by solving a conservation form of the three dimensional Navier-Stokes equations transformed to those for a rotating observer and using the general-purpose computer code PHOENICS with the assumptions that the rotor orbit is circular and that static eccentricity is zero. These assumptions have enabled a precise steady-state analysis to be used. Fluid injection from ports near the seal or bearing center increased fluid-film direct dynamic stiffness and, in some cases, significantly increased quadrature dynamic stiffness. Injection angle and velocity could be used for active rotordynamic control; for example, injection, when compared with no injection, increased direct dynamic stiffness, which is an important factor for hydrostatic bearings