Transonic turbine blade cascade testing facility

NASA LeRC has designed and constructed a new state-of-the-art test facility. This facility, the Transonic Turbine Blade Cascade, is used to evaluate the aerodynamics and heat transfer characteristics of blade geometries for future turbine applications. The facility's capabilities make it unique: no other facility of its kind can combine the high degree of airflow turning, infinitely adjustable incidence angle, and high transonic flow rates. The facility air supply and exhaust pressures are controllable to 16.5 psia and 2 psia, respectively. The inlet air temperatures are at ambient conditions. The facility is equipped with a programmable logic controller with a capacity of 128 input/output channels. The data acquisition system is capable of scanning up to 1750 channels per sec. This paper discusses in detail the capabilities of the facility, overall facility design, instrumentation used in the facility, and the data acquisition system. Actual research data is not discussed

Dealiasing techniques for high-order spectral element methods on regular and irregular grids

High-order methods are becoming increasingly attractive in both academia and industry, especially in the context of computational fluid dynamics. However, before they can be more widely adopted, issues such as lack of robustness in terms of numerical stability need to be addressed, particularly when treating industrial-type problems where challenging geometries and a wide range of physical scales, typically due to high Reynolds numbers, need to be taken into account. One source of instability is aliasing effects which arise from the nonlinearity of the underlying problem. In this work we detail two dealiasing strategies based on the concept of consistent integration. The first uses a localised approach, which is useful when the nonlinearities only arise in parts of the problem. The second is based on the more traditional approach of using a higher quadrature. The main goal of both dealiasing techniques is to improve the robustness of high order spectral element methods, thereby reducing aliasing-driven instabilities. We demonstrate how these two strategies can be effectively applied to both continuous and discontinuous discretisations, where, in the latter, both volumetric and interface approximations must be considered. We show the key features of each dealiasing technique applied to the scalar conservation law with numerical examples and we highlight the main differences in terms of implementation between continuous and discontinuous spatial discretisations

Direct Interactions in Relativistic Statistical Mechanics

Directly interacting particles are considered in the multitime formalism of predictive relativistic mechanics. When the equations of motion leave a phase-space volume invariant, it turns out that the phase average of any first integral, covariantly defined as a flux across a $7n$-dimensional surface, is conserved. The Hamiltonian case is discussed, a class of simple models is exhibited, and a tentative definition of equilibrium is proposed.Comment: Plain Tex file, 26 page

Rapid Metabolic Recovery Following Vigorous Exercise in Burrow-Dwelling Larval Sea Lampreys (\u3cem\u3ePetromyzon marinus\u3c/em\u3e)

Although the majority of the sea lamprey’s (Petromyzon marinus) life cycle is spent as a burrow-dwelling larva, or ammocoete, surprisingly little is known about intermediary metabolism in this stage of the lamprey’s life history. In this study, larval sea lampreys (ammocoetes) were vigorously exercised for 5 min, and their patterns of metabolic fuel depletion and replenishment and oxygen consumption, along with measurements of net whole-body acid and ion movements, were followed during a 4–24-h postexercise recovery period. Exercise led to initial five- to sixfold increases in postexercise oxygen consumption, which remained significantly elevated by 1.5–2.0 times for the next 3 h. Exercise also led to initial 55% drops in whole-body phosphocreatine, which was restored by 0.5 h, but no significant changes in whole-body adenosine triphosphate were observed. Whole-body glycogen concentrations dropped by 70% immediately following exercise and were accompanied by a simultaneous ninefold increase in lactate. Glycogen and lactate were quickly restored to resting levels after 0.5 and 2.0 h, respectively. The presence of an associated metabolic acidosis was supported by very high rates of metabolic acid excretion, which approached 1,000 nmol g-1 during the first 2 h of postexercise recovery. Exercise-induced ion imbalances were also rapidly alleviated, as initially high rates of net Na+ and Cl- loss (—1,200 nmol g-1h-1 and —1,800 nmol g-1h-1 respectively) were corrected within 1–2 h. Although larval sea lampreys spend most of their time burrowed, they are adept at performing and recovering from vigorous anaerobic exercise. Such attributes could be important when these animals are vigorously swimming or burrowing as they evade predators or forage

Distinguishing an ejected blob from alternative flare models at the Galactic centre with GRAVITY

The black hole at the Galactic centre exhibits regularly flares of radiation, the origin of which is still not understood. In this article, we study the ability of the near-future GRAVITY infrared instrument to constrain the nature of these events. We develop realistic simulations of GRAVITY astrometric data sets for various flare models. We show that the instrument will be able to distinguish an ejected blob from alternative flare models, provided the blob inclination is >= 45deg, the flare brightest magnitude is 14 <= mK <= 15 and the flare duration is >= 1h30.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted by MNRA

Toward NS5 Branes on the Resolved Cone over Y^{p,q}

Motivated by recent developments in the understanding of the connection between five branes on resolved geometries and the corresponding generalizations of complex deformations in the context of the warped resolved deformed conifold, we consider the construction of five branes solutions on the resolved cone over Y^{p,q} spaces. We establish the existence of supersymmetric five branes solutions wrapped on two-cycles of the resolved cone over Y^{p,q} in the probe limit. We then use calibration techniques to begin the construction of fully back-reacted five branes; we present an Ansatz and the corresponding equations of motion. Our results establish a detailed framework to study back-reacted five branes wrapped on the resolved cone over Y^{p,q} and as a first step we find explicit solutions and construct an asymptotic expansion with the expected properties.Comment: 23+17pp, no figures; v2: references added, various clarification

Structural precursor to the metal-insulator transition in V_2O_3

The temperature dependence of the local structure of V_2O_3 in the vicinity of the metal to insulator transition (MIT) has been investigated using hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy. It is shown that the vanadium pair distance along the hexagonal c-axis changes abruptly at the MIT as expected. However, a continuous increase of the tilt of these pairs sets in already at higher temperatures and reaches its maximum value at the onset of the electronic and magnetic transition. These findings confirm recent theoretical results which claim that electron-lattice coupling is important for the MIT in V_2O_3. Our results suggest that interactions in the basal plane play a decisive role for the MIT and orbital degrees of freedom drive the MIT via changes in hybridization.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Extraction of the Spin Glass Correlation Length

The peak of the spin glass relaxation rate, S(t)=d{-M_{TRM}(t,t_w)}/H/{d ln t}, is directly related to the typical value of the free energy barrier which can be explored over experimental time scales. A change in magnetic field H generates an energy E_z={N_s}{X_fc}{H^2} by which the barrier heights are reduced, where X_{fc} is the field cooled susceptibility per spin, and N_s is the number of correlated spins. The shift of the peak of S(t) gives E_z, generating the correlation length, Ksi(t,T), for Cu:Mn 6at.% and CdCr_{1.7}In_{0.3}S_4. Fits to power law dynamics, Ksi(t,T)\propto {t}^{\alpha(T)} and activated dynamics Ksi(t,T) \propto {ln t}^{1/psi} compare well with simulation fits, but possess too small a prefactor for activated dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Department of Physics, University of California, Riverside, California, and Service de Physique de l'Etat Condense, CEA Saclay, Gif sur Yvette, France. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. January 4, 199