Ignition means for monopropellant Patent

Catalyst bed ignition system for hydrazine propellant

Adaptive high-order finite element solution of transient elastohydrodynamic lubrication problems

This article presents a new numerical method to solve transient line contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) problems. A high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method is used for the spatial discretization, and the standard Crank-Nicolson method is employed to approximate the time derivative. An h-adaptivity method is used for grid adaptation with the time-stepping, and the penalty method is employed to handle the cavitation condition. The roughness model employed here is a simple indentation, which is located on the upper surface. Numerical results are presented comparing the DG method to standard finite difference (FD) techniques. It is shown that micro-EHL features are captured with far fewer degrees of freedom than when using low-order FD methods

A quantitative analysis of inter-island telephony traffic in the Pacific Basin Region (PBR)

As part of NASA's continuing assessment of future communication satellite requirements, a study was conducted to quantitatively scope current and future telecommunication traffic demand in the South Pacific Archipelagos. This demand was then converted to equivalent satellite transponder capacities. Only inter-island telephony traffic for the Pacific Basin Region was included. The results show that if all this traffic were carried by a satellite system, one-third of a satellite transponder would be needed to satisfy the base-year (1976-1977) requirement and about two-thirds of a satellite transponder would be needed to satisfy the forecasted 1985 requirement

Flow studies in a wet steam turbine

The design and test results of a four stage wet vapor turbine operating with slightly superheated inlet steam and expanding to 10% exit moisture are presented. High speed movies at 3000 frames per second of liquid movement on the pressure side and along the trailing edge of the last stator blade are discussed along with back lighted photographs of moisture drops as they were torn from the stator blade trailing edge. Movies at lower framing rates were also taken of the exit of the last rotating blade and the casing moisture removal slot located in line with the rotor blade shroud. Also moisture removal data are presented of casing slot removal at the exit of the third and fourth rotor blades and for slots located in the trailing edge of the last stator blade. Finally, the degradation of turbine thermodynamic performance due to condensation formation and movement is discussed

The effect of injector-element scale on the mixing and combustion of nitrogen tetroxide-hydrazine propellants

Injector-element physical size effect on mixing and combustion of nitrogen tetroxide-hydrazine propellant

Future monitoring of charged particle energy deposition into the upper atmosphere and comments on possible relationships between atmospheric phenomena and solar and/or geomagnetic activity

Monitoring of earth's atmosphere was conducted for several years utilizing the ITOS series of low-altitude, polar-orbiting weather satellites. A space environment monitoring package was included in these satellites to perform measurements of a portion of earth's charged particle environment. The charged particle observations proposed for the low-altitude weather satellite TIROS N, are described which will provide the capability of routine monitoring of the instantaneous total energy deposition into the upper atmosphere by the precipitation of charged particles from higher altitudes. Such observations may be of use in future studies of the relationships between geomagnetic activity and atmospheric weather pattern developments. Estimates are given to assess the potential importance of this type of energy deposition. Discussion and examples are presented illustrating the importance of distinguishing between solar and geomagnetic activity as possible causative sources. Such differentiation is necessary because of the widely different spatial and time scales involved in the atmospheric energy input resulting from these various sources of activity

Steady shear flow thermodynamics based on a canonical distribution approach

A non-equilibrium steady state thermodynamics to describe shear flows is developed using a canonical distribution approach. We construct a canonical distribution for shear flow based on the energy in the moving frame using the Lagrangian formalism of the classical mechanics. From this distribution we derive the Evans-Hanley shear flow thermodynamics, which is characterized by the first law of thermodynamics $dE = T dS - Q d\gamma$ relating infinitesimal changes in energy $E$, entropy $S$ and shear rate $\gamma$ with kinetic temperature $T$. Our central result is that the coefficient $Q$ is given by Helfand's moment for viscosity. This approach leads to thermodynamic stability conditions for shear flow, one of which is equivalent to the positivity of the correlation function of $Q$. We emphasize the role of the external work required to sustain the steady shear flow in this approach, and show theoretically that the ensemble average of its power $\dot{W}$ must be non-negative. A non-equilibrium entropy, increasing in time, is introduced, so that the amount of heat based on this entropy is equal to the average of $\dot{W}$. Numerical results from non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation of two-dimensional many-particle systems with soft-core interactions are presented which support our interpretation.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figure