ALBERT

Description: The static aeroelastic divergence characteristics of a delta-planform model of the canard control surface of a proposed air-to-ground missile have been studied both analytically and experimentally in the Mach number range from 0.6 to 3.0. The experiments indicated that divergence occurred at a nearly constant value of dynamic pressure at Mach numbers up to 1.2. At higher Mach numbers somewhat higher values of dynamic pressure were required to produce divergence. The analysis and the experiment indicate that the camber stiffness of the control surface and the stiffness of the control actuator are both important in divergence of surfaces of this type.

Description: Static aeroelastic divergence characteristics of delta-planform model of canard control surfaces

Description: The results of a numerical analysis of two interacting lifting surfaces separated in the spanwise direction by a narrow gap are presented. The configuration consists of a semispan wing with the last 32 percent of the span structurally separated from the inboard section. The angle of attack of the outboard section is set independently from that of the inboard section. In the present study, the three-dimensional panel code VSAERO is used to perform the analysis. Computed values of tip surface lift and pitching moment coefficients are correlated with experimental data to determine the proper approach to model the gap region between the surfaces. Pitching moment data for various tip planforms are also presented to show how the variation of tip pitching moment with angle of attack may be increased easily in incompressible flow. Calculated three-dimensional characteristics in compressible flow at Mach numbers of 0.5 and 0.7 are presented for new tip planform designs. An analysis of sectional aerodynamic center shift as a function of Mach number is also included for a representative tip planform. It is also shown that the induced drag of the tip surface is reduced for negative incidence angles relative to the inboard section. The results indicate that this local drag reduction overcomes the associated increase in wing induced drag at high wing lift coefficients.

Description: The results of a subsonic wind tunnel test of a semispan wing with an independently deflected tip surface are presented and analyzed. The tip surface was deflected about the quarter chord of the rectangular wing and accounted for 17 percent of the wing semispan. The test was conducted to measure the loads on the tip surface and to investigate the nature of aerodynamic interference effects between the wing and the deflected tip. Results are presented for two swept tip surfaces of similar planform but different airfoil distributions. The report contains plots of tip lift, drag, and pitching moment for various Reynolds numbers and tip deflection angles with respect to the inboard wing. Oil flow visualization photographs for a typical Reynolds number are also included. Important aerodynamic parameters such as lift and pitching moment slopes and tip aerodynamic center location are tabulated. A discussion is presented on the relationship between tip experimental data acquired in a steady flow and the prediction of unsteady tip motion at fixed wing angles of attack.

Description: We report on the analysis of the Kepler short-cadence (SC) light curve of V344 Lyr obtained during 2009 June 20 through 2010 Mar 19 (Q2-Q4). The system is an SU UMa star showing dwarf nova outbursts and superoutbursts, and promises to be a touchstone for CV studies for the foreseeable future. The system displays both positive and negative super humps with periods of 2.20 and 2.06-hr, respectively, and we identify an orbital period of 2.11-hr. The positive super humps have a maximum amplitude of approximately 0.025-mag, the negative super humps a maximum amplitude of approximately 0.8 mag, and the orbital period at quiescence has an amplitude of approximately 0.025 mag. The quality of the Kepler data is such that we can test vigorously the models for accretion disk dynamics that have been emerging in the past several years. The SC data for V344 Lyr are consistent with the model that two physical sources yield positive superhumps: early in the superoutburst. the superhump signal is generated by viscous dissipation within the periodically flexing disk. but late in the superoutburst, the signal is generated as the accretion stream bright spot sweeps around the rim of the non-axisymmetric disk. The disk super humps are roughly anti-phased with the stream/late superhumps. The V344 Lyr data also reveal negative super humps arising from accretion onto a tilted disk precessing in the retrograde direction, and suggest that negative superhumps may appear during the decline of DN outbursts. The period of negative superhumps has a positive P(raised dot) in between outbursts.

Description: Sonification is the conversion of quantitative data into sound. In this work we explain the methods used in the sonification of light curves provided by the Kepler instrument from Q2 through Q6 for the cataclysmic variable systems V344 Lyr and V1504 Cyg . Both systems are SU UMa stars showing dwarf nova outbursts and superoutbursts as well as positive and negative superhumps. Focused sonifications were done from average pulse shapes of each superhump, and separate sonifications of the full, residual light curves were done for both stars. The audio of these data reflected distinct patterns within the evolutions of supercycles and superhumps that matched pervious observations and proved to be effective aids in data analysis.

Description: Even casual examination shows that most disk galaxies are not truly symmetric but exhibit a variety of morphological peculiarities of which spiral arms and bars are the most pronounced. After decades of effort, we now know that these features may be driven by environmental disturbance acting directly on the disk, in addition to self-excitation of a local disturbance (e.g. by swing amplification). However, all disks are embedded within halos and therefore are not dynamically independent. Are halos susceptible to such disturbances as well? If so, can the affect disks and on what time scales? y Until recently, conventional wisdom was that halos acted to stabilize disks but otherwise remained relatively inert. The argument behind this assumption is as follows. Halos, spheroids and bulges are supported against their own gravity by the random motion of their stars, a so-called "hot" distribution. On all but the largest scales, they look like a nearly homogeneous thermal bath of stars. Because all self-sustaining patterns or waves in a homogeneous universe of stars with a Maxwellian velocity distribution are predicted to damp quickly (e.g. Ikeuchi et al. 1974), one expects that any pattern will be strongly damped in halos and spheroids as well. However, recent work suggests that halos do respond to tidal encounters by companions or cluster members and are susceptible to induction of long-lived modes.

Description: We present the selection and classification of over a thousand ultraviolet (UV) variable sources discovered in approximately 40 deg(exp 2) of GALEX Time Domain Survey (TDS) NUV images observed with a cadence of 2 days and a baseline of observations of approximately 3 years. The GALEX TDS fields were designed to be in spatial and temporal coordination with the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey, which provides deep optical imaging and simultaneous optical transient detections via image differencing. We characterize the GALEX photometric errors empirically as a function of mean magnitude, and select sources that vary at the 5 sigma level in at least one epoch. We measure the statistical properties of the UV variability, including the structure function on timescales of days and years. We report classifications for the GALEX TDS sample using a combination of optical host colors and morphology, UV light curve characteristics, and matches to archival X-ray, and spectroscopy catalogs. We classify 62% of the sources as active galaxies (358 quasars and 305 active galactic nuclei), and 10% as variable stars (including 37 RR Lyrae, 53 M dwarf flare stars, and 2 cataclysmic variables). We detect a large-amplitude tail in the UV variability distribution for M-dwarf flare stars and RR Lyrae, reaching up to absolute value(m) = 4.6 mag and 2.9 mag, respectively. The mean amplitude of the structure function for quasars on year timescales is five times larger than observed at optical wavelengths. The remaining unclassified sources include UV-bright extragalactic transients, two of which have been spectroscopically confirmed to be a young core-collapse supernova and a flare from the tidal disruption of a star by dormant supermassive black hole. We calculate a surface density for variable sources in the UV with NUV less than 23 mag and absolute value(m) greater than 0.2 mag of approximately 8.0, 7.7, and 1.8 deg(exp 2) for quasars, active galactic nuclei, and RR Lyrae stars, respectively. We also calculate a surface density rate in the UV for transient sources, using the effective survey time at the cadence appropriate to each class, of approximately 15 and 52 deg(exp 2 yr1 for M dwarfs and extragalactic transients, respectively.