ALBERT

Description: A nonlinear filtering method is introduced for the study of the solar wind -- magnetosphere coupling and related to earlier linear techniques. The filters are derived from the magnetospheric state, a representation of the magnetospheric conditions in terms of a few global variables, here the auroral electrojet indices. The filters also couple to the input, a representation of the solar wind variables, here the rectified electric field. Filter-based iterative prediction of the indices has been obtained for up to 20 hours. The prediction is stable with respect to perturbations in the initial magnetospheric state; these decrease exponentially at the rate of 30/min. The performance of the method is examined for a wide range of parameters and is superior to that of other linear and nonlinear techniques. In the magnetospheric state representation the coupling is modeled as a small number of nonlinear equations under a time-dependent input.

Description: HAN-TEAN (hydroxylammonium nitrate - triethanolammonium nitrate - in water) is being considered for various propellant applications. This propellant has advantages in terms of insensitivity to impact and fire, low vapor pressure and environmentally benign reaction products. One office concerns with HAN-TEAN is its stability and shelf-life, especially when contaminated with trace metals. Stabilizer systems, consisting of anti-oxidants and/or chealating agents were investigated for their ability to control the decomposition of HAN-TEAN. Isothermal microcalorimetry, an ultrasensitive heat measurement technique, was used to monitor the decomposition of HANTEAN at near ambient temperatures. Isothermal microcalorimetry measures the heat flow from a reaction vessel into a surrounding heat sink. Microcalorimetry is approximately 1,000 times more sensitive than accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC) or differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) for measuring heat flow. Samples of HAN-TEAN containing the stabilizers were spiked with 50 ppm iron and the heat evolution monitored for a period of at least 30 days. Ten stabilizer combinations were tested and the rates of HAN-TEAN decomposition were lowered by 74 to 95 percent in the presence of iron.

Description: An experimental program was conducted at NASA Langley Research Center that included development and evaluation of an operational facility for wall drag measurement of potential scramjet fuel injection or wall cooling configurations. The facility consisted of a supersonic tunnel, with one wall composed of a series of interchangeable aluminum plates attached to an air bearing suspension system. The system was equipped with load cells that measured drag forces of 115 psia (793 kPa). This flow field contained a train of weak, unsteady, reflecting shock waves that were produced in the Mach 2 nozzle flows, the effect of reflecting shocks (which are to be expected in scramjet combustors) in internal flows has not previously been documented.

Description: The wall drag test tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center was used to evaluate simulated scramjet fuel injection into a wall cavity. In this tunnel, one wall consists of interchangeable aluminum plates attached to an air bearing suspension system. The plates were equipped with load cells to measure drag forces and static taps to determine pressure distributions. The plates were exposed to a Mach 2 air stream at a total pressure of 115 psia (793 kPa). This flow field contained a train of weak unsteady, reflecting shock waves that were produced in the nozzle assembly located upstream of the test section.

Description: Recent studies have shown that inviscid CFD codes combined with a planar extrapolation method give accurate sonic boom pressure signatures at distances greater than one body length from supersonic configurations if either adapted grids swept at the approximate Mach angle or very dense non-adapted grids are used. The validation of CFD for computing sonic boom pressure signatures provided the confidence needed to undertake the design of new supersonic transport configurations with low sonic boom characteristics. An aircraft synthesis code in combination with CFD and an extrapolation method were used to close the design. The principal configuration of this study is designated LBWT (Low Boom Wing Tail) and has a highly swept cranked arrow wing with conventional tails, and was designed to accommodate either 3 or 4 engines. The complete configuration including nacelles and boundary layer diverters was evaluated using the AIRPLANE code. This computer program solves the Euler equations on an unstructured tetrahedral mesh. Computations and wind tunnel data for the LBWT and two other low boom configurations designed at NASA Ames Research Center are presented. The two additional configurations are included to provide a basis for comparing the performance and sonic boom level of the LBWT with contemporary low boom designs and to give a broader experiment/CFD correlation study. The computational pressure signatures for the three configurations are contrasted with on-ground-track near-field experimental data from the NASA Ames 9x7 Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel. Computed pressure signatures for the LBWT are also compared with experiment at approximately 15 degrees off ground track.

Description: The role of high-speed solar wind streams in driving relativistic electron acceleration within the earth's magnetosphere is discussed based on International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Observatory and related spacecraft observations. A 'recirculation' mechanism for electron acceleration and redistribution was invoked. Recently, an increase in the number of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and related 'magnetic clouds' was seen at 1 AU. As these CME/cloud systems interact with the earth's magnetosphere, they are able to produce rapid enhancements in the magnetospheric electron population. The relativistic electron signatures observed by the POLAR, SAMPEX, and other spacecraft during recent magnetic cloud events, especially January 1997 and May 1997, were compared and contrasted. In these cases, there were large solar wind and IMF changes during the cloud passages and very rapid energetic electron acceleration was observed. The relative geoeffectiveness of these events is examined and 'space weather' predicatability is assessed.

Description: Perfluoroakylpolyether (PFPE) greases are used extensively in critical flight hardware in a space environment. In the past, these greases have been processed using chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) based solvents. In response to the recent ban of CFC's, new formulations of environmentally friendly PFPE greases that are not processed with CFC based solvents were developed. The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of a new environmentally friendly formulation PFPE grease to a previously proven space compatible formulation PFPE grease. A one year test using 20 small electrical motors (two bearings per motor) was conducted in a high vacuum environment(2.0 x 10(exp 4)) Torr at a temperature of 90 C. Twenty bearings were lubricated with a new environmentally friendly formulation, and twenty bearings were lubricated with an old formulation. The mass of each lubricated bearing was measured both pre and post test. Along with mass loss measurements a profilometer trace was taken to measure post test wear of the bearings. In addition the bearings were visually examined and analyzed using an optical microscope.

Description: The Boeing Reference H configuration was tested in the NASA Ames 9x7 Supersonic Wind Tunnel. A simulated unstarted inlet was evaluated as well as the aerodynamic performance of the configuration with and without nacelle and diverter components. These experimental results were compared with computational results from the unstructured grid Euler flow solver AIRPLANE. The comparisons between computational and experimental results were good, and demonstrated that the Euler code is capable of efficiently and accurately predicting the changes in the aerodynamic coefficients associated with inlet unstart and the effects of the nacelle and diverter components.

Description: Two supersonic transport configurations designed by use of non-linear aerodynamic optimization methods are compared with a linearly designed baseline configuration. One optimized configuration, designated Ames 7-04, was designed at NASA Ames Research Center using an Euler flow solver, and the other, designated Boeing W27, was designed at Boeing using a full-potential method. The two optimized configurations and the baseline were tested in the NASA Langley Unitary Plan Supersonic Wind Tunnel to evaluate the non-linear design optimization methodologies. In addition, the experimental results are compared with computational predictions for each of the three configurations from the Enter flow solver, AIRPLANE. The computational and experimental results both indicate moderate to substantial performance gains for the optimized configurations over the baseline configuration. The computed performance changes with and without diverters and nacelles were in excellent agreement with experiment for all three models. Comparisons of the computational and experimental cruise drag increments for the optimized configurations relative to the baseline show excellent agreement for the model designed by the Euler method, but poorer comparisons were found for the configuration designed by the full-potential code.

Description: The growth of the alloy compound semiconductor lead tin telluride (PbSnTe) was chosen for a microgravity flight experiment in the Advanced Automated Directional Solidification Furnace (AADSF), on the United States Microgravity Payload-3 (USNP-3) in February, 1996 and on USNW- 4 in November, 1997. The objective of these experiments was to determine the effect of the reduction in convection, during the growth process, brought about by the microgravity environment. The properties of devices made from PbSnTe, an alloy of PbTe and SnTe, are dependent on the ratio of the elemental components in the starting crystal. Compositional uniformity in the crystal is only obtained if there is no significant mixing in the liquid during growth. The technological importance of PbSnTe lies in its band gap versus composition diagram which has a zero energy crossing at approximately 40% SnTe. This facilitates the construction of long wavelength (greater than 6 gm) infrared detectors and lasers. The properties and utilization of PbSnTe are the subject of other papers. 1,2 PbSnTe is also interesting from a purely scientific point of view. It is, potentially, both solutally and thermally unstable due to the temperature and density gradients present during growth. Density gradients, through thermal expansion, are imposed in directional solidification because temperature gradients are required to extract heat. Solutal gradients occur in directional solidification of alloys due to segregation at the interface. Usually the gradients vary with both experiment design and inherent materials properties. In a simplified one dimensional analysis with the growth axis parallel to the gravity vector, only one of the two instabilities work at a time. During growth, the temperature in the liquid increases ahead of the interface. Therefore the density, due to thermal expansion, is decreasing in that direction. However, the phase diagram shows that the lighter SnTe is preferentially rejected at the interface. This causes the liquid density to increase with distance away from the interface.