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Physical Sciences

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Briefs: Physical Sciences

A highly sensitive, low-power, low-noise multifunctional active-excitation spectral analyzer (MAESA) that would span the wavelength range of 0.5 to 2.5 µm and would operate near room...

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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Hand-Held Optoelectronic Particulate Monitors

Optoelectronic instruments are being developed for use in measuring the concentrations and sizes of microscopic particles suspended in air. The instruments could be used, for example, to detect smoke, explosive dust in grain elevators, or toxic dusts in industrial buildings. Like some older,...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Deployable Shell Structures With Shape-Control Actuators

Advanced control systems that include built-in smart-material elastic-deformation structural actuators have been proposed for deployable thin-shell structures that are required to be maintained in precise shapes once deployed. This approach to structural shape control was conceived to...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Software for Simulating Two-Phase Systems

Møtran (signifying "multi-phase transient") is a package of software for simulating flows in two-phase (gas/liquid) fluid systems like networks of such components as pipes, T junctions, pumps, evaporators, and condensers. The software is based on a two-fluid formulation that can accommodate unequal...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Software for Improved Processing of DRWP Signals

The Automated Adaptive Signal Processing (AASP) computer program extracts wind data from the outputs of Doppler-radar wind profilers (DRWPs). Unlike prior software used for this purpose, AASP does not rely on manual intervention to prevent a DRWP system from locking onto and tracking...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Large-Aperture Telescope Synthesized From Small Mirrors

A report proposes a design concept for synthesizing a reflecting telescope with a large-aperture (diameter ≈100 m) primary mirror from a sparse arrangement of four smaller (diameter ≈10 m) primary mirrors. The telescope would be placed in orbit for viewing Earth with high...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Uplink/Downlink Spacecraft Radio Occultation Measurements

A report proposes a method to increase the accuracy of Doppler measurements made at the beginnings and endings of Earth/spacecraft radio occultations. Such measurements can reveal structural details of occulting objects in outer space. Heretofore, one-way measurements have been...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

The Propulsion group at Dryden Flight Research Center is performing analyses of the effectiveness of chemical-species sensors for detecting and assessing leakage. The group is also...

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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Micromachined Emitter/Bolometer Structures for Infrared Gas Sensors

Infrared gas sensors that could be mass-produced at relatively low cost have been proposed for a variety of applications — for example, detecting carbon monoxide in air inside houses. A sensor of this type would include a housing into which ambient air could diffuse. The gas...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Molten-Carbonate Electrolyzers for Making CO and O2

Electrochemical cells in which molten carbonates would serve as electrolytes have been proposed for use in electrolyzing CO2. The proposal was made in an effort to implement a concept of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) for the exploration of Mars; the basic idea is to generate CO...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Improved Spherical Energy Analyzer

An improved spherical energy analyzer (a type of electrostatic mass spectrometer) is under development for use in analyzing a beam of ions generated by a Hall thruster. The major improvement, relative to a commercial spherical energy analyzer, is the addition of a quadrupole stage (with refocusing electron...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Redundant Oxygen-Deficiency Monitoring System

An oxygen-deficiency monitoring system (ODMS) has been developed for a ten-room facility in which the use of large amounts of nitrogen and helium could cause an oxygen deficiency severe enough to be hazardous to personnel. The ODMS comprises three subsystems, of which two monitor three rooms...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Report on User's Guidefor Monthly Vector Wind Profile Model

A report briefly describes a user's guide for a computer program that constructs vector wind profiles on the basis of a statistical model. The monthly vector wind profiles are meant to be used (1) to estimate wind-dispersion-related dispersions of critical aerodynamic loads and...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Sizes of Surface and Capped InxGa1-xAs/GaAs Quantum Dots

A report describes an experimental study of the sizes and concentrations of capped (buried) and surface In0.6Ga0.4As/GaAs quantum dots that were grown by metal-organic vapor deposition under the same conditions except for the inclusion or exclusion of capping....

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Fuel Cell Would Generate Power From Martian Atmosphere

A report proposes the development of a thin-film fuel cell that would generate electric power from two minor constituents of the Martian atmosphere — O2 and CO. These compounds are generated continuously by photolysis of CO2, the major constituent. The fuel cell...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Integrated Environmental Monitoring Instrument

A miniature, battery-powered, semiautonomous environmental monitoring instrument contains advanced meteorological sensors, a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver for determining its position, radio-communication circuitry, and a controller that performs measurement, control, and...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Fourier-Transform X-Ray Microscope

A proposed x-ray instrument - a Fourier-transform x-ray microscope - would enable high-resolution imaging of objects with sizes of the order of 20 nm. (This size range is typical of cell organelles.) The instrument would also offer a spectroscopic capability for the sensitive detection and identification of...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Improving Thin Foil X-Ray Mirrors

A proposal has been made to develop improved thin foil, replicated conical mirrors for use in x-ray astrophysics. In the NASA astrophysical programs in which such mirrors are used, they are required to be lightweight, and to offer moderate angular resolution and high throughput to afford required sensitivity in...

Briefs: Aerospace
First-Generation Integrated Free-Flying Micro-Spacecraft

The concept of free-flying micro-spacecraft was to develop a miniature spacecraft system fully integrated with a scientific sensor. A fleet of such tiny spacecraft would be deployed in space for multi-probe measurements of a three-dimensional phenomenon and to separate the...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
DNS of a Transitional Supercritical C7H16/N2 Mixing Layer

This report discusses direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a mixing layer, between a nitrogen stream and a heptane stream initially flowing at different velocities, under supercritical conditions and undergoing a transition to turbulence. Thermodynamically, supercritical conditions...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Improved Automate System for Transferring Liquid Helium

An improved automated system for transferring liquid helium from a supply tank to an end-use cryostat has been proposed. Like automated systems developed previously for the same purpose, this system would reduce the time that must be spent by technicians in replenishing cryostats in...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Algorithm for Computing Dynamics of Molecules

The Newton-Euler Inverse Mass Operator (NEIMO) algorithm and software that implements the algorithm have been developed to reduce the amount of time needed to perform computational simulations of the dynamics of macromolecules. The NEIMO algorithm and the associated software are intended, in...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
All-Pressure Fluid-Drop Model Applied to a Binary Mixture

A report presents a computational study of the subcritical and supercritical behaviors of a drop of heptane surrounded by nitrogen, using the fluid-drop model described in "Model of a Drop of O2 Surrounded by H2 at High Pressure" (NPO-20220) and "The Lewis Number...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Validation of All-Pressure Fluid-Drop Model

A report presents a computational study of the subcritical and supercritical behaviors of a drop of heptane surrounded by nitrogen. The subject matter is basically same as that of the report described in the preceding article, except that the Lewis-number issue is not addressed in detail; however, this...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Subgrid Analysis of Mixing Layer With Evaporating Droplets

This report presents an analysis of a database from computational simulations of a droplet-laden mixing layer (i.e., evaporating droplets of a liquid fuel in air) undergoing a transition to turbulence. The basic governing equations were those of transport of discrete droplets through a...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Validated Model of a Fluid Drop for All Pressures

The report "A Validated All-Pressure Fluid Drop Model and Lewis Number Effects for a Binary Mixture" presents one in a series of theoretical and computational studies of the subcritical and subpercritical behaviors of a drop of fluid and, in particular, a drop of heptane surrounded by nitrogen...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

"Health check" would be built into pressure transducers, according to a proposal, to enable occasional, rapid, in situ testing of the transducers between normal pressure-measurement...

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Briefs: Photonics/Optics

A class of proposed photonic switching devices would utilize interactions among light bullets that have been studied theoretically. Because they function at speeds much greater than those of...

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Briefs: Physical Sciences
DNS of Mixing of Supercritical Heptane and Nitrogen

A report discusses direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a developing mixing layer between nitrogen and heptane initially at different temperatures and initially flowing at different velocities under supercritical conditions. The usual conservation equations for a binary fluid, along with the...

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