Effect of bristle pack position on the rotordynamic characteristics of brush-labyrinth seals at various operating conditions

Over the last few decades, the research on the effect of bristle pack position on the rotordynamic characteristics of the brush-labyrinth seals is not sufficient. To this end, two kinds of brush-labyrinth seals for the bristle pack element installed upstream of the labyrinth teeth named BSU and installed downstream of the labyrinth teeth called BSD were used to investigate the effect of bristle pack position on the rotordynamic characteristics of the brush-labyrinth seals. Using the numerical model combining the porous medium model and the whirling rotor method, the rotordynamic characteristics of the BSU and BSD at various operating conditions including four kinds of pressure ratios, five kinds of inlet preswirl speeds and four kinds of rotor spinning speeds were conducted. The obtained results show that the effects of operating conditions on rotordynamic coefficients for the different seal configurations are different. The direct stiffness, cross-coupled stiffness and direct damping of the BSU are lower than those of the BSD. The rotordynamic coefficients of the BSU are more insensitive to the operating conditions variation. From the perspective of the seal stability, the BSU is a better brush-labyrinth seal configuration at high pressure ratio, high positive preswirl or high rotor spinning speed conditions. While in the case of low pressure ratio, low positive preswirl or low rotor spinning speed conditions, the BSD is a better choice.     

Influence of thickness and initial groove angle in M–K model on limit strain of 7B04 by considering through-thickness stress

Marciniack–Kuczinski (M–K) model is widely used to predict material’s forming limit curve (FLC). The prediction of FLC traditionally neglected through-thickness normal stress. However, it cannot be neglected in some forming processes. Much work has been done to study the effect of through-thickness normal stress on FLC with constant through-thickness normal stress or constant ratio of through-thickness normal stress and maximum principal stress. In addition, based on Nakazima test process, the ratio of through-thickness normal stress and maximum principal stress has been derived, which was a function of instantaneous thickness and loading path. Here, initial groove angle in M–K model was not considered. In this paper, uniaxial tension tests and Nakazima tests were performed on 7B04 aluminum alloy. Based on Hill 48 yield criterion and M–K model, the prediction model of FLC was established. The increase of thickness can enhance FLC. Meanwhile, it is necessary to consider through-thickness normal stress and initial groove angle in prediction model. On the left side of FLC, the effect of initial groove angle on FLC is weakened by increasing sheet thickness. On the right side of FLC, the effect of initial groove angle on FLC is strengthened by increasing sheet thickness. On the right side of FLC, the relation between limit strain points with different thicknesses is linear under one certain loading path. Thickness has decisive effect on through-thickness normal stress level and the changing trendy of through-thickness normal stress during calculation is different under different stress condition.     

Development and performance evaluation of tropospheric scintillation model on Ku-band satellite link over Akure,Nigeria

Existing amplitude scintillation prediction models often perform less satisfactorily when deployed outside the regions where they were formulated. This necessitates the need to evaluate the performance of scintillation models developed in one region using data data from other regions while documenting their relative errors. Due to its variation with elevation angle, frequency, other link parameters and meteorological factors, we employed three years (January 2016 to December 2018) of concurrently measured satellite radio beacons and tropospheric weather parameters to develop a location-based amplitude scintillation prediction model over the Earth-space path of Akure (7.17^oN, 5.18^oE), South-western Nigeria. The satellite beacon measurement used Tektronix Y400 NetTek Analyzer at 1 s integration time while meteorological parameters, namely; temperature, pressure and relative humidity were measured using Davis Vantage Vue weather station at 1 min integration time. Comparative study of the model’s performance with nine (9) existing scintillation prediction models indicates that the best and worst performing models, in terms of root mean square error (RMSE), are the Statistical Temperature and Refractivity (STN) and direct physical and statistical prediction (DPSP) models with values 11.48 and 51.03 respectively. Also, worst month analysis indicates that April, with respective enhancement and fade values of 0.88 and 0.90 dB for 0.01% exceedance, is the overall worst calendar month for amplitude scintillation.     

Research on navigation of satellite constellation based on an asynchronous observation model using X-ray pulsar

Pulsar navigation is a promising navigation method for high-altitude orbit space tasks or deep space exploration. At present, an important reason for restricting the development of pulsar navigation is that navigation accuracy is not high due to the slow update of the measurements. In order to improve the accuracy of pulsar navigation, an asynchronous observation model which can improve the update rate of the measurements is proposed on the basis of satellite constellation which has a broad space for development because of its visibility and reliability. The simulation results show that the asynchronous observation model improves the positioning accuracy by 31.48% and velocity accuracy by 24.75% than that of the synchronous observation model. With the new Doppler effects compensation method in the asynchronous observation model proposed in this paper, the positioning accuracy is improved by 32.27%, and the velocity accuracy is improved by 34.07% than that of the traditional method. The simulation results show that without considering the clock error will result in a filtering divergence.     

Variation of dayside chorus waves associated with solar wind dynamic pressure based on MMS observations

The whistler-mode chorus waves are one of the most important plasma waves in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Generally, the amplitude of whistler-mode chorus waves prefers to strengthen when the energetic fluxes of anisotropic electrons increase outside the plasmapause. This characteristic is commonly associated with the geomagnetic storms or substorms. However, the relationship between the solar wind dynamic pressure (P_sw) and the long-time variation of chorus waves during the quiet period of the geomagnetic activity still needs more detailed investigations. In this paper, based on MMS observations, we present a chorus event just observed in the inner side of magnetopause without obvious geomagnetic storms or substroms. Interestingly, during this time interval, some P_sw fluctuations were recorded. Both the amplitudes and frequencies of chorus waves changed as a response to the variation in P_sw. It proved that the enhancement of P_sw increases the energetic electrons fluxes, which provides free energies for the chorus amplification. Furthermore, the wave growth rates calculated using linear theory increases and the central frequency of the chorus waves shifts to a higher frequency when the P_sw enhancement is greater, which are also consistent well with the observations. The results provide a direct evidence that the P_sw play an important role in the long-time variation of whistler-mode chorus waves inside the magnetopause.     

Orbital stability close to asteroid 624 Hektor using the polyhedral model

We investigate the orbital stability close to the unique L4-point Jupiter binary Trojan asteroid 624 Hektor. The gravitational potential of 624 Hektor is calculated using the polyhedron model with observational data of 2038 faces and 1021 vertexes. Previous studies have presented three different density values for 624 Hektor. The equilibrium points in the gravitational potential of 624 Hektor with different density values have been studied in detail. There are five equilibrium points in the gravitational potential of 624 Hektor no matter the density value. The positions, Jacobian, eigenvalues, topological cases, stability, as well as the Hessian matrix of the equilibrium points are investigated. For the three different density values the number, topological cases, and the stability of the equilibrium points with different density values are the same. However, the positions of the equilibrium points vary with the density value of the asteroid 624 Hektor. The outer equilibrium points move away from the asteroid’s mass center when the density increases, and the inner equilibrium point moves close to the asteroid’s mass center when the density increases. There exist unstable periodic orbits near the surface of 624 Hektor. We calculated an orbit near the primary’s equatorial plane of this binary Trojan asteroid; the results indicate that the orbit remains stable after 28.8375?d.     

27-day variation in solar-terrestrial parameters: Global characteristics and an origin based approach of the signals

The Earth and the near interplanetary medium are affected by the Sun in different ways. Those processes generated in the Sun that induce perturbations into the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere system are called geoeffective processes and show a wide range of temporal variations, like the 11-year solar cycle (long term variations), the variation of ～27?days (recurrent variations), solar storms enduring for some days, particle acceleration events lasting for some hours, etc.In this article, the periodicity of ～27?days associated with the solar synodic rotation period is investigated. The work is mainly focused on studying the resulting 27-day periodic signal in the magnetic activity, by the analysis of the horizontal component of the magnetic field registered on a set of 103 magnetic observatories distributed around the world. For this a new method to isolate the periodicity of interest has been developed consisting of two main steps: the first one consists of removing the linear trend corresponding to every calendar year from the data series, and the second one of removing from the resulting series a smoothed version of it obtained by applying a 30-day moving average. The result at the end of this process is a data series in which all the signal with periods larger than 30?days are canceled.The most important characteristics observed in the resulting signals are two main amplitude modulations: the first and most prominent related to the 11-year solar cycle and the second one with a semiannual pattern. In addition, the amplitude of the signal shows a dependence on the geomagnetic latitude of the observatory with a significant discontinuity at approx. ±60°.The processing scheme was also applied to other parameters that are widely used to characterize the energy transfer from the Sun to the Earth: F10.7 and Mg II indices and the ionospheric vertical total electron content (vTEC) were considered for radiative interactions; and the solar wind velocity for the non-radiative interactions between the solar wind and the magnetosphere. The 27-day signal obtained in the magnetic activity was compared with the signals found in the other parameters resulting in a series of cross-correlations curves with maximum correlation between 3 and 5?days of delays for the radiative and between 0 and 1?days of delay for the non-radiative parameters. This result supports the idea that the physical process responsible for the 27-day signal in the magnetic activity is related to the solar wind and not to the solar electromagnetic radiation.