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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Dynamics And Scaling Of Particle Streaks In High-Reynolds-Number Turbulent Boundary Layers, Tim Berk, Filippo Coletti Nov 2023

Dynamics And Scaling Of Particle Streaks In High-Reynolds-Number Turbulent Boundary Layers, Tim Berk, Filippo Coletti

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Inertial particles in wall-bounded turbulence are known to form streaks, but experimental evidence and predictive understanding of this phenomenon is lacking, especially in regimes relevant to atmospheric flows. We carry out wind tunnel measurements to investigate this process, characterizing the transport of microscopic particles suspended in turbulent boundary layers. The friction Reynolds number Re𝜏 = O(104) allows for significant scale separation and the emergence of large-scale motions, while the range of viscous Stokes number St+ = 18–870 is relevant to the transport of dust and fine sand in the atmospheric surface layer. We …

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Evaluation Of Temperature-Index And Energy-Balance Snow Models For Hydrological Applications In Operational Water Supply Forecasts, Tian Gan, David G. Tarboton, Tseganeh Z. Gichamo May 2023

Evaluation Of Temperature-Index And Energy-Balance Snow Models For Hydrological Applications In Operational Water Supply Forecasts, Tian Gan, David G. Tarboton, Tseganeh Z. Gichamo

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In the western United States, snow accumulation, storage, and ablation affect seasonal runoff. Thus, the prediction of snowmelt is essential to improve the reliability of water supply forecasts to guide water allocation and operational decisions. The current method used at the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC) couples the SNOW-17 temperature index snow model and the Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting (SAC-SMA) runoff model in a lumped approach. Limitations in parameter transferability and calibration requirements for changing conditions with the temperature-index model motivated this research, in which new avenues were investigated to assess and prototype the application of an energy-balance snow …

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Spectral Fits Of Brown Dwarfs: Discovering Trends Across The Spectral Type Sequence, Savanah Turner, Denise Stephens, Conner Scoresby May 2023

Spectral Fits Of Brown Dwarfs: Discovering Trends Across The Spectral Type Sequence, Savanah Turner, Denise Stephens, Conner Scoresby

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that form like stars but never achieve the core temperatures and pressures needed to ignite hydrogen fusion. These "failed stars" have been shown to exhibit complex atmospheres similar to those of planets, making them useful analogs for exoplanets. As a brown dwarf cools over time, different cloud species condense or fall below the surface of the atmosphere, causing changes in the resulting spectrum of the object. Comparison of theoretical atmospheric models to real brown dwarf spectra can provide insight into the physical and chemical processes occurring in the atmosphere of the object. We have fit …

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Continuous-Time Trajectory Estimation For Differentially Flat Systems, Jacob C. Johnson, Joshua G. Mangelson, Randal W. Beard May 2023

Continuous-Time Trajectory Estimation For Differentially Flat Systems, Jacob C. Johnson, Joshua G. Mangelson, Randal W. Beard

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Continuous-time estimation using splines on Lie groups has been gaining traction in the literature in recent years due to their ability to incorporate high-frequency sensor data without introducing new optimization parameters. However, evaluating time derivatives and Jacobians of Lie group splines is computationally expensive, limiting their use mainly to offline applications. Motivated by the trajectory planning literature, we develop a new estimation technique that leverages the differential flatness property of many dynamic systems to define the spline in the system's flat output space, which is often Euclidean, and show an example of its use with the unicycle dynamic model. We …

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Comparing A 3-D Printed Hemispherical-Head And Rankine Body Probe Shapes For Very Low Speed Air Data Measurements, Stephen A. Whitmore, Zheng Qi C. Case May 2023

Comparing A 3-D Printed Hemispherical-Head And Rankine Body Probe Shapes For Very Low Speed Air Data Measurements, Stephen A. Whitmore, Zheng Qi C. Case

Utah Space Grant Consortium

This study investigates the feasibility of using Flush Air Data Sensing (FADS) System technology for air data measurements at the very low-airspeeds, where many Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operate. FADS is a non-intrusive alternative to pitot probes, where the vehicle nosecone, wing leading edge, or other aerodynamic surface is configured with multiple pressure-ports distributed along the windward surface. Although FADS technology has been used for a variety of high-speed aircraft, FADS has never been applied to very low-airspeed flight regimes. This study reports on wind tunnel tests of two 3-D printed shapes: 1) a cylindrical body with a hemispherical head, …

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One-Dimensional Radial Turbomachinery Modeling, Chase Oliphant May 2023

One-Dimensional Radial Turbomachinery Modeling, Chase Oliphant

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Centrifugal flow impellers are commonly used in a wide variety of industrial machines. Predicting the performance of these impellers over the entire operating range is key to the system development during the early design stages. The two element in series (TEIS) and two-zone model can be used to accurately predict impeller performance based on flow physics and empirical correlations. Correlations were made with linear regression on a database of 50 pumps and 75 impellers. These correlations were later found to only apply to designs that are similar to those in the database. This paper proposes a new method to generate …

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Development, Modeling And Performance Analysis Of An Electric Vtol Aircraft With Tiltable Rotors, Clayton Spencer, Samantha Burton, Tianyi He May 2023

Development, Modeling And Performance Analysis Of An Electric Vtol Aircraft With Tiltable Rotors, Clayton Spencer, Samantha Burton, Tianyi He

Utah Space Grant Consortium

In this paper, the development and modeling of an electric Vertical-Take-Off-and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft with tiltable rotors. The front two rotors have tilting capability for transition flight from vertical take-off to forward-direction level flight. This paper focuses on the design and analysis of an eVTOL aircraft platform. The study includes layout and system architecture, the selections and optimization of components, such as electric motors, batteries, and controllers, as well as the integration of these components into the overall aircraft system. In addition, the dynamical model is derived as a nonlinear differential equation. Afterwards, a linearization-based model and Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV) …

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A Preliminary Review And Discussion Of Metrics For Origami-Based Deployable Arrays, Katie Varela, Spencer P. Magleby May 2023

A Preliminary Review And Discussion Of Metrics For Origami-Based Deployable Arrays, Katie Varela, Spencer P. Magleby

Utah Space Grant Consortium

When designing deployable structures, there are many things to consider that help the deployment method integrate with the system. Preliminary metrics are proposed to help rate the deployment systems to determine the best methods for each application. The top four metrics that apply to most space applications are mass, usable area, volume, and energy. Additional considerations that are less quantifiable are included for the value they contribute to the system. Trade-offs may be necessary for different applications.

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Experimental Characterization Of Internal Wave Generation By Multiple Peak Topographies, Natasha Wilson, Julie Crockett May 2023

Experimental Characterization Of Internal Wave Generation By Multiple Peak Topographies, Natasha Wilson, Julie Crockett

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Internal waves are generated in the oceans and atmosphere and play an important role in their energy budgets. The semidiurnal oscillation of the tides over topography in the oceans combined with the density stratification can create internal waves that radiate away from their source. The effect multiple peaks on a single topography has on internal wave generation is explored. Three and four topography peaks create three and four crests respectively in the internal wave beams. Five and six peak topographies generate internal wave beams characterized by two bounding crests and several smaller crests in the middle of the beam. In …

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Optimizing Nitrogen Use For Continuous Recycling In Closed Life Support Systems, Noah J. Langenfeld, Bruce Bugbee May 2023

Optimizing Nitrogen Use For Continuous Recycling In Closed Life Support Systems, Noah J. Langenfeld, Bruce Bugbee

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Nitrogen (N) is needed by plants in the highest amount among root-zone-derived nutrients. Closed life-support systems for space missions will rely on in-situ food production for long-term sustainability, but high resupply and N fixation costs necessitate N recycling to support human nutrition for extended mission durations. We studied combinations of four N forms [ammonium, nitrate, urea, and N-fixing bacteria (protein)] for their use as an optimal N source for lettuce (Lactuca sativa) grown in peat moss in two container sizes (1.7 L and 8 L). Plants grown with ammonium nitrate consistently had the highest mass. When ammonium, urea, or microbial …

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Fabrication Of Metallic Far-Infrared Filters, Jared E. Payne, Joseph Eddy, Hunter R.J. Stevenson, Brad Ferguson, Ryan T. Beazer, Gregory N. Nielson, Stephen M. Shultz May 2023

Fabrication Of Metallic Far-Infrared Filters, Jared E. Payne, Joseph Eddy, Hunter R.J. Stevenson, Brad Ferguson, Ryan T. Beazer, Gregory N. Nielson, Stephen M. Shultz

Utah Space Grant Consortium

A far-infrared filter is fabricated by creating metallic squares on a dielectric substrate. This capacitive metallic filter is fabricated using direct write laser ablation consisting of a femtosecond laser in combination with a high numerical aperture objective. A representative capacitive filter is fabricated on soda-lime glass substrate with a period of 100 µm and separation width of 30 µm. A capacitive filter was also fabricated on a thin film polypropylene substrate with similar dimensions. The filter was tested and the frequency response is discussed.

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Facilitation Of Deployable Antennas Using A Panel Structure Optimization Framework, Nathan Coleman May 2023

Facilitation Of Deployable Antennas Using A Panel Structure Optimization Framework, Nathan Coleman

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Origami has become a popular method for beginning mechanical design due to its ability to stow compactly and deploy to a large area. One common origami pattern is the Flasher, which has a roughly circular shape and aspect ratio, centers around a polygon which can be grounded, and is easily extensible. Because of these advantages, the Flasher is a candidate for many deployable applications, including space-based optical telescopes, LiDaR telescopes, solar arrays, and reflectarray antennas. One of the primary difficulties when implementing the Flasher pattern is that it is not rigid-foldable and is subject to panel interference at high-degree vertices. …

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Measuring The Period Of Variable Stars In Ngc 188, Molly Christensen, Connor Smith, Christian Draper May 2023

Measuring The Period Of Variable Stars In Ngc 188, Molly Christensen, Connor Smith, Christian Draper

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Galactic cluster NGC 188 is 1.93 kpc away located in the constellation Cepheus. This cluster is one of the oldest clusters that contain W UMa stars W UMa variables are a type of eclipsing binary butare unique because they share an envelope of materia laround two stars. According to Simbad there are 741 interacting binaries in NGC 188. 70 of these are eclipsing binaries. We chose NGC 188 because it is an ideal place to study the evolution of W UMa stars because it is one of the oldest galactic clusters with this type of star. Despite the overabundance of …

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The First Snap Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances, Mikaela Cowles, Joseph B. Jensen, Brent Tully, John P. Blakeslee, Ehsan Kourkchi May 2023

The First Snap Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances, Mikaela Cowles, Joseph B. Jensen, Brent Tully, John P. Blakeslee, Ehsan Kourkchi

Utah Space Grant Consortium

We have successfully acquired F110W (J-band) images of 68 massive elliptical galaxies inclusters and groups out to 80 Mpc by taking advantage of the efficient Hubble Space Telescope SNAP observing mode. We used the Surface Brightness Fluctuation (SBF) technique to measure distances to 44 of the galaxies so far with a typical uncertainty of ~5% indistance by implementing a new Python-based pipeline to simplify and automate the SBF analysis procedure. This new SNAP sample doubles the total number of IRSBF distances to galaxies beyond 50 Mpc. The new distances will allow for more accurate determination ofthe mass distribution in the …

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Byu Rocketry 2023 Irec & Spaceport America Cup, Derrick Walker, Riley Brown, Will Hart, Anya Jeppson, Aidan Rice, Nathan Butler, Bradley Hornfischer, Blake Jensen, Alexander Potter, Joshua Taylor, Dallan Trentman May 2023

Byu Rocketry 2023 Irec & Spaceport America Cup, Derrick Walker, Riley Brown, Will Hart, Anya Jeppson, Aidan Rice, Nathan Butler, Bradley Hornfischer, Blake Jensen, Alexander Potter, Joshua Taylor, Dallan Trentman

Utah Space Grant Consortium

BYU Rocketry will compete in the 2023 IREC competition at the Spaceport America Cup in the 10,000 ft commercial motor category. The 12 ft and 71 lb. rocket, Solitude beckons to BYU Rocketry’s past while honoring some of Utah’s most towering peaks.

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The Gasrats Cubesat: Testing An Optically Transparent, Solar Panel-Integrated Patch Antenna, Carter Page, Shawn Jones, Ben Willard, Bella Nielsen, Tyler Day, Taylor Rowser, Cooper Gowan, C. J. Wayland, Warren Prescott, Jeremy Evans, Lorenzo High, Hunter Nelson, Kade Angell May 2023

The Gasrats Cubesat: Testing An Optically Transparent, Solar Panel-Integrated Patch Antenna, Carter Page, Shawn Jones, Ben Willard, Bella Nielsen, Tyler Day, Taylor Rowser, Cooper Gowan, C. J. Wayland, Warren Prescott, Jeremy Evans, Lorenzo High, Hunter Nelson, Kade Angell

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The Get Away Special Radio and Antenna Transparency Satellite (GASRATS) is an education and technology demonstration mission developed by the Get Away Special (GAS) Student Satellite Team at Utah State University (USU) in collaboration with USU Professor, Dr. Reyhan Baktur.

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Muons, Moody Weather, & Many Lines Of Code, Nathan Tanner, Jade Marchant, Matt Wilkinson May 2023

Muons, Moody Weather, & Many Lines Of Code, Nathan Tanner, Jade Marchant, Matt Wilkinson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Muons are heavy, fundamental subatomic particles that are created in the Earth’s atmosphere by cosmic rays. Muons decay quickly after being formed, but because they are moving at nearly the speed of light they travel far before doing so, passing through almost everything in their path. This allows them to be detected on the ground. The purpose of this experiment is to see if there is any relation between weather and measured muon rates. Literature suggests that the density of the atmosphere has the most significant effect on muon rates, the connection being a direct negative correlation. To do this …

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Blotting Out The Sky: The Affects Of Various Shielding Configurations On The Rate Of Muon Interactions, Masen Pitts May 2023

Blotting Out The Sky: The Affects Of Various Shielding Configurations On The Rate Of Muon Interactions, Masen Pitts

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Detector shielding techniques are widely used in the field of particle physics, where in many cases properly detecting the objects of interest is solely dependent on how well one can reduce the detector's noise floor, or the minimum signal intensity at which detection events can be distinguished from background noise.

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Lasso (L1) Regularization For The Development Of Sparse Remote Sensing Models Of Water Quality, Anna C. Cardall, Riley C. Hales, Kaylee B. Tanner, Gustavious P. Williams, Kel N. Markert May 2023

Lasso (L1) Regularization For The Development Of Sparse Remote Sensing Models Of Water Quality, Anna C. Cardall, Riley C. Hales, Kaylee B. Tanner, Gustavious P. Williams, Kel N. Markert

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Remote sensing data (data contained in satellite imagery) are used extensively to monitor waterquality parameters such as clarity, temperature, and chlorophyll-a (chl-a). This is generally done bycollecting in situ data coincident with satellite data collections, then creating empirical water qualitymodels using approaches such as multi-linear regression or step-wise linear regression. Theseapproaches, which require modelers to select model parameters, may not be well-suited for opticallycomplex waters, where interference from suspended solids, dissolved organic matter, or otherconstituents may act as “confusers”. For these waters, it may be useful to include non-standard terms,which might not be considered using traditional methods. Recent machine learning …

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An Automated Stepper Motor-Driven System For Angular Sampling Of High Scattering Angles, Tyler Daynes, Jair Gonzalez, Jeremy Tait, Josh Jumper, Vern Hart May 2023

An Automated Stepper Motor-Driven System For Angular Sampling Of High Scattering Angles, Tyler Daynes, Jair Gonzalez, Jeremy Tait, Josh Jumper, Vern Hart

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Survival rates for most cancers have increased steadily over the past few decades as new technologies have led to better treatment outcomes. However, this process often relies heavily on the detection of cancer in its earliest stages, before symptoms occur or a tumor is visible in a CT or MR image. This is particularly true for diseases such as pancreatic cancer that exhibit almost nosymptoms until very late stages and have extremely low survival rates as a result. Even somecommonly treatable diseases, such as breast cancer, become far more problematic in later stages.As such, any efforts to improve cancer treatment …

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Modelling Filter Response Of Galactic Emission Line Spectra, Jessica Johnson, Christian Draper May 2023

Modelling Filter Response Of Galactic Emission Line Spectra, Jessica Johnson, Christian Draper

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The overall goal of our research is to begin to make a map of the universe in order to find evidence for the cold dark matter theory. Dark matter, which is 85% of all matter, does not interact with light, making it invisible to telescopes. However, we know it exists due to its gravitational effects on visible matter, which can be hard to detect.

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Creating A System For Automated Imaging Of Atmospheric Gravity Waves, James Morley, Kim Nielsen May 2023

Creating A System For Automated Imaging Of Atmospheric Gravity Waves, James Morley, Kim Nielsen

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Atmospheric gravity waves are disturbances in the atmosphere and near-space environments caused by displacement of air in a stable environment. These waves transport energy away from the source of the disturbance and can transfer large amounts of energy between atmospheric regions through wave dissipation. One of the regions of most energy transfer is the mesopause region, in the transition between the Earth's atmosphere and the near-space environment. This is a region that is difficult to observe, but the presence of certain atoms and molecules allows for remote sensing of faint emissions called airglow. As the waves pass through the airglow, …

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Atmospheric Modeling Of Brown Dwarfs, Brayden Roberts, Joshua Lothringer May 2023

Atmospheric Modeling Of Brown Dwarfs, Brayden Roberts, Joshua Lothringer

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Brown dwarfs are celestial bodies outside the solar system that are more massive than planets, but less massive than stars. Since they are less massive than stars, they do not fuse hydrogen in their core, but rather cool slowly over time. However, brown dwarfs still emit light. We can measure this light by taking its spectra. From this spectra, we can learn many characteristics and properties of brown dwarfs, such as their temperature, chemical composition, and much more. Brown dwarfs can be categorized by their spectra into M,L,T and Y spectral types.

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Construction And Characterization Of A Nd:Yvo4 Laser For Pumping A Baga4se7 Nonlinear Optical System, Brantson Wayman, Alexander Gibb, York Young May 2023

Construction And Characterization Of A Nd:Yvo4 Laser For Pumping A Baga4se7 Nonlinear Optical System, Brantson Wayman, Alexander Gibb, York Young

Utah Space Grant Consortium

One way to probe tissue for disease is via long wave infrared spectroscopy. This technique uses wavelength dependent absorption of specific molecules which serve as early indicators of disease onset in human tissue.

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Hollow Hair And How Its Structure Helps Big Game Animals Thermoregulate, Taylor Millett, Wendy Schatzberg, Samuel Tobler May 2023

Hollow Hair And How Its Structure Helps Big Game Animals Thermoregulate, Taylor Millett, Wendy Schatzberg, Samuel Tobler

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The Pronghorn antelope is the animal known to have hollow hair strands among hunters and conservationists, yet no one seems to know what it actually looks like on the inside. In this study we examined what a hollow hair strand looks like under a microscope and how it helps with an animal’s thermoregulation. Thermoregulation is the ability to regulate body temperature within a livable range even when external temperatures fluctuate. We studied animals like Mule deer, Rocky Mountain elk, and Pronghorn antelope, as well as other big game animals, as they exhibit this trait in a unique manner. These animals …

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Euhalothece: The Story Of A Primary Producer And The Great Salt Lake Benthic Food Chain, Caitlin Christensen, Bonnie K. Baxter May 2023

Euhalothece: The Story Of A Primary Producer And The Great Salt Lake Benthic Food Chain, Caitlin Christensen, Bonnie K. Baxter

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Euhalothece is a genus of cyanobacteria that thrive in hypersaline lacustrine and marine environments, including Great Salt Lake, where it dominates primary production in the benthic zone. This occurs primarily through its role as a major architect of microbialite structures. The ongoing rapid decline of GSL subjects these structures to desiccation and elevated salinity, threatening Euhalothece and the benthic ecosystem at large. The purpose of this research was to first review Euhalothece and its role in the GSL benthic food web, then to isolate Euhalothece from GSL microbial mats in an attempt to characterize this species. Additionally, microbialite mats can …

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Preservation Of Biosignatures In Gypsum As A Model For Mars Sample Return, Paulina Martinez-Koury, Bonnie Baxter May 2023

Preservation Of Biosignatures In Gypsum As A Model For Mars Sample Return, Paulina Martinez-Koury, Bonnie Baxter

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Evaporation of water from brines on the surface of the Earth results in a bed of minerals referred to as an evaporite, such as Bonneville Salt Flats (BSF) adjoining Great Salt Lake (GSL), in which both halite (NaCl) and gypsum (CaSO4•2H2O) crystals precipitate. Modern GSL and the surrounding BSF resulted from the evaporation of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. In this Bonneville basin and in similar salt deposits, microbial life has been discovered, entombed in minerals. Evaporites have also been well mapped on Mars by recent space missions, which have provided evidence of mineral composites consistent with ancient salt lake systems …

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Acoustical Measurements Of The Space Launch System Artemis-I Launch, Carson Gardner, Zachary Hendry, Bradley Mclaughlin, Kent L. Gee, Grant Hart, Mark Anderson, Logan Matthews, Carson Cunningham, Levi Moats, Taggart Durrant, Matthew Yancey May 2023

Acoustical Measurements Of The Space Launch System Artemis-I Launch, Carson Gardner, Zachary Hendry, Bradley Mclaughlin, Kent L. Gee, Grant Hart, Mark Anderson, Logan Matthews, Carson Cunningham, Levi Moats, Taggart Durrant, Matthew Yancey

Utah Space Grant Consortium

No abstract provided.

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The Archimedes Drum: Innovative Mining For Nasa Lunabotics, Chandler Millar, Andrew Tolton, Daniel Robinson, Najman Husaini, Creed Mccord, Hunter Strathman, Landen Hughes, Bradley Lund, Nathan Bruns, Rylan Metcalf, Jeremy Clark, Minh Le, Daniel Pruschki, Luke Phillips, Joseph Gilsoul, Simon Padgen, Tomas Hammond May 2023

The Archimedes Drum: Innovative Mining For Nasa Lunabotics, Chandler Millar, Andrew Tolton, Daniel Robinson, Najman Husaini, Creed Mccord, Hunter Strathman, Landen Hughes, Bradley Lund, Nathan Bruns, Rylan Metcalf, Jeremy Clark, Minh Le, Daniel Pruschki, Luke Phillips, Joseph Gilsoul, Simon Padgen, Tomas Hammond

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The annual NASA Robotic Mining Challenge: Lunabotics tasks teams with building robots capable of traversing and mining in a simulated Lunar terrain. The competition goal is to utilize automation and sensing alongside mechanical systems to harvest icy regolith (simulated with gravel) from beneath the satellite’s surface. USR’s competition arena can be seen in Figure 2.

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Are They Really Muons: Determining The Viability Of Cosmicwatch Muon Detectors In ‘Coincidence Mode’, Matt Wilkinson May 2023

Are They Really Muons: Determining The Viability Of Cosmicwatch Muon Detectors In ‘Coincidence Mode’, Matt Wilkinson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Our project went forward in two stages, the first stage being the building and testing of the detectors and the second being the primary experiment to test the detectors in their coincidence modes. Experiences with the build phase, particularly with the setting of thresholds for the detectors, lead to the interest in determining the statistical significance of these values.

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