NASA formula, can someone decipher

[Csaba Tizedes]

(04-18-2020 08:53 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:  

(04-18-2020 08:42 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  See the attached formula from an IBM employee newsletter from 1969 related to the space program. Does anyone know what all this (the delta t) means?

Delta means change and t is temperature (in NASA-speak) so Δt would be the change in temperature. Wdot is Corrected Airflow per Area https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/wcora.html

Sound good, but I am sure, this is not correct.

The right side of equation inside the parentheses is look like a rise of an amount: (1-exp(-(...))) is a typical charging process equation - and dimensionless.
And the W.../W... is looks like a dimensionless factor, I guess the two W's have same dimension, therefore the right side is dimensionless.

So, it is looks like an amount how reached the final value - in dimensionless form or something time constant stuff, solution something first order ODE.

Csaba