Engineering topics

Fichter, W. B.

Publications and source records attributed to Fichter, W. B..

27 records · Page 2

NASA NTRS1983

The stress intensity factor for the double cantilever beam

Fourier transforms and the Wiener-Hopf technique are used in conjunction with plane elastostatics to examine the singular crack tip stress field in the double cantilever beam (DCB) specimen. In place of the Dirac delta function, a family of functions which duplicates the important features of the concentrated forces without introducing unmanageable mathematical complexities is used as a loading function. With terms of order h-squared/a-squared retained in the series expansion, the dimensionless stress intensity factor is found to be K (h to the 1/2)/P = 12 to the 1/2 (a/h + 0.6728 + 0.0377 h-squared/a-squared), in which P is the magnitude of the concentrated forces per unit thickness, a is the distance from the crack tip to the points of load application, and h is the height of each cantilever beam. The result is similar to that obtained by Gross and Srawley by fitting a line to discrete results from their boundary collocation analysis.

Fichter, W. B.↗

NASA NTRS1983

Reduction of rms-error in shallow faceted large space antennas

This paper examines the potential for reducing root-mean-square surface error in shallow faceted reflectors by replacing flat facets with membrane facets. Exact solutions are obtained for the small lateral deflections of equilateral triangular and rectangular membranes subject to isotropic tension and parabolic edge deflections. These solutions are used to minimize the rms-error between a facet of a shallow paraboloidal surface and its approximating membrane facet. The resulting optimum placements and edge curvatures yield membrane facets which have significantly lower rms-errors than the corresponding best-fit flat facets. The rms-error reductions are about 55 percent for equilateral triangles and 25 percent to 93 percent for rectangles, depending on aspect ratio. The results suggest that the use of membrane facets conforming to curved structural members could yield reflectors with lower rms-error, or comparable error with larger facets and, hence, fewer structural members.

Fichter, W. B.↗

NASA NTRS1976

The shear-stress intensity factor for a centrally cracked stiff-flanged shear web

By use of the principle of superposition the stiff-flanged shear web is modeled mathematically by an infinite elastic strip with fixed longitudinal edges. The shear-stress intensity factor for a central longitudinal crack is calculated for various values of the ratio of strip width to crack length, h/a, in the range 0.1-10. The interaction of the crack with the boundaries is illustrated by boundary shear-stress distributions for three values of h/a. Some implications of the results for the design of damage-tolerant shear webs are discussed briefly.

Fichter, W. B.↗

NASA NTRS1974

Shear-stress intensity factors for elastic sheets with cover plates

Shear stress intensity factors are calculated for three problems concerning inextensible cover plates either bonded to or embedded in an elastic sheet which is under uniaxial tension. The stress intensity factors are small when the ratio of sheet thickness to cover plate length is small and, as the ratio increase, rapidly approach their asymptotic values for infinite sheet thickness. In the problem of the embedded cover plate, the stress intensity factor also depends on the Poisson's ratio of the sheet material. The dependence on Poisson's ratio, however, is significant only when the ratio of sheet thickness to cover plate length is small. Some possible implications of the present results for debonding of reinforced sheets under cyclic loading are briefly discussed.

Fichter, W. B.↗

NASA NTRS1970