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Device, consisting of tongue of thin aluminum alloy strip, pull tab, slotted steel plate which serves as cutter, and steel buckle, absorbs mechanical energy when its ends are subjected to tensile loading. Device is applicable as auxiliary shock absorbing anchor for automobile and airplane safety belts.
Process imparts dome shape to titanium sheets and is applicable to shaping other metals. Method is of interest to automobile and aircraft body manufacturers.
Automobile exhaust manifold thermal reactor systems comparison in control of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions
Electric circuit to measure frequency of repetitive sinusoidal or rectangular wave is presented. Components of electric circuit and method of operation are explained. Application of circuit as tachometer for automobile is discussed.
Low-power minicomputer can plug into automobile cigarette lighter. It measures time it takes observed car to travel premeasured distance and provides immediate readout of speed. Potentially, detector could be manufactured for less than $200 per unit and would have very low maintenance cost.
Calculator is adapted stopwatch calibrated for fast accurate measurement of speeds. Single assembled unit is rugged, self-contained, and relatively inexpensive to manufacture. Potential market includes automobile-speed enforcement, railroads, and field-test facilities.
The Seventh Annual NASA/AF/University Conference on Manual Control was held at the University of Southern California from June 2-4, 1971. Some eighty specialists, including colleagues from Canada, Netherlands and West Germany, attended the Conference, which was organized by the authors of this Summary. Generally at this conference there was less emphasis on theory and more on applications than at some previous meetings. In addition to the well-established areas of human operator modeling and display systems, this conference devoted considerable time to the extensions of manual control theory to such diverse areas as automobile driving, air traffic control and industrial management. This interest in meaningful applications of the existing theoretical knowledge in man-machine systems is encouraging and timely.
Effects of road and vehicle conditions, visual warning signs, direction of turns, night time, and skill on automobile driver performance are studied in several experiments. Considered criteria are variability in speed and acceleration.
An investigation to determine the effects of pavement surface condition on the cornering forces developed by a group of 6.50x13 automobile tires of different tread design was conducted at the Langley aircraft landing loads and traction facility. The tests were made at fixed yaw angles of 3,4.5, and 6 deg at forward speeds up to 80 knots on two concrete surfaces of different texture under dry, damp, and flooded conditions. The results showed that the cornering forces were extremely sensitive to tread pattern and runway surface texture under all conditions and that under flooded conditions tire hydroplaning and complete loss of cornering force occurred at a forward velocity predicted from an existing formula based on tire inflation pressure. Futher, tests on the damp concrete with a smooth tire and a four-groove tire showed higher cornering forces at a yaw angle of 3 deg than at 4.5 deg; this indicated that maximum cornering forces are developed at extremely small steering angles under these conditions.
A program designed to find second applications for space technology in the medical field is described. Illustrative examples and clinical test results are included for prosthetic urethral devices, ear oximeter for monitoring leukemia patients, devices for measuring low level CO effects on automobile drivers, radiation dosimeter probe for detecting radiation levels in cancerous areas, and electromyographic muscle trainer.
A variety of tests was undertaken to determine the nature of heat generation associated with a pneumatic tire operating under various conditions. Tests were conducted to determine the magnitude and distribution of internally generated heat caused by hysteresis in the rubber and ply fabric in an automobile tire operating under conditions of load, pressure, and velocity representative of normal operating conditions. These included tests at various yaw angles and tests with braking applied. In other tests, temperature sensors were mounted on a road to measure the effect of a tire rolling over and an attempt was made to deduce the magnitude and nature of interfacial friction from the resulting information. In addition, tests were performed using the scratch plate technique to determine the nature of the motion between the tire and road. Finally, a model tire was tested on a roadwheel, the surface covering which could be changed, and an optical pyrometer was used to measure rubber surface temperatures.
Technical and economic feasibility studies on a small windmill to provide overnight charging for an electrically driven car are reported. The auxiliary generator provides power for heating and cooling the vehicle which runs for 25 miles on battery power alone, and for 50 miles with the onboard charger operating. The blades for this windmill have a diameter of 12 feet and are coupled through to a conventional automobile alternator so that they are able to completely recharge car batteries in 8 hours. Optimization of a windmill/storage system requires detailed wind velocity information which permits rational sitting of wind power system stations.
In order to study the influence of an artificial habitat of discarded automobile tires upon the biomass in and around it, three sites were selected in the Banana River, one of which will serve as a control and the other two as locations for small tire reefs. Measurements and correlation studies of the biomasses and the species indicate that the biodynamics of the sites are appreciably the same in the three cases, that there are probably adequate populations at the lower trophic levels, that there are perhaps reduced numbers of upper level carnivores, and that it is likely that small artificial havens can contribute to an increase in populations of certain species of gamefish.
The application of aerospace technology to the solution of public health and industrial problems is reported. Data cover: (1) development of an externally rechargeable cardiac pacemaker, (2) utilization of ferrofluids-colloidal suspensions of ferrite particles - in the efficient separation of nonferrous metals as Ni, Zn, Cu, and Al from shredded automobile scrap, and (3) development of a breathing system for fire fighters.
An oscillating system with quadratic damping subjected to white noise excitation is replaced by a nonlinear, statistically equivalent system for which the associated Fokker-Planck equation can be exactly solved. The mean square responses are calculated and the optimum damping coefficient is determined with respect to the minimum mean square acceleration criteria. An application of these results to the optimization of automobile suspension damping is given.
Tests in which persons were subjected to a negative acceleration in an automobile are reported. The acceleration was obtained by stopping a moving car on the runway of an airport. The acceleration was found to produce a rotational movement of the subject's eyeball proportional to the degree of acceleration. Other investigations were conducted with a jet aircraft and a sports aircraft. G forces of up to 3 G were obtained during pull up of the aircraft, while values in the range from 0 to 1 G could be produced with the aid of a parabolic flight path. The effects of the flight conditions on the subject's direction of sight are discussed.
In order to study the influence of an artificial habitat of discarded automobile tires upon the biomass in and around it, three sites were selected in the Banana River of which two will contain small groups of tires and one will not. Over a given period, the populations in and around the tires will be compared with those which existed initially or prevail on the natural site. Preliminary observations indicate that adequate numbers may be present in the lower trophic levels but that there are perhaps inadequate populations of upper level carnivores which it appears can be increased by an artificial habitat.
A methanator fueled Otto-cycle engine is compared with other methods proposed to control pollution due to automobile exhaust emissions. The comparison is made with respect to state of development, emission factors, capital cost, operational and maintenance costs, performance, operational limitations, and impact on the automotive industries. The methanator fueled Otto-cycle engine is projected to meet 1975 emission standards and operate at a lower relative total cost compared to the catalytic muffler system and to have low impact. Additional study is required for system development.