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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

Nondestructive Determination of Bond Strength

Although many nondestructive techniques have been applied to detect disbonds in adhesive joints, no absolutely reliable nondestructive method has been developed to detect poor adhesion and evaluate the strength of bonded joints prior to the present work which used nonlinear ultrasonic methods to investigate adhesive bond cure conditions. Previously, a variety of linear and nonlinear ultrasonic methods with water coupling had been used to study aluminum-adhesive-aluminum laminates, prepared under different adhesive curing conditions, for possible bond strength determination. Therefore, in the course of this research effort, a variety of finite-amplitude experimental methods which could possibly differentiate various cure conditions were investigated, including normal and oblique incidence approaches based on nonlinear harmonic generation as well as several non-collinear two-wave interaction approaches. Test samples were mechanically scanned in various ways with respect to the focus of a transmitting transducer operated at several variable excitation frequencies and excitation levels. Even when powerful sample-related resonances were exploited by means of a frequency scanning approach, it was very difficult to isolate the nonlinear characteristics of adhesive bonds. However, a multi-frequency multi-power approach was quite successful and reliable. Ultrasonic tone burst signals at increasing power levels, over a wide frequency range, were transmitted through each bond specimen to determine its excitation dependent nonlinear harmonic resonance behavior. Relative amplitude changes were observed particularly in the higher harmonic spectral data and analyzed using a local displacement and strain analysis in the linear approximation. Two analysis approaches of the excitation-dependent data at specific resonances were found to be quite promising. One of these approaches may represent a very robust algorithm for classifying an adhesive bond as being properly cured or not. Another approach, in addition to differentiation between various cure conditions, may even provide information with respect to the bond strength. Several technical papers were published during the course of this research and a summary is presented in the Ph.D. dissertation of Tobias P. Berndt, a graduate student financially supported by this NASA Grant.

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NASA NTRS2004

Personal Radiation Protection System

A report describes the personal radiation protection system (PRPS), which has been invented for use on the International Space Station and other spacecraft. The PRPS comprises walls that can be erected inside spacecraft, where and when needed, to reduce the amount of radiation to which personnel are exposed. The basic structural modules of the PRPS are pairs of 1-in. (2.54-cm)-thick plates of high-density polyethylene equipped with fasteners. The plates of each module are assembled with a lap joint. The modules are denoted bricks because they are designed to be stacked with overlaps, in a manner reminiscent of bricks, to build 2-in. (5.08-cm)-thick walls of various lengths and widths. The bricks are of two varieties: one for flat wall areas and one for corners. The corner bricks are specialized adaptations of the flat-area bricks that make it possible to join walls perpendicular to each other. Bricks are attached to spacecraft structures and to each other by use of straps that can be tightened to increase the strengths and stiffnesses of joints.

McDonald, Mark↗
NASA NTRS1994

Fatigue life until small cracks in aircraft structures: Durability and damage tolerance

Crack initiation in notched elements occurs very early in the fatigue life. This is also true for riveted lap joints, an important fatigue critical element of a pressurized fuselage structure. Crack nucleation in a riveted lap joint can occur at different locations, depending on the riveting operation. It can occur at the edge of the rivet hole, at a small distance away from the hole, but still with subsequent crack growth through the hole, and ahead of the hole with a crack no longer passing through the hole. Moreover, crack nucleation can occur in the top row at the countersunk holes (outer sheet) or in the bottom row at the non-countersunk holes. Fractographic evidence is shown. The initial growth of the small cracks occurs as an (invisible) part through crack. As a consequence, predictions on the crack initiation life are problematic. After a though crack is present, the major part of the fatigue life has been consumed. There is still an apparent lack of empirical data on crack growth and residual strength of riveted lap joints, five years after the Aloha accident. Such data are very much necessary for further developments of prediction models. Some test results are presented.

Schijve, J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Fabrication and Testing of Durable Redundant and Fluted-Core Joints for Composite Sandwich Structures

The development of durable bonded joint technology for assembling composite structures is an essential component of future space technologies. While NASA is working toward providing an entirely new capability for human space exploration beyond low Earth orbit, the objective of this project is to design, fabricate, analyze, and test a NASA patented durable redundant joint (DRJ) and a NASA/Boeing co-designed fluted-core joint (FCJ). The potential applications include a wide range of sandwich structures for NASA's future launch vehicles. Three types of joints were studied -- splice joint (SJ, as baseline), DRJ, and FCJ. Tests included tension, after-impact tension, and compression. Teflon strips were used at the joint area to increase failure strength by shifting stress concentration to a less sensitive area. Test results were compared to those of pristine coupons fabricated utilizing the same methods. Tensile test results indicated that the DRJ design was stiffer, stronger, and more impact resistant than other designs. The drawbacks of the DRJ design were extra mass and complex fabrication processes. The FCJ was lighter than the DRJ but less impact resistant. With barely visible but detectable impact damages, all three joints showed no sign of tensile strength reduction. No compression test was conducted on any impact-damaged sample due to limited scope and resource. Failure modes and damage propagation were also studied to support progressive damage modeling of the SJ and the DRJ.

Lin, Shih-Yung↗
DOE OSTI2023

Frequency Emitter Geolocation Using Signal Strength Fingerprinting Informed By 3D Propagation Modeling

This work focuses on the problem of RF geolocation in complex multipath environments. Using 3D electromagnetic propagation modeling to characterize environments of interest will enable more accurate RF geolocation. Specifically, a path-loss radio map can be generated in simulation for use in received signal strength indicators (RSSI) fingerprinting, or pattern matching. RSSI fingerprinting is an example of data-based method that takes site specific information into account which should allow for better performance than other model-based methods that use a generalized model of electromagnetic propagation. This modeling capability will also be used to evaluate the relative performance of RSSI fingerprinting, pathloss model based RSSI methods such as differential received signal strength circles (DRSS), RSSI joint gaussian estimation, and time-difference of arrival (TDOA). New methods using this simulation derived electromagnetic characterization could improve the efficacy of currently deployed and future RF spectral monitoring solutions. Wireless InSite developed by Remcom is used as the simulation tool of choice in this work. An indoor location is simulated with a grid of fixed receivers and a grid of transmit locations. Using the output of the Wireless InSite simulation the response from a given transmit location to a given receive location can be generated. During the first year of the project various geolocation methods evaluated on purely synthetic, but realistic, data. The second year focused on testing and validating the efficacy of simulation informed RF geolocation using two physical testbeds. This work has shown that data-based approaches are more accurate than model-based ones at the expensive of requiring measured or simulated site-specific training data.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Micro-scale Numerical Investigation of Internal and Interfacial Void Defects in Adhesive on Failure Behavior of Adhesively-Bonded Materials with Rough Surfaces

This paper studied the effects of air void defects on the failure behavior of adhesively-bonded materials under global shear via micro-scale computational modeling. The numerical results indicated that interfacial void defects can largely facilitate interfacial debonding of a weaker adherend/adhesive interface under shear. However, this is not the case for a stronger adherend/adhesive interface, showing the reduction on the nominal shear strength of an adhesive joint is mainly due to internal void defects. The reduced bonding performance due to voids can be improved by leveraging an appropriate surface roughness. This preliminary investigation is a first step to better understand the micro-mechanics of interfacial failure in the adhesion of a roughened/patterned adherend via surface modification(s) and an adhesive, and also shows the importance of minimizing interfacial void defects in particular at a weaker adherend/adhesive interface via different techniques.

Qiao, Yao↗
NASA NTRS1967

Welding of AM350 and AM355 steel

A series of tests was conducted to establish optimum procedures for TIG welding and heat treating of AM350 and AM355 steel sheet in thicknesses ranging from 0.010 inch to 0.125 inch. Statistical analysis of the test data was performed to determine the anticipated minimum strength of the welded joints.

Davis, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Confined explosive joining of tubes

Technique uses explosive ribbon to join and seal tubes hermetically while totally confining explosive products, such as smoke, light, and sound. Only click is audible. Process yields joints of the same strengths as parent metal.

Bement, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Inferring the spatial and energy distribution of gamma-ray burst sources. 1: Methodology

We describe Bayesian methods for analyzing the distribution of gamma-ray burst peak photon fluxes and directions. These methods fit the differential distribution, and have the following advantages over rival methods: (1) they do not destroy information by binning or averaging the data (as do, say, chi squared, the averaged value of V/V(sub max), and angular moment analyses); (2) they straightforwardly handle uncertainties in the measured quantities; (3) they analyze the strength and direction information jointly; (4) they use information available about nondetections; and (5) they automatically identify and account for biases and selection effects given a precise description of the experiment. In these methods, the most important information needed about the instrument threshold is not its value at the times of burst triggers, as is used in the average value of V/V(sub max) analyses, but rather the value of the threshold at times when no trigger occurred. We show that this information can be summarized as an average detection efficiency that is similar to the product of the exposure and efficiency reported in the First Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) Burst (1B) Catalog, but significantly different from it at low fluxes. We also quantify an important bias that results from estimating the peak flux by scanning the burst to find the peak number of counts in a window of specified duration, as was done for the 1B Catalog. When the duration of the peak of the light curve is longer than the window duration, a simple flux estimate based on the peak counts significantly overestimates the peak flux in a nonlinear fashion that distorts the shape of the log(N)-log(P) distribution. This distortion also corrupts analyses of the V/V(sub max) distribution that use ratios of counts above background to estimate V/V(sub max). The Bayesian calculation specifies how to account for this bias. Implementation of the Bayesian approach requires some changes in the way burst data are reported that we describe in detail. Subsequent papers will report analyses of the 1B Catalog data using the methods described here.

Loredo, Thomas J.↗
NASA NTRS1998

A New Approach to Joining of Silicon Carbide-Based Materials for High Temperature Applications

Ceramic joining is recognized as one of the enabling technologies for the application of silicon carbide-based materials in a number of high temperature applications. An affordable, robust technique for the joining of silicon carbide-based ceramics has been developed. This technique is capable of producing joints with tailorable thickness and composition. Microstructure and mechanical properties of reaction formed joints in a reaction bonded silicon carbide have been reported. These joints maintain their mechanical strengths at high temperatures (up to 1350 C) in air. This technique is capable of joining large and complex shaped ceramic components.

Singh, Mrityunjay↗
NASA NTRS1998

Affordable, Robust Ceramic Joining Technology (ARCJoinT)

Joining is recognized as one of the enabling technologies for the application of silicon carbide-based ceramic and composite components in a number of demanding and high temperature applications in aerospace and ground-based systems. An affordable, robust ceramic joining technology (ARCJoinT) for joining of silicon carbide-based ceramics and fiber reinforced composites has been developed. This technique is capable of producing joints with tailorable thickness and composition. A wide variety of silicon carbide-based ceramics and composites, in different shapes and sizes, have been joined using this technique. These joints maintain their mechanical strength up to 1350 C in air. This technology is suitable for the joining of large and complex shaped ceramic and composite components and with certain modifications, can be applied to repair ceramic components damaged in service.

Singh, M.↗