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At least 325 records · Page 18

Vertical Force-deflection Characteristics of a Pair of 56-inch-diameter Aircraft Tires from Static and Drop Tests with and Without Prerotation

The vertical force-deflection characteristics were experimentally determined for a pair of 56-inch-diameter tires under static and drop-test conditions with and without prerotation. For increasing force, the tires were found to be least stiff for static tests, almost the same as for the static case for prerotation drop tests as long as the tires remain rotating, and appreciably stiffer for drop tests without prerotation.

LOADS, LANDING - IMPACT, LAND↗

On force-deflection diagrams of airplane shock absorber struts : first, second, and third partial reports

This paper, which is presented in three parts, is an analytical study of the behavior of landing gear shock struts, with various types of assumptions for the shock-strut characteristics. The effects of tire springing are neglected. The first part compares the behavior of struts with linear and quadratic damping. The second part considers struts with nonlinear spring characteristics and linear or quadratic damping. The third part treats the oleo-pneumatic strut with air-compression springing without damping and with damping proportional to velocity. It is indicated how the damping factor can be determined by experiment.

LOADS, LANDING - IMPACT, LAND↗

Knowledge base rule partitioning design for CLIPS

This describes a knowledge base (KB) partitioning approach to solve the problem of real-time performance using the CLIPS AI shell when containing large numbers of rules and facts. This work is funded under the joint USAF/NASA Advanced Launch System (ALS) Program as applied research in expert systems to perform vehicle checkout for real-time controller and diagnostic monitoring tasks. The Expert System advanced development project (ADP-2302) main objective is to provide robust systems responding to new data frames of 0.1 to 1.0 second intervals. The intelligent system control must be performed within the specified real-time window, in order to meet the demands of the given application. Partitioning the KB reduces the complexity of the inferencing Rete net at any given time. This reduced complexity improves performance but without undo impacts during load and unload cycles. The second objective is to produce highly reliable intelligent systems. This requires simple and automated approaches to the KB verification & validation task. Partitioning the KB reduces rule interaction complexity overall. Reduced interaction simplifies the V&V testing necessary by focusing attention only on individual areas of interest. Many systems require a robustness that involves a large number of rules, most of which are mutually exclusive under different phases or conditions. The ideal solution is to control the knowledge base by loading rules that directly apply for that condition, while stripping out all rules and facts that are not used during that cycle. The practical approach is to cluster rules and facts into associated 'blocks'. A simple approach has been designed to control the addition and deletion of 'blocks' of rules and facts, while allowing real-time operations to run freely. Timing tests for real-time performance for specific machines under R/T operating systems have not been completed but are planned as part of the analysis process to validate the design.

Mainardi, Joseph D.↗

Environmental Test Program for the Mars Exploration Rover Project

On June 10 and July 7, 2003 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched two spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida for a six (6) months flight to the Red Planet, Mars. The two Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft landed safely on the planet in January 2004. Prior to the successful launch, both of the spacecraft were involved in a comprehensive test campaign that included development, qualification, and protoflight test programs. Testing was performed to simulate the environments associated with launch, inter-planetary cruise, landing on the planet and Mars surface operations. Unique test requirements included operating the spacecraft while the chamber pressure was controlled to simulate the decent to the planet from deep space, high impact landing loads and rover operations on the surface of the planet at 8 Torr and -130 C. This paper will present an overview of the test program that included vibration, pyro-shock, landing loads, acoustic noise, thermal vacuum and solar simulation testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Environmental Test Laboratory facilities in Pasadena, California.

Fisher, Terry C.↗

Improved Flaw Detection and Characterization with Difference Thermography

Flaw detection and characterization with thermographic techniques in graphite polymer composites is often limited by localized variations in the thermographic response. Variations in properties such as acceptable porosity, variations in fiber volume content and surface polymer thickness result in variations in the thermal response that in general cause significant variations in the initial thermal response. These variations result in a noise floor that increases the difficulty of detecting and characterizing deeper flaws. The paper investigates comparing thermographic responses taken before and after a change in state in a composite to improve the detection of subsurface flaws. A method is presented for registration of the responses before finding the difference. A significant improvement in the detectability is achieved by comparing the differences in response. Examples of changes in state due to application of a load and impact are presented.

Winfree, William P.↗

A Comparative Analysis of Two Full-Scale MD-500 Helicopter Crash Tests

Two full scale crash tests were conducted on a small MD-500 helicopter at NASA Langley Research Center fs Landing and Impact Research Facility. One of the objectives of this test series was to compare airframe impact response and occupant injury data between a test which outfitted the airframe with an external composite passive energy absorbing honeycomb and a test which had no energy absorbing features. In both tests, the nominal impact velocity conditions were 7.92 m/sec (26 ft/sec) vertical and 12.2 m/sec (40 ft/sec) horizontal, and the test article weighed approximately 1315 kg (2900 lbs). Airframe instrumentation included accelerometers and strain gages. Four Anthropomorphic Test Devices were also onboard; three of which were standard Hybrid II and III, while the fourth was a specialized torso. The test which contained the energy absorbing honeycomb showed vertical impact acceleration loads of approximately 15 g, low risk for occupant injury probability, and minimal airframe damage. These results were contrasted with the test conducted without the energy absorbing honeycomb. The test results showed airframe accelerations of approximately 40 g in the vertical direction, high risk for injury probability in the occupants, and substantial airframe damage.

Littell, Justin D.↗

Ares I-X Flight Test Validation of Control Design Tools in the Frequency-Domain

A major motivation of the Ares I-X flight test program was to Design for Data, in order to maximize the usefulness of the data recorded in support of Ares I modeling and validation of design and analysis tools. The Design for Data effort was intended to enable good post-flight characterizations of the flight control system, the vehicle structural dynamics, and also the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle. To extract the necessary data from the system during flight, a set of small predetermined Programmed Test Inputs (PTIs) was injected directly into the TVC signal. These PTIs were designed to excite the necessary vehicle dynamics while exhibiting a minimal impact on loads. The method is similar to common approaches in aircraft flight test programs, but with unique launch vehicle challenges due to rapidly changing states, short duration of flight, a tight flight envelope, and an inability to repeat any test. This paper documents the validation effort of the stability analysis tools to the flight data which was performed by comparing the post-flight calculated frequency response of the vehicle to the frequency response calculated by the stability analysis tools used to design and analyze the preflight models during the control design effort. The comparison between flight day frequency response and stability tool analysis for flight of the simulated vehicle shows good agreement and provides a high level of confidence in the stability analysis tools for use in any future program. This is true for both a nominal model as well as for dispersed analysis, which shows that the flight day frequency response is enveloped by the vehicle s preflight uncertainty models.

Johnson, Matthew↗

Norton-Thevenin Receptance Coupling (NTRC) as a Payload Design Tool

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) is funding a study to develop an alternate method for performing coupled loads analysis called Norton-Thevenin Receptance Coupling (NTRC). NTRC combines Receptance Coupling (RC), a frequency-domain synthesis method and Norton-Thevenin (NT) theory, an impedance based approach for simulating the interaction between dynamic systems. The goal of developing the NTRC method is to provide a tool that payload developers can use to reduce the conservatism in defining preliminary design loads, assess the impact of design changes between formal load cycles, and to perform trade studies for design optimization with a minimum amount of data required from the launch vehicle (LV) provider. NTRC also has the ability to perform parametric loads analysis where many different design configurations can be evaluated. This will result in cost and schedule benefits to the payload developer that are currently not possible under the standard coupled loads analysis (CLA) flow where typically only 2-3 official load cycles are performed by the LV provider over the life of a payload program. NTRC is not envisioned as a replacement for the official load cycles performed by the LV provider but rather as a means to address the types of design issues faced by the payload developer before and between official load cycles.The presentation provides an overview of the NTRC methodology and discusses how NTRC can be used to replicate the results from a standard LV CLA. The presentation covers the benchmarking that has been performed as part of the NESC study to demonstrate the accuracy of the technique for both frequency and time domain dynamic analyses. Future plans for benchmarking the NTRC approach against CLA results for NASAs Space Launch System (SLS) and commercial launch vehicles are discussed and the role that NTRC is envisioned to play in the payload development cycle.

Structural Dynamics↗

Norton-Thevenin Receptance Coupling (NTRC) as a Payload Analysis Tool

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has funded a study of a new method formulated by NASA Engineers called Norton-Thevenin Receptance Coupling (NTRC) to perform coupled loads analysis (CLA). The problem that NTRC attempts to solve is the dependency of the payload organization to high CLA costs, long schedules, lack of standard capabilities to evaluate multiple configurations and unavailability of loads when needed. NTRC solves the problem by providing a tool that payload developers can use to obtain loads at a fraction of the cost of a CLA at any time that it is required. While NTRC is not intended to replace the formal load cycles performed by the launch vehicle (LV) provider, it will provide the ability to reduce the conservatism in defining preliminary design loads, assess the impact of design changes between formal load cycles, perform trade studies and perform parametric loads analysis where many different design configurations can be evaluated with a minimum amount of data required from the LV provider. NTRC condenses all the necessary information into the launch vehicle to payload/s connection points or boundary degrees of freedom (BD). The launch vehicle model is represented by its impedance at its BDs; its forcing functions are represented by the acceleration at those BDs when the payload is absent and the latter is represented by its impedance at the same BDs. Payload responses are represented by transfer functions of selected response to interface BDs. The methodology has contributed to the Loads and Dynamics discipline advancement and successfully passed Peer Reviews. NTRC is exact in the frequency domain. Time domain replication and accuracy is outstanding. A second phase is envisioned to benchmark the whole set of CLA events for the Agency's most utilized Launch Vehicles, and ready it for operational deployment at NASA.

Kaufman, Daniel↗

Design Space Exploration of Pericyclic Transmission

The pericyclic transmission provides the opportunity to vastly impact transmission design in rotorcraft due to its ability to provide exceedingly high reduction ratios in a single stage that would normally require multiple gear stages to produce. This could lead to lighter transmissions with fewer components, increased range, reliability, efficiency, speed and decreased cost to maintain. While many previous studies have focused upon the gearing within the pericyclic transmission, this work focused on what influences pericyclic geometry, and how changes in geometry impacts bearing loads. Specifically the loading of bearings that must deliver power from the input shaft to the nutating and rotating gears of the system were of primary concern. A comprehensive look at dynamic loads generated by nutating bodies was performed. Methods to address these dynamic loads via application of counterbalances and deviation from conventional pericyclic transmission designs were utilized to negate the dynamic moment of concern. Finally a static solver was used to determine the bearing loads with updated component geometries and mass moment of inertias that included the required counterbalances.

Nutational Gearing↗

A 3D-printed Broadband Millimeter Wave Absorber

We present the design, manufacturing technique, and characterization of a 3D-printed broadband graded index millimeter wave absorber. The absorber is additively manufactured using a fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printer out of a carbon-loaded high impact polystyrene (HIPS) filament and is designed using a space-filling curve to optimize manufacturability using said process. The absorber's reflectivity is measured from 63 GHz to 115 GHz and from 150 GHz to 215 GHz and is compared to electromagnetic simulations. The intended application is for terminating stray light in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) telescopes, and the absorber has been shown to survive cryogenic thermal cycling.

Matthew Petroff↗

Impact Simulation of Composite Panels for Aerospace Applications

The aerospace research community has been working towards the development of a comprehensive framework for the design of composite structures at the component, subassembly, assembly, and system levels. Such a framework requires accurate, efficient and easy-to-use mathematical and computational models that are in sync with physical reality. The research work in this paper is designed to help an aerospace structural engineer move towards this goal by simulating dynamic impact to composite panels. First, the existing orthotropic visco-elastic visco-plastic material model in LS-DYNA commercial finite element program, MAT_COMPOSITE_TABULATED_PLASTICITY_DAMAGE (MAT_213) is enhanced with the development and use of rate-dependent damage data. Using state-of-the-art experimental procedures, impact validation test data are created. Second, the versatility of the constitutive model is examined by its ability to simulate a low velocity (27 ft/s, 8 m/s) impact test, and two high velocity impact tests (385–417 ft/s, 117–127 m/s) that straddle the ballistic limit of the projectile and the composite panels. Third, these impact events are modeled using three different finite element types – under-integrated and fully-integrated solid elements, and fully-integrated thin shell elements. Insight into accuracy versus numerical efficiency is gained by comparing the performance of solid versus thin shell elements. The numerical results show that accurate predictions of these impact events can be obtained with reasonable effort and care.

Simulations↗

Critical Progressive Damage Analysis Model Features for Low-Velocity Impact on Thermoset and Thermoplastic Panels

A previous verification and validation framework evaluated the ability of various progressive damage analysis (PDA) tools to predict the mechanical response and damage state in post-buckled stiffened aerospace structures composed of fiber-reinforced thermoset composite materials. Herein, the ability of PDA tools to predict damage in thermoplastic composite materials subject to low-velocity impact (LVI) loading has been assessed. LVI tests and analyses have been conducted for similar panels, comprising thermoset or thermoplastic composite materials. Preliminary test/analysis correlations revealed that using the same combination of PDA model features and finite element model-building guidelines for the thermoset and thermoplastic LVI specimens resulted in underprediction of matrix crack lengths and delaminated area in the thermoplastic analyses despite yielding good correlations for the thermoset specimens. In this paper, the quality of the test/analysis correlations for analyses of thermoplastic LVI specimens performed with different combinations of PDA model features using the NASA CompDam material model are presented. Model features that were assessed in terms of effect on the quality of the test/analysis correlation include the representation of damageable interfaces, residual thermal stresses, and fiber damage.

Frank Leone↗

Critical Progressive Damage Analysis Model Features for Low-Velocity Impact on Thermoset and Thermoplastic Panels

A previous verification and validation framework evaluated the ability of various progressive damage analysis (PDA) tools to predict the mechanical response and damage state in post-buckled stiffened aerospace structures composed of fiber-reinforced thermoset composite materials. Herein, the ability of PDA tools to predict damage in thermoplastic composite materials subject to low-velocity impact (LVI) loading has been assessed. LVI tests and analyses have been conducted for similar panels, comprising thermoset or thermoplastic composite materials. Preliminary test/analysis correlations revealed that using the same combination of PDA model features and finite element model-building guidelines for the thermoset and thermoplastic LVI specimens resulted in underprediction of matrix crack lengths and delaminated area in the thermoplastic analyses despite yielding good correlations for the thermoset specimens. In this paper, the quality of the test/analysis correlations for analyses of thermoplastic LVI specimens performed with different combinations of PDA model features using the NASA CompDam material model are presented. Model features that were assessed in terms of effect on the quality of the test/analysis correlation include the representation of damageable interfaces, residual thermal stresses, and fiber damage.

Frank Leone↗

The Impact Response of Carbon/Epoxy Laminates (Center Director's Discretionary Fund, Project No. 94-13)

Low velocity dropweight impact tests were conducted on carbon/epoxy laminates under various boundary conditions. The composite plates were 8-ply (+45,0,-45,90)s laminates supported in a clamped-clamped/free-free configuration with varying amounts of in-plane load, N(sub x), applied. Specimens were impacted at energies of 3.4, 4.5, and 6 Joules (2.5, 3.3, and 4.4 ft-lb). The amount of damage induced into the specimen was evaluated using instrumented impact techniques, x-ray inspection, and cross-sectional photomicroscopy. Some static identation tests were performed to examine if the impact events utilized in this study were of a quasi-static nature and also to gain insight into the shape of the deflected surface at various impact load combinations. Load-displacement curves from these tests were compared to those of the impact tests, as was damage determined from x-ray inspection. The finite element technique was used to model the impact event and determine the stress field within the laminae. Results showed that for a given impact energy level, more damage was induced into the specimen as the external in-plane load, N(sub x), was increased. The majority of damage observed consisted of back face splitting of the matrix parallel to the fibers in that ply, associated with delaminations emanating from these splits. The analysis showed qualitatively the results of impact conditions on maximum load of impact, maximum transverse deflection, and first failure mode and location.

Nettles, A. T.↗