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At least 37 records · Page 2

Gamma (K5 Based) Compressor Blade Material Design - Alpha Extrusion on a Small Scale

The objective of the 2003 study is to develop a mechanically processed, high temperature TiAl alloy for use in the Turbine Based Combined Cycle compressor. An aging study with 3 temperatures and 4 time periods at each temperature will be conducted to determine the optimum aging condition. High-magnification microscopic analyses shall be employed to define the size distribution of carbide as a function of aging temperature/time. The contractor shall define optimum materials' conditions by conducting tensile and creep testing for two over-aging conditions for both alloys and fatigue testing for one over-aging condition for each alloy.

Kim, Young-Won

Approach and Issues Relating to Shield Material Design to Protect Astronauts from Space Radiation

One major obstacle to human space exploration is the possible limitations imposed by the adverse effects of long-term exposure to the space environment. Even before human spaceflight began, the potentially brief exposure of astronauts to the very intense random solar energetic particle (SEP) events was of great concern. A new challenge appears in deep space exploration from exposure to the low-intensity heavy-ion flux of the galactic cosmic rays (GCR) since the missions are of long duration and the accumulated exposures can be high. Since aluminum (traditionally used in spacecraft to avoid potential radiation risks) leads to prohibitively expensive mission launch costs, alternative materials need to be explored. An overview of the materials related issues and their impact on human space exploration will be given.

Wilson, J. W.

Nonstoichiometric Laser Materials: Designer Wavelengths in Neodymium Doped Garnets

The tunable nature of lasers provides for a wide range of applications. Most applications rely on finding available laser wavelengths to meet the needs of the research. This article presents the concept of compositional tuning, whereby the laser wavelength is designed by exploiting nonstoichiometry. For research where precise wavelengths are required, such as remote sensing, this is highly advantageous. A theoretical basis for the concept is presented and experimental results in spectroscopic measurements support the theoretical basis. Laser operation nicely demonstrates the validity of the concept of designer lasers.

Walsh, Brian M.

Technology update: Tethered aerostat structural design and material developments

Requirements exist for an extremely stable, high performance, all-weather tethered aerostat system. This requirement has been satisfied by a 250,000 cubic foot captive buoyant vehicle as demonstrated by over a year of successful field operations. This achievement required significant advancements in several technology areas including composite materials design, aerostatics and aerodynamics, structural design, electro-mechanical design, vehicle fabrication and mooring operations. This paper specifically addresses the materials and structural design aspects of pressurized buoyant vehicles as related to the general class of Lighter Than Air vehicles.

Witherow, R. G.

The synergistic effects of slip ring-brush design and materials

The design, fabrication, and subsequent testing of four power slip rings for synchronous orbit application are described. The synergistic effects of contact materials and slip ring-brush design are studied by means of frequent and simultaneous recording of friction, wear, and electrical noise. Data generated during the test period are presented along with post test analysis data.

Lewis, N. E.

Design of Multifunctional Materials: Chalcogenides and Chalcopyrites

There is a strong need for developing multifunctional materials to reduce the cost of applied material without compromising the performance of the detectors, devices and sensors. The materials design, processing, growth and fabrication of bulk and nanocrystals and fabrication into devices and sensors involve huge cost and resources including a multidisciplinary team of experts. Because of this reason, prediction of multifunctionality of materials before design and development should be evaluated. Chalcogenides and chalcopyrites are a very exciting class of materials for developing multifunctionality. Materials such as Gallium selenide GaSe and zinc selenide ZnSe have been proven to be excellent examples. GaSe is a layered material and very difficult to grow in large crystal. However, it's ternary and quaternary analogs such as thallium gallium selenide TlGaSe2, thallium gallium selenide sulfide TlGaSe2-xSs, thallium arsenic selenide Tl3AsSe3, silver gallium selenide AgGaGe3Se8, AgGaGe5Se12 and several others have shown great promise for multifunctionality. Several of these materials have shown good efficiency for frequency conversion (nonlinear optical NLO), electro-optic modulation, and acousto-optic tunable filters and imagers suitable for the visible, near-infrared wavelength, mid wave infrared (MWIR), long wave infrared (LWIR) and even up to Tera hertz wavelength (THW) regions. In addition, this class of materials have demonstrated low absorption coefficients and power handling capability in the systems. Also, these crystals do not require post growth annealing, show very large transparency range and fabricability.

Singh, N. B.

The synergistic effects of slip ring-brush design and materials

The design, fabrication, and testing of four power slip rings for synchronous orbit application are considered. Environmental and instrumentation systems necessary for monitoring electrical noise, friction, and brush wear in air and at less than 5 X 10 to the minus 8th power torr were developed. Composite brushes consisting of silver-molybdenum disulfide-graphite and silver-niobium diselenide-graphite were employed on rings of coin silver and rhodium plate. These four contact combinations were tested during ambient condition run-in at 150 and a humidity sequence at 0.1. The first nine months of a two year vacuum test performed at 0.1 rpm were completed.

Lewis, N. E.

An educational program on structural design with brittle /ceramic/ materials

The organization of a proposed ceramic structural materials program is described, and a suggested course sequence for college-level and graduate-level courses is presented. The course work on ceramics and brittle fracture are intended to lead to a brittle material design project and a brittle material design problem. Criteria for the selection of appropriate projects/problems are considered.

Mueller, J. I.

Design of Materials with Alchemite

Machine learning models that establish the relationships between materials processing and properties can enable inverse design of materials through active learning. Alchemite is a commercial software that can perform inverse materials design on sparse data. Here we evaluate Alchemite’s performance on a dataset of shape memory alloys and a dataset of heat exchangers compared to baseline random forest models. Alchemite had higher accuracy when making predictions on sparse data and was more accurate or nearly as accurate as random forests on complete datasets while also quantifying uncertainty. The software was also used to suggest processing steps and design parameters to optimize properties and performance; however, physical validation of the suggested design parameters was beyond the scope of this work. Several useful design insights were gained about the impact of the design parameters on properties and performance including the importance of dopant choice and amount for shape memory alloys and the importance of height and weight on the thermal resistance of heat exchangers.

Machine learning

Computational Design of Materials: Planetary Entry to Electric Aircraft and Beyond

NASA's projects and missions push the bounds of what is possible. To support the agency's work, materials development must stay on the cutting edge in order to keep pace. Today, researchers at NASA Ames Research Center perform multiscale modeling to aid the development of new materials and provide insight into existing ones. Multiscale modeling enables researchers to determine micro- and macroscale properties by connecting computational methods ranging from the atomic level (density functional theory, molecular dynamics) to the macroscale (finite element method). The output of one level is passed on as input to the next level, creating a powerful predictive model.

Materials Design