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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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

Mechanical properties characterization of composite sandwich materials intended for space antenna applications

The composite materials proposed for use in the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) program contains a new, high modulus graphite fiber as the reinforcement. A study was conducted to measure certain mechanical properties of the new fiber-reinforced material as well as of a composite-faced aluminum honeycomb sandwich structure. Properties were measured at -157, 22, and 121 C. Complete characterization of this material was not intended. Longitudinal tensile, picture-frame shear, short-beam shear, and flexural tests were performed on specimens of the composite face-sheet materials. Unidirectional, cross-plied, and quasi-isotropic fiber composite ply layup designs were fabricated and tested. These designs had been studied by using NASA's Integrated Composite Analyzer (ICAN) computer program. Flexural tests were conducted on (+/- 60/0 deg) sub s composite-faced sandwich structure material. Resistance strain gages were used to measure strains in the tensile, picture-frame, and sandwich flexural tests. The sandwich flexural strength was limited by the core strength at 157 and 22 c. The adhesive bond strength was the limiting factor at 121 C. Adhesive mechanical properties are reflected in sandwich structure flexural properties when the span-to-depth ratio is great enough to allow a significant shear effect on the load-deflection behavior of the sandwich beam. Most measured properties agreed satisfactorily with the properties predicted by ICAN.

Bowles, Kenneth J.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Mechanical property characterization of Borsic/aluminum laminates at room and elevated temperatures

Six Borsic/aluminum laminate orientations exposed to a braze temperature cycle were tested in tension, compression, and shear to determine tangent modulus, maximum stress and strain, and Poisson's ratio of the laminates at room and elevated temperatures. Mechanical properties in tension were determined from flat tensile and sandwich beam tests. Room temperature flat tensile tests were performed on laminates in the as-received condition to compare with specimens exposed to a braze temperature cycle. Sandwich beam tests were also used to determine mechanical properties in compression. Shear properties were determined from biaxially loaded, picture frame shear specimens. Results are presented by using functional relations between stress and strain and tangent modulus and strain, and in tables by indicating maximum stress and strain and Poisson's ratio.

Mcwithey, R. R.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Interparticle Characterization of Mechanical Biomass Particle-Particle and Particle-Wall Interactions

The biomass materials industry faces significant challenges in managing material variability and its impact on storage and handling systems. Physical properties such as moisture content, particle size, and density fluctuate considerably, leading to operational issues like bridging and ratholing that disrupt material flow. These variations create a complex cascade effect throughout the process chain, affecting transportation, storage, and conversion processes. The economic consequences of this variability manifest in increased operational costs, maintenance requirements, and system downtime. Environmental factors further complicate the situation, as weather conditions and seasonal availability influence material properties and system performance. Engineers employ specialized equipment design, material characterization protocols, and pre-processing steps like size reduction and homogenization to address these challenges. A critical knowledge gap exists between continuous-level constitutive models and particle-scale behavior. This project developed a novel device to quantify interparticle mechanics between biomass particles, measuring friction and adhesion forces between particles and wall materials. The research focused on corn stover and southern pine forest residue, creating a comprehensive database of particle interactions. This breakthrough enables direct application in particle-based computational modeling, advancing the field's understanding of biomass handling characteristics and supporting the development of more reliable and efficient storage and handling systems. The project's outcomes contribute significantly to understanding biomass's mechanical and flow characteristics, particularly how variability at the particle level affects larger-scale handling operations. This knowledge is crucial for engineering feedstock supply systems that consistently meet quality and cost specifications for various conversion processes. The innovative experimental setup developed through this research represents a significant advancement in biomass characterization methodology. Providing precise measurements of particle-level interactions establishes a foundation for more accurate predictive modeling of bulk material behavior. This enhanced understanding of fundamental particle mechanics enables engineers to anticipate better and address handling challenges before they manifest in full-scale operations. This research opens new avenues for optimizing biomass handling systems through data-driven design approaches. The comprehensive database of particle interactions serves as a valuable resource for future research and development efforts, potentially leading to more efficient and cost-effective biomass processing solutions. This advancement in particle-level mechanics could revolutionize how biomass handling systems are designed and operated, contributing to more sustainable and reliable renewable energy production.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Characterization of mechanical properties and deformation behavior of highly irradiated 316L stainless steel from target modules at the Spallation Neutron Source using digital image correlation analysis

Tensile specimens with irradiation doses ranging from approximately 0.7 to 7.6 displacements per atom (dpa) were fabricated from 316L samples removed from Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) target vessels after service. Tensile tests were performed in conjunction with digital image correlation (DIC) characterization, which permitted detailed analysis of the strain distribution and deformation behavior of the specimen gauge sections during testing. The results show, while considerable hardening (500–700 MPa increase in yield strength) occurred in the 316L SNS target material with increasing dose, appreciable ductility (19–23% total elongation) remained in the material after irradiation to 7.6 dpa in the mixed neutron/proton environment of the SNS target region. The DIC data showed the strain distribution and deformation behavior of all irradiated specimens were nonuniform during testing. Strain localization in the form of deformation bands or “hotspots” was observed during testing, and in some specimens, the bands propagated as deformation waves along the gauge section. The “traveling wave” deformation behavior affected the amount of elongation each specimen achieved, and the scatter in the elongation data was attributed to the large variation in deformation behavior observed among different specimens. Bands of localized strain, or deformation bands, oriented at specific angles were observed in two-dimensional plots of the strain distribution in the gauge sections of some specimens. Overall, this paper describes the experimental procedures, results, and deformation behavior of tensile specimens from SNS targets after service and illustrates the value of DIC characterization during tensile testing of irradiated materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2005

Thermal and Mechanical Property Characterization of the Advanced Disk Alloy LSHR

A low solvus, high refractory (LSHR) powder metallurgy disk alloy was recently designed using experimental screening and statistical modeling of composition and processing variables on sub-scale disks to have versatile processing-property capabilities for advanced disk applications. The objective of the present study was to produce a scaled-up disk and apply varied heat treat processes to enable full-scale demonstration of LSHR properties. Scaled-up disks were produced, heat treated, sectioned, and then machined into specimens for mechanical testing. Results indicate the LSHR alloy can be processed to produce fine and coarse grain microstructures with differing combinations of strength and time-dependent mechanical properties, for application at temperatures exceeding 1300 F.

Gabb, Timothy P.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Microstructural and Mechanical Property Characterization of Shear Formed Aerospace Aluminum Alloys

Advanced manufacturing processes such as near-net-shape forming can reduce production costs and increase the reliability of launch vehicle and airframe structural components through the reduction of material scrap and part count and the minimization of joints. The current research is an investigation of the processing-microstructure-property relationships for shear formed cylinders of the Al-Cu-Li-Mg-Ag alloy 2195 for space applications and the Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloy C415 for airframe applications. Cylinders which had undergone various amounts of shear-forming strain were studied to correlate the grain structure, texture, and mechanical properties developed during and after shear forming.

Troeger, Lillianne P.↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Novel Manufacturing Process of Lightweight Automotive Seats (Integration of Additive Manufacturing and Reinforced Polymer Composite)

Lightweight automotive seats offer multiple benefits to original equipment manufacturers in terms of cost savings from various aspects, including less material usage, more integrated processes, and compliance with Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards. Original equipment manufacturers have been focusing on innovative ways to produce light weight automotive seats. The commercially available automotive seats are currently made of multiple metal components combined through welding and fasteners. The use of additive manufacturing and composite structures is particularly useful for light weighting the automotive components. Additive manufacturing (AM) offers multiple advantages over traditional manufacturing processes such as freedom of design thereby enabling complex structural geometries, mass customization and waste minimization, and control over the fiber alignment through deposition in a predetermined pattern. Combining metal inserts with polymer composites through a novel manufacturing process allows design of lightweight and high-performance materials for automotive components. However, fabricating these metal polymer composite structures through traditional manufacturing processes limits their mechanical properties due to limited design freedom, lack of control over fiber orientation in composite parts, and poor interfacial bonding between the constituent materials. It is essential to develop a novel manufacturing process to enable high throughput production of lightweight automotive seats using metal and polymer composites. As such it is important to design the automotive seat suitable for manufacturing via this process and perform mechanical characterization on various subcomponents of the seat to ensure that the design and performance requirements provided by the auto manufacturer are met. The aim of this project is to develop a novel manufacturing technique to produce lightweight automotive seat by combining AM with conventional manufacturing processes. The car seat back panel will be designed via topology optimization and numerical simulations to minimize the overall weight while ensuring it meets all the performance requirements. The optimization of the seat back structure will be based on computational stress analysis to maximize the stiffness and minimize the weight. Materials currently used by Ford Motor Company will be adopted for a few subcomponents while the in-house composite materials will be used for the rest of the seat back. The composite and metallic materials will be tested to determine their mechanical properties as these are necessary for simulations. A novel manufacturing process will be developed to integrate AM metal inserts with discontinuous reinforced composite through large scale additive manufacturing and compression overmolding processes. The developed manufacturing technique will be used to fabricated various subcomponents suitable for the seat back design and mechanically tested to determine their properties. The manufacturing of the lightweight seat back design through this process involves integrated AM metal inserts with the composite structure for recliner connection. The manufacturing of the entire seat back which is lightweight through the novel manufacturing process will be discussed. The performance of the designed seat back will be investigated through numerical simulations and shown to meet all the requirements provided by the auto manufacturer. The final goal of developing a novel manufacturing process for lightweight automotive seats is met through design optimization of seat back, manufacturing of subcomponents, mechanical characterization, and validation through numerical simulations. The routes to achieve the final goal of the project and the depth in which they were investigated changed throughout the project due to personnel changes and the COVID-19 pandemic. The project resulted in the development of a novel manufacturing process to integrate metal inserts with tailored polymer composite preforms through overmolding. Leveraging this proven manufacturing process, a lightweight seat back was designed through topology optimization and numerical simulations. The designed seat back uses AM metal inserts and compression overmolding of tailored polymer composite preforms obtained via large scale additive manufacturing. The metal polymer composite structures fabricated through this process exhibited enhancement in stiffness and improved ductility upon testing. Overall, the project provided an alternative design and manufacturing technique for automotive seat back that enables weight saving while meeting the safety and performance requirements.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Introduction to (Photo)electrocatalysis For Renewable Energy

Humanity is facing a significant and growing energy demand, necessitating a new energy paradigm built on clean and abundant renewable energy.1 Within this context, electrocatalysis and (photo)electrocatalysis hold great promise for enabling renewable energies such as solar and wind power to overcome the transient nature of their energy output.2-6 Developing catalysts that operate efficiently and selectively, and that are also robust, has been the focus of much research. This special issue brings together the latest advances in the fundamental and applied science addressing the synthesis, characterization, mechanisms, and performance of (photo)electrocatalysts for energy storage and conversion of small molecules into useful specialty and commodity chemicals and fuels. The electrocatalysts and (photo)electrocatalysts highlighted in this issue include metalloenzymes, homogeneous and supported molecular catalysts, and diverse heterogeneous nanoparticulate and thin film systems. The reports span across basic and applied studies and encompass both experimental and theoretical investigations.

Dey, Abhishek↗
DOE OSTI2022

A machine learning approach to determine the elastic properties of printed fiber-reinforced polymers

This work focuses on the simultaneous determination of the elastic constants and the fiber orientation state for a short fiber-reinforced polymer composite by performing a minimum of experimental tests. Here we introduce a methodology that enables the inverse determination of fiber orientation state and the in-situ polymer properties by performing tensile tests at the composite coupon level. We demonstrate the approach for the extrusion deposition additive manufacturing (EDAM) process to illustrate one application of the methodology, but the development is such that it can be applied to short fiber-reinforced polymer (SFRP) systems processed via other methods. Currently, developing composites additive manufacturing digital twins require extensive material characterization. In particular, the mechanical characterization of the orthotropic elastic properties of a composite involves extensive sample preparation and testing, therefore the elasticity tensor is generally populated using a micromechanics model. This, however, requires measuring the fiber orientation state in addition to knowing the constituent material properties. Experimentally measuring the fiber orientation state can be tedious and time consuming. Further, optical methods are limited to resolving the orientation of cylindrical fibers or cluster of non-cylindrical fibers, and computed tomography (CT) methods scan regions of volume that are much smaller than a full printed bead. Therefore, we propose a methodology, accelerated by machine learning, to identify the anisotropic mechanical properties and fiber orientation state at the same time. Early results show that inference of the fiber orientation and composite properties is possible with as few as three tensile tests. Our results show that a combination of the choice of the micromechanics model and reliable set of experiments can yield the nine elastic constants, as well as, the fiber orientation state.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

In-Situ X-Ray Imaging High Strain Rate Compression of Laminate Al-Graphene Composite and Mechanical Property Characterization

Owing to the opaque nature of the laminated structures, traditional high-speed optical camera cannot be used to detect the dynamic process of sub-surface deformation. In this article, we report a study of using high speed X-ray imaging to study the high strain rate deformation in laminated Al structures. We used a Kolsky bar apparatus to apply dynamic compression and a high-speed synchrotron X-ray phase contrast imaging (PCI) setup to conduct the in situ X-ray imaging study. The in situ X-ray imaging captures the shock wave propagation in the laminated structures. After shock compression, we characterized the microstructures by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which demonstrates an increase of dislocation density. In conclusion, the micro-pillar compression tests show that the yield strength at 0.2% offset of laminated Al-graphene composite has a significant increase of 67%, from 30 to 50 MPa, compared to laminate Al after shock loading.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

A bending test protocol for characterizing the mechanical performance of flexible photovoltaics

Flexible photovoltaics (PV) represents a promising research field with great potential for wearable, portable, and indoor applications. Significant progress has been made in recent years, with flexible emerging PV reporting power conversion efficiency (PCE) over 24%. Yet, there is a need for a unifying protocol to assess PV performance, compare research results, and evaluate the state- of-the-art achievements in flexible PV. In this paper, a consensus protocol is presented for measuring PCE over 1,000 bending cycles under 1% strain. Moreover, several good practice guidelines are proposed including bending procedures, flexibility testing with and without encapsulation, and ambient conditions during testing (e.g., temperature, humidity, illumination). Notably, the importance of uniform application of bending radius and the testing of parallel and perpendicular orientations of bending axis with respect to the direction of the electric current are emphasized. These recommendations aim to promote consistency in device comparison and allow for better reproducibility.

Fukuda, Kenjiro↗
DOE OSTI2023

Characterizing Corrosion Mechanisms Of Structural Alloys In Actinide-based Molten Chloride Salt

This is a dataset consisting of 33 GB of .png image files, each featuring a two-dimensional distribution of different element species captured an individual slice of the specimen, and .ang files that capture microstructural information captured from each respective slice using a technique called electron backscatter diffraction. The .ang files can be processed to visualize alloy grains captured in a respective slice.

Copeland, Trishelle M.↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Novel Platform for Evaluating Dose Rate Effects on Oxidative Damage to Peptides: Toward a High-Throughput Method to Characterize the Mechanisms Underlying the FLASH Effect

High dose rate radiation has gained considerable interest recently as a possible avenue for increasing the therapeutic window in cancer radiation treatment. The sparing of healthy tissue at high dose rates relative to conventional dose rates, while maintaining tumor control, has been termed the FLASH effect. Although the effect has been validated in animal models using multiple radiation sources, it is not yet well understood. Here, in this work, we demonstrate a new experimental platform for quantifying oxidative damage to protein sidechains in solution as a function of radiation dose rate and oxygen availability using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. Using this reductionist approach, we show that for both X-ray and electron sources, isolated peptides in solution are oxidatively modified to different extents as a function of both dose rate and oxygen availability. Our method provides an experimental platform for exploring the parameter space of the dose rate effect on oxidative changes to proteins in solution.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗
NASA NTRS1972

Mathematical characterization of mechanical behavior of porous frictional granular media

A new definition of loading and unloading along the yield surface of Roscoe and Burland is introduced. This is achieved by noting that the strain-hardening parameter in the plastic potential function is deduced from the yield locus equation of Roscoe and Burland. The analytical results are compared with the experimental results for plate-bearing and cone-penetrometer problems and close agreements are demonstrated. The wheel-soil interaction is studied under dynamic loading. The rate-dependent plasticity or viscoelastoplastic behavior is considered. This is accomplished by the internal (hidden) variables associated with time-dependent viscous properties directly superimposed with inelastic behavior governed by the yield criteria of Roscoe and Burland. Effects of inertia and energy dissipation are properly accounted for. Example problems are presented.

Chung, T. J.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Solid impingement erosion mechanisms and characterization of erosion resistance of ductile metals

Experimental results pertaining to spherical glass bead and angular crushed glass particle impingement are presented. A concept of energy adsorption to explain the failure of material is proposed. The erosion characteristics of several pure metals were correlated with the proposed energy parameters and with other properties. Correlations of erosion and material properties were also carried out with these materials to study the effect of the angle of impingement. Analyses of extensive erosion data indicate that surface energy, strain energy, melting point, bulk modulus, hardness, ultimate resilience, atomic volume and product of linear coefficient of thermal expansion, bulk modulus, and temperature rise required for melting, and ultimate resilience, and hardness exhibit the best correlations. It appears that both energy and thermal properties contribute to the total erosion.

Rao, V. P.↗