Predicting damage from exploding vessels
Workbook provides designer and safety engineer with best currently available technology for predicting damage and hazards from explosions of propellant tanks and bursts of pressure vessels.
Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Bessey, R. L..
Workbook provides designer and safety engineer with best currently available technology for predicting damage and hazards from explosions of propellant tanks and bursts of pressure vessels.
Technology needed to predict damage and hazards from explosions of propellant tanks and bursts of pressure vessels, both near and far from these explosions is introduced. Data are summarized in graphs, tables, and nomographs.
A parameter study is presented for active feedback control applied to a helicopter rotor blade during forward flight. The study was performed on an electromechanical apparatus which included a mechanical model rotor blade and electronic analog simulation of interaction between blade deflections and aerodynamic loading. Blade response parameters were obtained for simulated vortex impinging at the blade tip at one pulse per revolution, and for a pulse which traveled from the blade tip toward its root. Results show that the response in a 1 - 10-per-rev frequency band is diminished by the feedback action, but at the same time responses at frequencies above 10-per-rev become increasingly more prominent with increased feedback amplitude, and can even lead to instability at certain levels. It appears that the latter behavior results from limitations of the laboratory simulation apparatus, rather than genuine potential behavior for a prototype helicopter.
Fragmentation data was assembled and analyzed for exploding liquid propellant vessels. These data were to be retrieved from reports of tests and accidents, including measurements or estimates of blast yield, etc. A significant amount of data was retrieved from a series of tests conducted for measurement of blast and fireball effects of liquid propellant explosions (Project PYRO), a few well-documented accident reports, and a series of tests to determine auto-ignition properties of mixing liquid propellants. The data were reduced and fitted to various statistical functions. Comparisons were made with methods of prediction for blast yield, initial fragment velocities, and fragment range. Reasonably good correlation was achieved. Methods presented in the report allow prediction of fragment patterns, given type and quantity of propellant, type of accident, and time of propellant mixing.
Closed cylindrical shell response to randomly time distributed broadband acoustic excitations, using statistical energy method to compute displacement and interior pressure
Closed cylindrical shell response for acoustic excitation random in time and deterministic in space