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Wilhite, Jarred

Publications and source records attributed to Wilhite, Jarred.

Transient Heater Analysis for Orion Thermal Vacuum Testing

The Space Environments Complex (SEC) at NASA's Plum Brook Station is currently being prepared to perform thermal vacuum testing of the Orion spacecraft. This thermal vacuum, or T-VAC test will be run for a period of 60 days, which will be the longest such test ever conducted at SEC. The Orion Crew Module (CM) and Service Module (SM) will undergo T-VAC testing in SEC's Space Simulation Vacuum Chamber to ensure the functionality of these systems in a high vacuum environment at extremely cold temperatures. The T-VAC test setup in SEC was modeled and simulated in Thermal Desktop. The initial results from thermal analysis showed areas on the chamber floor to reach very low temperatures, which were below the minimum operating range of certain hardware located on or near the chamber floor. These hardware including elastomeric seals on the GN2 piping, bearing pads and O-rings are essential to both test and the operation of the SEC facility, and must be kept well above -20°F throughout the duration of the T-VAC test. Thus, further analysis was conducted to include the placement of patch heaters on the chamber floor in an effort to increase the temperature near colder areas on the floor. The results and findings from this analysis showed that using these heaters will result in a favorable temperature distribution on the chamber floor. This paper will discuss the methods used in the analysis, and the results obtained to determine the optimal configuration of these heaters on the chamber floor.

Wilhite, Jarred↗

Transient Heater Analysis for Orion Thermal Vacuum Testing

The Space Environments Complex (SEC) at NASA’s Plum Brook Station is currently being prepared to perform thermal vacuum testing of the Orion spacecraft. This thermal vacuum, or T-VAC test will be run for a period of 60 days, which will be the longest such test ever conducted at SEC. The Orion Crew Module (CM) and Service Module (SM) will undergo T-VAC testing in SEC’s Space Simulation Vacuum Chamber to ensure the functionality of these systems in a high vacuum environment at extremely cold temperatures. The T-VAC test setup in SEC was modeled and simulated in Thermal Desktop. The initial results from thermal analysis showed areas on the chamber floor to reach very low temperatures, which were below the minimum operating range of certain hardware located on or near the chamber floor. These hardware including elastomeric seals on the GN2 piping, bearing pads and O-rings are essential to both test and the operation of the SEC facility, and must be kept well above -20°F throughout the duration of the T-VAC test. Thus, further analysis was conducted to include the placement of patch heaters on the chamber floor in an effort to increase the temperature near colder areas on the floor. The results and findings from this analysis showed that using these heaters will result in a favorable temperature distribution on the chamber floor. This paper will discuss the methods used in the analysis, and the results obtained to determine the optimal configuration of these heaters on the chamber floor.

Wilhite, Jarred↗

High Efficiency Megawatt Motor Conceptual Design

The High Efficiency Megawatt Motor (HEMM) is being designed to meet the needs of Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP). The key objective of this work is to establish a motor technology which simultaneously attains high specific power (>16kW/kg ratio to electromagnetic weight) and high efficiency (>98%) by judicious application of high temperature superconducting wire and integrated thermal management. Another important feature is to achieve the performance goals with an eye to aircraft integration constraints. An electromagnetic analysis was performed which shows that the proposed HEMM design meets the performance objectives if key current capability and mechanical constraints are achieved. Sensitivity of motor power and performance to those parameters is illustrated. The HEMM technology could be applied to a range of aircraft types that require megawatt level electrical power.

Jansen, Ralph H.↗

High Efficiency Megawatt Motor Conceptual Design

The High Efficiency Megawatt Motor (HEMM) is being designed to meet the needs of Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP). The key objective of this work is to establish a motor technology which simultaneously attains high specific power (>16kW/kg ratio to electromagnetic weight) and high efficiency (>98%) by judicious application of high temperature superconducting wire and integrated thermal management. Another important feature is to achieve the performance goals with an eye to aircraft integration constraints. An electromagnetic analysis was performed which shows that the proposed HEMM design meets the performance objectives if key current capability and mechanical constraints are achieved. Sensitivity of motor power and performance to those parameters is illustrated. The HEMM technology could be applied to a range of aircraft types that require megawatt level electrical power.

Superconducting↗