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Tin and copper provide high current and switching time capabilities for high-current resettable fuses. They show the best performance for trip current and degree of reliability, and have low coefficients of thermal expansion.
A 19 GHz waveguide latching switch with a bandwidth of 1400 MHz and an exceptionally low insertion loss of 0.25 dB was demonstrated. The RF and driver ferrites are separate structures and can be optimized individually. This analysis for each structure is separately detailed. Basically, the RF section features a dual turnstile junction. The circulator consists of a dielectric tube which contains two ferrite rods, and a dielectric spacer separating the ferrite parts along the center of symmetry of the waveguide to form two turnstiles. This subassembly is indexed and locked in the center of symmetry of a uniform junction of three waveguides by the metallic transformers installed in the top and bottom walls of the housing. The switching junction and its actuating circuitry met all RF performance objectives and all shock and vibration requirements with no physical damage or performance degradation. It exceeds thermal requirements by operating over a 100 C temperature range (-44 C to +56 C) and has a high power handling capability allowing up to 100 W of CW input power.
A cover mechanism for use on the Infrared Background Signature Survey (IBSS) cryostat was developed. The IBSS IR-instrument is scheduled for STS launch in early 1991 as a payload of the Shuttle Payload Satellite (SPS) 2. The cover is hinged, with a motorized rope drive. During ground processing, launch, entry, and landing, the cryostat, which houses the IR-instrument, is required to be a sealed vacuum tight container for cooling purposes and contamination prevention. When on orbit, the cover is opened to provide an unobstructed field of view for the IR-instrument. A positive seal is accomplished through the use of latch mechanism. The cover and the latch are driven by a common redundant actuator consisting of dc motors, spur gears, and a differential gear. Hall probe limit switches and position sensors (rotary variable transformer) are used to determine the position of the cover and the latch. The cover mechanism was successfully qualified for thermal vacuum (-25 to 35 C), acoustic noise, vibration (6 Gs sine, 9.7 G RMS) and life cycles. Constricting requirements, mechanical and electronic control design, specific design details, test results of functional performance, and environmental and life tests are described.
The thermal response of the nighttime F region ionosphere to local heating by HF radio waves has been observed with the incoherent scatter radar at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The observations consist of high-resolution space and time variation of the electron temperature as a high-power HF transmitter is switched on and off with a period 240 s. As soon as the HF transmitter is turned on, the electron temperature begins to rise rapidly in a narrow altitude region near 300 km, below the F2 layer peak. The electron temperature perturbation subsequently spreads over a broader altitude region. The observations are compared with the anticipated thermal response of the ionosphere based on numerical solutions of the coupled time-dependent heat conduction equations for the electron and composite ion gases and are found to be in good agreement over the entire altitude region covered by the observations.
Initial experiments conducted on thermal barrier coatings prepared in the newly upgraded research plasma spray facility and the burner rig test facilities are discussed. Part 1 discusses experiments which establish the spray parameters for three baseline zirconia-yttria coatings. The quality of five similar coating lots was judged primarily by their response to burner rig exposure supplemented by data from other sources such as specimen characterizations and thermal diffusivity measurements. After allowing for burner rig variability, although there appears to be an optimum density (i.e., optimum microstructure) for maximum burner rig life, the distribution tends to be rather broad about the maximum. In Part 2, new hafnia-yttria-based coatings were evaluated against both baseline and alternate zirconia-yttria coatings. The hafnia-yttria coatings and the zirconia-yttria coatings that were prepared by an alternate powder vendor were very sensitive to plasma spray parameters, in that high-quality coatings were only obtained when certain parameters were employed. The reasons for this important observation are not understood. Also not understood is that the first of two replicate specimens sprayed for Part 1 consistently performed better than the second specimen. Subsequent experiments did not display this spray order affect, possibly because a chiller was installed in the torch cooling water circuit. Also, large changes in coating density were observed after switching to a new lot of electrodes. Analyses of these findings were made possible, in part, because of the development of a sensitive density measurement technique described herein in detail. The measured thermal diffusivities did not display the expected strong relationship with porosity. This surprising result was believed to have been caused by increased microcracking of the denser coatings on the stainless steel substrates.
Electronic load circuit for displaying current/voltage characteristic curves of power sources uses low-cost low-power CMOS operational amplifiers to control load current flowing through power MOSFET Q2 and main load transistor Q3. Thermal cutoff device turns off transistor Q3 in case of overload. To maximize battery life, battery is connected via "push-to-read" momentary-contact pushbutton switch.
A review of studies investigating the thermal response of rats exposed to hypergravic fields well below maximum tolerance levels is presented. It is concluded that several lines of evidence indicate that the neural switching network for temperature regulation and cardiovascular channeling of blood flow is transiently affected during the first hour a rat is exposed to hypergravity. Moreover, even after one hour of exposure, when the core temperature has fallen several degrees, shivering and nonshivering thermogenesis are not fully activated. Only after prolonged exposure to hypergravic fields do heat production mechanisms recover sufficiently to bring the core temperature back to a normal level. Thus, the data indicate a more rapid recovery of effector mechanisms for heat loss than for heat production.
Research efforts are currently underway at the NASA Lewis Research Center to design and demonstrate an inverter capable of operating with a baseplate temperature of 200 C. In support of this project, various electrical components including capacitors, inductors, transformers, cables, and semiconductor switches are being developed or evaluated for integration into the inverter. In this work, a parallel LC resonant circuit was constructed and evaluated under simultaneous electrical and thermal stressing. The tests were performed in the temperature range of 25 to 200 C with an applied voltage of up to 90 V, 20 kHz. The individual components were comprised of high temperature film capacitors and powder core inductors developed in-house. The circuit was characterized in terms of the component currents and case temperatures as well as frequency of resonance as a function of applied bias and temperature. The results obtained, which have indicated good functional stability up to 200 C, are presented and discussed.
Electronic systems in planetary exploration missions and in aerospace applications are expected to encounter extreme temperatures and wide thermal swings in their operational environments. Electronics designed for such applications must, therefore, be able to withstand exposure to extreme temperatures and to perform properly for the duration of the missions. Electronic parts based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology are known, based on device structure, to provide faster switching, consume less power, and offer better radiation-tolerance compared to their silicon counterparts. They also exhibit reduced current leakage and are often tailored for high temperature operation. However, little is known about their performance at low temperature. The performance of several SOI devices and mixed-signal circuits was determined under extreme temperatures, cold-restart, and thermal cycling. The investigations were carried out to establish a baseline on the functionality and to determine suitability of these devices for use in space exploration missions under extreme temperatures. The experimental results obtained on selected SOI devices are presented and discussed in this paper.
Closed-cycle refrigerating system for superconductive magnet and maser is operated in vacuum environment. Each wire leading from external power source passes through cooling station which blocks heat conduction. In connection with these stations, switch with small incandescent light bulb, which generates heat, is used to stop superconduction.
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An Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator (ADR) for space use is under development at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The breadboard ADR operated at 100 mK for 400 minutes. Some significant changes to that ADR, designed to eliminate shortcomings revealed during tests, are reported. To increase thermal contact, the ferric ammonium sulfate crystals were grown directly on gold-plated copper wires which serve as the thermal bus. The thermal link to the X-ray sensors was also markedly improved. To speed up the testing required to determine the best design parameters for the gas gap heat switch, the new heat switch has a modular design and is easy to disassemble.
The design of a versatile dual-telescope thermal-infrared radiometer spanning the spectral wavelength range 8-200 microns, in five spectral pass bands, for outer planet fly-by missions is described. The dual- telescope design switches between a narrow-field-of-view and a wide-field-of-view to provide optimal spatial resolution images within a range of spacecraft encounters to the target. The switchable dual-field- of-view system uses an optical configuration based on the axial rotation of a source-select mirror along the optical axis. The optical design, spectral performance, radiometric accuracy, and retrieval estimates of the instrument are discussed. This is followed by an assessment of the surface coverage performance at various spatial resolutions by using the planned NASA Europa Mission 13-F7 fly-by trajectories as a case study.
Topics covered include: Computer Program Recognizes Patterns in Time-Series Data; Program for User-Friendly Management of Input and Output Data Sets; Noncoherent Tracking of a Source of a Data-Modulated Signal; Software for Acquiring Image Data for PIV; Detecting Edges in Images by Use of Fuzzy Reasoning; A Timer for Synchronous Digital Systems; Prototype Parts of a Digital Beam-Forming Wide-Band Receiver; High-Voltage Droplet Dispenser; Network Extender for MIL-STD-1553 Bus; MMIC HEMT Power Amplifier for 140 to 170 GHz; Piezoelectric Diffraction-Based Optical Switches; Numerical Modeling of Nanoelectronic Devices; Organizing Diverse, Distributed Project Information; Eigensolver for a Sparse, Large Hermitian Matrix; Modified Polar-Format Software for Processing SAR Data; e-Stars Template Builder; Software for Acoustic Rendering; Functionally Graded Nanophase Beryllium/Carbon Composites; Thin Thermal-Insulation Blankets for Very High Temperatures; Prolonging Microgravity on Parabolic Airplane Flights; Device for Locking a Control Knob; Cable-Dispensing Cart; Foam Sensor Structures Would be Self-Deployable and Survive Hard Landings; Real-Gas Effects on Binary Mixing Layers; Earth-Space Link Attenuation Estimation via Ground Radar Kdp; Wedge Heat-Flux Indicators for Flash Thermography; Measuring Diffusion of Liquids by Common-Path Interferometry; Zero-Shear, Low-Disturbance Optical Delay Line; Whispering-Gallery Mode-Locked Lasers; Spatial Light Modulators as Optical Crossbar Switches; Update on EMD and Hilbert-Spectra Analysis of Time Series; Quad-Tree Visual-Calculus Analysis of Satellite Coverage; Dyakonov-Perel Effect on Spin Dephasing in n-Type GaAs; Update on Area Production in Mixing of Supercritical Fluids; and Quasi-Sun-Pointing of Spacecraft Using Radiation Pressure.
During the 1998-1999 Antarctic field season, we installed three autonomous GPS stations in Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica to measure glacio-isostatic rebound and rates of spreading across the West Antarctic Rift System. The systems collect data throughout the entire year and therefore must function during the warm, relatively mild summer, and cold, harsh winters. They are powered by gel cell batteries that are charged by wind and solar power. The system includes dual data logging capability. We log data at 5 minute intervals within the receiver and at 30 second intervals to a serial data logger. We do not require 365 days of continuous data for well determined crustal velocities, but rather long periods (greater than 24 hours) of continuous data distributed throughout the year. Therefore, for simplicity, we designed the system to accept occasional data interruptions. The batteries, in addition to supplying power, act as a thermal capacitive heat storage device to help regulate the temperatures within the system. This storage system absorbs the majority of the 10-15 watts of power from the receiver and 5 watts from the data logger which helps to maintain temperature for long periods of time. Power is switched off when the temperature within the system enclosure reaches 50'C and is reconnected at 20 C. If battery voltage drops too low the batteries will freeze. Therefore, we cut the power off when the batteries drop to a low voltage of 12.45V. Power is restored at 13.2V. The temperature and power hysteresis allows for a minimum of several days of data to be collected before system shutdowns. A check of all three stations in late January 1999 indicated that the thermal and power control systems are performing as expected. We plan to implement satellite telemetry to the systems during the 2000-2001 season following a year of development.
A high efficiency, high power density, low distortion 250kW motor controller is being developed at NASA Glenn Research Center. Future electric aircraft require motor controllers which achieve the needed key performance parameters required to show benefit in increasing overall aircraft efficiency. Through a combination of carefully considered electrical topological choices and through the use of recent advancements in power switches and magnetic materials, a converter is designed which meets these requirements. A multilevel and interleaved converter architecture is chosen to meet the voltage, current, and THD requirements. The enclosure and thermal designs meet their weight targets and enable high altitude operation.
Topics covered include: Amperometric Solid Electrolyte Oxygen Microsensors with Easy Batch Fabrication; Two-Axis Direct Fluid Shear Stress Sensor for Aerodynamic Applications; Target Assembly to Check Boresight Alignment of Active Sensors; Virtual Sensor Test Instrumentation; Evaluation of the Reflection Coefficient of Microstrip Elements for Reflectarray Antennas; Miniaturized Ka-Band Dual-Channel Radar; Continuous-Integration Laser Energy Lidar Monitor; Miniaturized Airborne Imaging Central Server System; Radiation-Tolerant, SpaceWire-Compatible Switching Fabric; Small Microprocessor for ASIC or FPGA Implementation; Source-Coupled, N-Channel, JFET-Based Digital Logic Gate Structure Using Resistive Level Shifters; High-Voltage-Input Level Translator Using Standard CMOS; Monitoring Digital Closed-Loop Feedback Systems; MASCOT - MATLAB Stability and Control Toolbox; MIRO Continuum Calibration for Asteroid Mode; GOATS Image Projection Component; Coded Modulation in C and MATLAB; Low-Dead-Volume Inlet for Vacuum Chamber; Thermal Control Method for High-Current Wire Bundles by Injecting a Thermally Conductive Filler; Method for Selective Cleaning of Mold Release from Composite Honeycomb Surfaces; Infrared-Bolometer Arrays with Reflective Backshorts; Commercialization of LARC (trade mark) -SI Polyimide Technology; Novel Low-Density Ablators Containing Hyperbranched Poly(azomethine)s; Carbon Nanotubes on Titanium Substrates for Stray Light Suppression; Monolithic, High-Speed Fiber-Optic Switching Array for Lidar; Grid-Tied Photovoltaic Power System; Spectroelectrochemical Instrument Measures TOC; A Miniaturized Video System for Monitoring Drosophila Behavior; Hydrofocusing Bioreactor Produces Anti-Cancer Alkaloids; Creep Measurement Video Extensometer; Radius of Curvature Measurement of Large Optics Using Interferometry and Laser Tracker n-B-pi-p Superlattice Infrared Detector; Safe Onboard Guidance and Control Under Probabilistic Uncertainty; General Tool for Evaluating High-Contrast Coronagraphic Telescope Performance Error Budgets; Hidden Statistics of Schroedinger Equation; Optimal Padding for the Two-Dimensional Fast Fourier Transform; Spatial Query for Planetary Data; Higher Order Mode Coupling in Feed Waveguide of a Planar Slot Array Antenna; Evolutionary Computational Methods for Identifying Emergent Behavior in Autonomous Systems; Sampling Theorem in Terms of the Bandwidth and Sampling Interval; Meteoroid/Orbital Debris Shield Engineering Development Practice and Procedure; Self-Balancing, Optical-Center-Pivot, Fast-Steering Mirror; Wireless Orbiter Hang-Angle Inclinometer System; and Internal Electrostatic Discharge Monitor - IESDM.
Electronic systems designed for use in deep space and planetary exploration missions are expected to encounter extreme temperatures and wide thermal swings. Silicon-based devices are limited in their wide-temperature capability and usually require extra measures, such as cooling or heating mechanisms, to provide adequate ambient temperature for proper operation. Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology, on the other hand, lately has been gaining wide spread use in applications where high temperatures are encountered. Due to their inherent design, SOI-based integrated circuit chips are able to operate at temperatures higher than those of the silicon devices by virtue of reducing leakage currents, eliminating parasitic junctions, and limiting internal heating. In addition, SOI devices provide faster switching, consume less power, and offer improved radiation-tolerance. Very little data, however, exist on the performance of such devices and circuits under cryogenic temperatures. In this work, the performance of an SOI bootstrapped, full-bridge driver integrated circuit was evaluated under extreme temperatures and thermal cycling. The investigations were carried out to establish a baseline on the functionality and to determine suitability of this device for use in space exploration missions under extreme temperature conditions.