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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 55 records · Page 3

Microcrack closure in rocks under stress - Direct observation

Direct observations of the closure of microcracks in rocks under increasing stress are reported. Uniaxial stresses up to 300 bars were applied to untreated and previously heated samples of Westerly granite and Frederick diabase by a small hydraulic press which fit entirely within a scanning electron microscope. Crack closure characteristics are found to depend on crack orientation, with cracks perpendicular to the applied stress closing and those parallel tending to open, as well as crack aspect ratio, crack intersection properties, stress concentrations and surface roughness. Uniaxial and hydrostatic stress measurements are found to be strongly dependent on fracture content as observed by SEM, and the observed hysteresis in strain measurements in the first stress cycles is also related to microscopic processes

Batzle, M. L.↗

Long life nickel electrodes for a nickel-hydrogen cell. I Initial performance

In order to develop a long life nickel electrode for a Ni/H2 cell, an investigation was begun to study the effects of sinter structure and active material loading level on the long life performance of nickel electrodes. This paper is a report on the initial performance of these electrodes as a part of an accelerated life test program. Seven different types of nickel plaques were made which included three levels of both their mechanical strength and median pore size. These plaques were impregnated with three levels of active material loading. The resultant electrodes were tested by a 200-cycle stress test which was conducted in flooded electrolyte, and also for initial performance in a Ni/H2 boiler plate cell. An interesting and unexpected observation was that an increased initial utilization of the active material was due more to its complete discharge to the lower average oxidation state than its increased charge acceptance in the charged state.

Lim, H. S.↗

European development experience on energy storage wheels for space

High speed fiber composite rotors suspended by contactless magnetic bearings were produced. European industry has acquired expertise in the study and fabrication of energy storage wheels and magnetic suspension systems for space. Sufficient energy density performance for space viability is being achieved on fully representative hardware. Stress cycle testing to demonstrate life capability and the development of burst containment structures remains to be done and is the next logical step.

Robinson, A. A.↗

Measurement of Dynamic Bolt-Stress

Ultrasonic method provides record of changing stresses in dynamically loaded bolts. Makes available history of stress cycles, from which fatigue state and remaining bolt life inferred.

Barkhoundarian, S.↗

High performance polymer development

The term high performance as applied to polymers is generally associated with polymers that operate at high temperatures. High performance is used to describe polymers that perform at temperatures of 177 C or higher. In addition to temperature, other factors obviously influence the performance of polymers such as thermal cycling, stress level, and environmental effects. Some recent developments at NASA Langley in polyimides, poly(arylene ethers), and acetylenic terminated materials are discussed. The high performance/high temperature polymers discussed are representative of the type of work underway at NASA Langley Research Center. Further improvement in these materials as well as the development of new polymers will provide technology to help meet NASA future needs in high performance/high temperature applications. In addition, because of the combination of properties offered by many of these polymers, they should find use in many other applications.

Hergenrother, Paul M.↗

Practical theories for service life prediction of critical aerospace structural components

A new second-order theory was developed for predicting the service lives of aerospace structural components. The predictions based on this new theory were compared with those based on the Ko first-order theory and the classical theory of service life predictions. The new theory gives very accurate service life predictions. An equivalent constant-amplitude stress cycle method was proposed for representing the random load spectrum for crack growth calculations. This method predicts the most conservative service life. The proposed use of minimum detectable crack size, instead of proof load established crack size as an initial crack size for crack growth calculations, could give a more realistic service life.

Ko, William L.↗

Fatigue and damage tolerance scatter models

Effective Total Fatigue Life and Crack Growth Scatter Models are proposed. The first of them is based on the power form of the Wohler curve, fatigue scatter dependence on mean life value, cycle stress ratio influence on fatigue scatter, and validated description of the mean stress influence on the mean fatigue life. The second uses in addition are fracture mechanics approach, assumption of initial damage existence, and Paris equation. Simple formulas are derived for configurations of models. A preliminary identification of the parameters of the models is fulfilled on the basis of experimental data. Some new and important results for fatigue and crack growth scatter characteristics are obtained.

Raikher, Veniamin L.↗

Nonlinear Control of a Reusable Rocket Engine for Life Extension

This paper presents the conceptual development of a life-extending control system where the objective is to achieve high performance and structural durability of the plant. A life-extending controller is designed for a reusable rocket engine via damage mitigation in both the fuel (H2) and oxidizer (O2) turbines while achieving high performance for transient responses of the combustion chamber pressure and the O2/H2 mixture ratio. The design procedure makes use of a combination of linear and nonlinear controller synthesis techniques and also allows adaptation of the life-extending controller module to augment a conventional performance controller of the rocket engine. The nonlinear aspect of the design is achieved using non-linear parameter optimization of a prescribed control structure. Fatigue damage in fuel and oxidizer turbine blades is primarily caused by stress cycling during start-up, shutdown, and transient operations of a rocket engine. Fatigue damage in the turbine blades is one of the most serious causes for engine failure.

Lorenzo, Carl F.↗

Alumina Paste Layer as a Sublimation Suppression Barrier for Yb14MnSb11

Sublimation is a major cause of degradation of thermoelectric power generation systems. Most thermoelectric materials tend to have peak values at the temperature where sublimation occurs. A sublimation barrier is needed that is stable at operating temperatures, inert against thermoelectric materials, and able to withstand thermal cycling stress. A porous alumina paste layer is suitable as a sublimation barrier for Yb14MnSb11. It can accommodate stress generated by the thermal expansion discrepancy between the suppression layer and thermoelectric materials. Sublimation suppression is achieved by filling pores naturally with YbO2, a natural byproduct of sublimation. YbO2 generated during the sublimation of Yb14MnSb11 fills the porous structure of the alumina paste, causing sublimation to decrease with time as the pores become filled.

Paik, Jong-Ah↗

A computer program for predicting nonlinear uniaxial material responses using viscoplastic models

A computer program was developed for predicting nonlinear uniaxial material responses using viscoplastic constitutive models. Four specific models, i.e., those due to Miller, Walker, Krieg-Swearengen-Rhode, and Robinson, are included. Any other unified model is easily implemented into the program in the form of subroutines. Analysis features include stress-strain cycling, creep response, stress relaxation, thermomechanical fatigue loop, or any combination of these responses. An outline is given on the theoretical background of uniaxial constitutive models, analysis procedure, and numerical integration methods for solving the nonlinear constitutive equations. In addition, a discussion on the computer program implementation is also given. Finally, seven numerical examples are included to demonstrate the versatility of the computer program developed.

Chang, T. Y.↗

Hollow Fiber Membrane Bioreactor Systems for Wastewater Processing: Effects of Environmental Stresses Including Dormancy Cycling and Antibiotic Dosing

Membrane-aerated biofilm reactors (MABRs) have been studied for a number of years as an alternate approach for treating wastewater streams during space exploration. While the technology provides a promising pre-treatment for lowering organic carbon and nitrogen content without the need for harsh stabilization chemicals, several challenges must be addressed before adoption of the technology in future missions. One challenge is the transportation of bioreactors containing intact, active biofilms as a means for rapid start-up on the International Space Station or beyond. Similarly, there could be a need for placing these biological systems into a dormant state for extended periods when the system is not in use, along with the ability for rapid restart. Previous studies indicated that there was little influence of storage condition (4 or 25 C, with or without bulk fluid) on recovery of bioreactors with immature biofilms (48 days old), but that an extensive recovery time was required (20+ days). Bioreactors with fully established biofilms (13 months) were able to recover from a 7-month dormancy within 4 days (approximately 1 residence). Further dormancy and recovery testing is presented here that examines the role of biofilm age on recovery requirements, repeated dormancy cycle capabilities, and effects of long-duration dormancy cycles (8-9 months) on HFMB systems. Another challenge that must be addressed is the possibility of antibiotics entering the wastewater stream. Currently, for most laboratory tests of biological water processors, donors providing urine may not contribute to the study when taking antibiotics because the effects on the system are yet uncharacterized. A simulated urinary tract infection event, where an opportunistic, pathogenic organism, E. coli, was introduced to the HFMBs followed by dosing with an antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, was completed to study the effect of the antibiotic on reactor performance and to also examine the development of antibiotic-resistant communities within the system.

Bioreactor Systems↗

Modified Spectral Fatigue Methods for S-N Curves With MIL-HDBK-5J Coefficients

The rainflow method is used for counting fatigue cycles from a stress response time history, where the fatigue cycles are stress-reversals. The rainflow method allows the application of Palmgren-Miner's rule in order to assess the fatigue life of a structure subject to complex loading. The fatigue damage may also be calculated from a stress response power spectral density (PSD) using the semi-empirical Dirlik, Single Moment, Zhao-Baker and other spectral methods. These methods effectively assume that the PSD has a corresponding time history which is stationary with a normal distribution. This paper shows how the probability density function for rainflow stress cycles can be extracted from each of the spectral methods. This extraction allows for the application of the MIL-HDBK-5J fatigue coefficients in the cumulative damage summation. A numerical example is given in this paper for the stress response of a beam undergoing random base excitation, where the excitation is applied separately by a time history and by its corresponding PSD. The fatigue calculation is performed in the time domain, as well as in the frequency domain via the modified spectral methods. The result comparison shows that the modified spectral methods give comparable results to the time domain rainflow counting method.

Irvine, Tom↗

Effects of High Mean Stress on High-cycle Fatigue Behavior of PWA 1480

PWA 1480 is a potential candidate material for use in the high-pressure fuel turbine blade of the space shuttle main engine. As an engine material it will be subjected to high-cycle fatigue loading superimposed on a high mean stress due to combined centrifugal and thermal loadings. The present paper describes the results obtained in an ongoing program at the Argonne National Laboratory, sponsored by NASA Lewis, to determine the effects of a high mean stress on the high-cycle fatigue behavior of this material. Straight-gauge high-cycle fatigue specimens, 0.2 inch in diameter and with the specimen axis in the 001 direction, were supplied by NASA Lewis. The nominal room temperature yield and ultimate strength of the material were 146 and 154 ksi, respectively. Each specimen was polished with 1-micron diamond paste prior to testing. However, the surface of each specimen contained many pores, some of which were as large as 50 micron. In the initial tests, specimens were subjected to axial-strain-controlled cycles. However, very little cyclic plasticity was observed.

Majumdar, S.↗

Fatigue-test acceleration with flight-by-flight loading and heating to simulate supersonic-transport operation

Possibilities for reducing fatigue-test time for supersonic-transport materials and structures were studied in tests with simulated flight-by-flight loading. In order to determine whether short-time tests were feasible, the results of accelerated tests (2 sec per flight) were compared with the results of real-time tests (96 min per flight). The effects of design mean stress, the stress range for ground-air-ground cycles, simulated thermal stress, the number of stress cycles in each flight, and salt corrosion were studied. The flight-by-flight stress sequences were applied to notched sheet specimens of Ti-8Al-1Mo-1V and Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloys. A linear cumulative-damage analysis accounted for large changes in stress range of the simulated flights but did not account for the differences between real-time and accelerated tests. The fatigue lives from accelerated tests were generally within a factor of two of the lives from real-time tests; thus, within the scope of the investigation, accelerated testing seems feasible.

Imig, L. A.↗

Effects of a high mean stress on the high cycle fatigue life of PWA 1480 and correlation of data by linear elastic fracture mechanics

High-cycle fatigue tests using 5-mm-diameter smooth specimens were performed on the single crystal alloy PWA 1480 (001 axis) at 70F (room temperature) in air and at 100F (538C) in vacuum (10 to the -6 power torr). Tests were conducted at zero mean stress as well as at high tensile mean stress. The results indicate that, although a tensile mean stress, in general, reduces life, the reduction in fatigue strength, for a given mean stress at a life of one million cycles, is much less than what is predicted by the usual linear Goodman plot. Further, the material appears to be significantly more resistant to mean stress effects at 1000F than at 70F. Metallographic examinations of failed specimens indicate that failures in all cases are initiated from micropores of sizes of the order of 30 to 40 microns. Since the macroscopic stress-strain response in all cases was observed to be linear elastic, linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) analyses were carried out to determine the crack growth curves of the material assuming that crack initiation from a micropore (a sub o = 40 microns) occurs very early in life. The results indicate that the calculated crack growth rates at an R (defined as the ratio between minimum stress to maximum stress) value of zero are approximately the same at 70F as at 1000F. However, the calculated crack growth rates at other R ratios, both positive and negative, tend to be higher at 70F than at 1000F. Calculated threshold effects at large R values tend to be independent of temperature in the temperature regime studied. They are relatively constant with increasing R ratio up to a value of about 0.6, beyond which the calculated threshold stress intensity factor range decreases rapidly with increasing R ratios.

Majumdar, S.↗

An approach to metal fatigue

Cumulative fatigue damage based on investigation of fatigue limit associated with crack, crack propagation rate, and stress interaction cycle in metals

CRACK PROPAGATION↗