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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

Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) Device Being Developed for Active Cooling and Temperature Control

High-capacity cooling options remain limited for many small-scale applications such as microelectronic components, miniature sensors, and microsystems. A microelectromechanical system (MEMS) using a Stirling thermodynamic cycle to provide cooling or heating directly to a thermally loaded surface is being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center to meet this need. The device can be used strictly in the cooling mode or can be switched between cooling and heating modes in milliseconds for precise temperature control. Fabrication and assembly employ techniques routinely used in the semiconductor processing industry. Benefits of the MEMS cooler include scalability to fractions of a millimeter, modularity for increased capacity and staging to low temperatures, simple interfaces, limited failure modes, and minimal induced vibration. The MEMS cooler has potential applications across a broad range of industries such as the biomedical, computer, automotive, and aerospace industries. The basic capabilities it provides can be categorized into four key areas: 1) Extended environmental temperature range in harsh environments; 2) Lower operating temperatures for electronics and other components; 3) Precision spatial and temporal thermal control for temperature-sensitive devices; and 4) The enabling of microsystem devices that require active cooling and/or temperature control. The rapidly expanding capabilities of semiconductor processing in general, and microsystems packaging in particular, present a new opportunity to extend Stirling-cycle cooling to the MEMS domain. The comparatively high capacity and efficiency possible with a MEMS Stirling cooler provides a level of active cooling that is impossible at the microscale with current state-of-the-art techniques. The MEMS cooler technology builds on decades of research at Glenn on Stirling-cycle machines, and capitalizes on Glenn s emerging microsystems capabilities.

Beach, Duane E.↗

Vibration and acoustic testing of TOPEX/Poseidon satellite

The satellite was subjected to a 1.5G swept sine vibration test and a 146 dB overall level acoustic test, in accordance with Ariane launch vehicle requirements, at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Extensive pretest analysis of the sine test was conducted to plan the input notching and to justify vibration testing the satellite only in the longitudinal axis. A unique measurement system was utilized to determine the six components of interface force between the shaker and the satellite in the sine vibration test. The satellite was heavily instrumented in both the sine vibration and acoustic test in order to insure that the launch loads were enveloped with appropriate margin and that satellite responses did not exceed the compatibilities of the structure and equipment. The test specification, objectives, instrumentation, and test results are described herein.

Boatman, Dave↗

Resolution of Forces and Strain Measurements from an Acoustic Ground Test

The Conservatism in Typical Vibration Tests was Demonstrated: Vibration test at component level produced conservative force reactions by approximately a factor of 4 (approx.12 dB) as compared to the integrated acoustic test in 2 out of 3 axes. Reaction Forces Estimated at the Base of Equipment Using a Finite Element Based Method were Validated: FEM based estimate of interface forces may be adequate to guide development of vibration test criteria with less conservatism. Element Forces Estimated in Secondary Structure Struts were Validated: Finite element approach provided best estimate of axial strut forces in frequency range below 200 Hz where a rigid lumped mass assumption for the entire electronics box was valid. Models with enough fidelity to represent diminishing apparent mass of equipment are better suited for estimating force reactions across the frequency range. Forward Work: Demonstrate the reduction in conservatism provided by; Current force limited approach and an FEM guided approach. Validate proposed CMS approach to estimate coupled response from uncoupled system characteristics for vibroacoustics.

Smith, Andrew M.↗

Seminar on Understanding Digital Control and Analysis in Vibration Test Systems, part 2

A number of techniques for dealing with important technical aspects of the random vibration control problem are described. These include the generation of pseudo-random and true random noise, the control spectrum estimation problem, the accuracy/speed tradeoff, and control correction strategies. System hardware, the operator-system interface, safety features, and operational capabilities of sophisticated digital random vibration control systems are also discussed.

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Hydroelastic vibration analysis of partially liquid-filled shells using a series representation of the liquid

A series representation of the oscillatory behavior of incompressible nonviscous liquids contained in partially filled elastic tanks is presented. Each term is selected on the basis of hydroelastic vibrations in circular cylindrical tanks. Using a complementary energy principle, the superposition of terms is made to approximately satisfy the liquid-tank interface compatibility. This analysis is applied to the gravity sloshing and hydroelastic vibrations of liquids in hemispherical tanks and in a typical elastic aerospace propellant tank. With only a few series terms retained, the results correlate very well with existing analytical results, NASTRAN-generated analytical results, and experimental test results. Hence, although each term is based on a cylindrical tank geometry, the superposition can be successfully applied to noncylindrical tanks.

Housner, J. M.↗

Test of the Hipparcos payload in the Liege vacuum facility focal

The Liege thermal vacuum optical bench (FOCAL) was used to control the mechanical stability of the structure of the European Space Agency's HIPPARCOS astrometry payload. The payload is designed to measure angles of .001 arcsec between stars during 2.5 years and this accuracy can only be reached with the extreme stability of the device. The structure of the payload is made of carbon fiber; it is thermally stabilized with an accuracy of .01 degrees C. During the test, the payload is enclosed in a shell made of shrouds having a geometry close to the shading structure of the spacecraft. The shroud temperatures are defined by the conditions in orbit, e.g., the spacecraft is spinning in front of the Sun with a period of two hours and the temperature of the shrouds is cycled around the payload with a 2 hour period. In order to avoid disturbances by vibrations, the payload is put on an adapter interfaced with the optical bench and the seismic block; the shrouds are supported by a carrier with no direct interface with the table. This method avoids perturbances brought about by the cooling fluid of the shrouds.

Jamar, C.↗

Healthwatch-2 System Overview

Healthwatch-2 (HW-2) is a research tool designed to facilitate the development and testing of in-flight health monitoring algorithms. HW-2 software is written in C/C++ and executes on an x86-based computer running the Linux operating system. The executive module has interfaces for collecting various signal data, such as vibration, torque, tachometer, and GPS. It is designed to perform in-flight time or frequency averaging based on specifications defined in a user-supplied configuration file. Averaged data are then passed to a user-supplied algorithm written as a Matlab function. This allows researchers a convenient method for testing in-flight algorithms. In addition to its in-flight capabilities, HW-2 software is also capable of reading archived flight data and processing it as if collected in-flight. This allows algorithms to be developed and tested in the laboratory before being flown. Currently HW-2 has passed its checkout phase and is collecting data on a Bell OH-58C helicopter operated by the U.S. Army at NASA Ames Research Center.

Barszcz, Eric↗

MEMS Device Being Developed for Active Cooling and Temperature Control

High-capacity cooling options remain limited for many small-scale applications such as microelectronic components, miniature sensors, and microsystems. A microelectromechanical system (MEMS) is currently under development at the NASA Glenn Research Center to meet this need. It uses a thermodynamic cycle to provide cooling or heating directly to a thermally loaded surface. The device can be used strictly in the cooling mode, or it can be switched between cooling and heating modes in milliseconds for precise temperature control. Fabrication and assembly are accomplished by wet etching and wafer bonding techniques routinely used in the semiconductor processing industry. Benefits of the MEMS cooler include scalability to fractions of a millimeter, modularity for increased capacity and staging to low temperatures, simple interfaces and limited failure modes, and minimal induced vibration.

Moran, Matthew E.↗

Development of a new method in force limited vibration testing

The force limited vibration test approaches discussed in NASA-HDBK-7004C were developed to reduce overtesting associated with base shake vibration tests of aerospace hardware. This handbook outlines several different methods of specifying force limiting specifications. The basis for deriving force limiting specifications is related to the differences between mechanical impedances of typical aerospace hardware interfacing the mounting structures in flight configurations and the large impedances inherent in shaker vibration testing. Among these approaches, the semi-empirical method is presently the most widely used method to derive the force limiting specifications. This method is developed based on the assumption that the hardware interface responses are coherently excited. The inclusion of the incoherent excitation of the aerospace structures at mounting interfaces provides the basis for developing a more realistic force limiting specification that may be used to qualify flight hardware for launch environments using shaker testing. In this paper the semi-empirical method for defining force limiting specifications discussed in NASA handbook are reviewed using data recently obtained from a series of acoustic and vibration tests. A mathematical formation of a new force limiting approach based on considering the incoherent excitation of the hardware at their mounting interfaces is developed. Results from the analysis, which are correlated to the data obtained from a series of well instrumented acoustic and vibration tests, are discussed. The new approach provides much more realistic force limits that may further remove conservatism inherent in shaker vibration testing not accounted for by methods discussed in the NASA handbook.

Kolaini, Ali R.↗

Evaluation of a pulse control law for flexible spacecraft

The following analytical and experimental studies were conducted: (1) A simple algorithm was developed to suppress the structural vibrations of 3-dimensional distributed parameter systems, subjected to interface motion and/or directly applied forces. The algorithm is designed to cope with structural oscillations superposed on top of rigid-body motion: a situation identical to that encountered by the SCOLE components. A significant feature of the method is that only local measurements of the structural displacements and velocities relative to the moving frame of reference are needed. (2) A numerical simulation study was conducted on a simple linear finite element model of a cantilevered plate which was subjected to test excitations consisting of impulsive base motion and of nonstationary wide-band random excitation applied at its root. In each situation, the aim was to suppress the vibrations of the plate relative to the moving base. (3) A small mechanical model resembling an aircraft wing was designed and fabricated to investigate the control algorithm under realistic laboratory conditions.

Source record↗

Dynamic substructuring by the boundary flexibility vector method of component mode synthesis

Component mode synthesis (CMS) is a method of dynamic analysis, for structures having a large number of degrees of freedom (DOF). These structures often required lengthy computer CPU time and large computer memory resources, if solved directly by the finite-element method (FEM). In CMS, the structure is divided into independent components in which the DOF are defined by a set of generalized coordinates defined by displacement shapes. The number of the generalized coordinates are much less than the original number of physical DOF, in the component. The displacement shapes are used to transform the component property matrices and any applied external loads, to a reduced system of coordinates. Reduced system property matrices are assembled, and any type of dynamic analysis is carried out in the reduced coordinate system. Any obtained results are back transformed to the original component coordinate systems. In all conventional methods of CMS, the mode shapes used for components are dynamic mode shapes, supplemented by static deflected shapes. Historically, all the dynamic mode shapes used in conventional CMS are the natural modes (eigenvectors) of components. A new method of CMS, namely the boundary flexibility vector method of CMS, is presented. The method provides for the incorporation of a set of static Ritz vectors, referred to as boundary flexibility vectors, as a replacement and/or supplement to conventional eigenvectors, as displacement shapes for components. The generation of these vectors does not require the solution of a costly eigenvalue problem, as in the case of natural modes in conventional CMS, and hence a substantial saving in CPU time can be achieved. The boundary flexibility vectors are generated from flexibility (or stiffness) properties of components. The formulation presented is for both free and fixed-interface components, and for both the free and forced vibration problems. Free and forced vibration numerical examples are presented to verify the accuracy of the method and the saving in CPU time. Compared to conventional methods of CMS, the results indicate that by using the new method, more accurate results can be obtained with a substantial saving in CPU time.

Abdallah, Ayman Ahmed↗

Three-Dimensional Vibration Isolator for Suppressing High-Frequency Responses for Sage III Contamination Monitoring Package (CMP)

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) III - International Space Station (ISS) instrument will be used to study ozone, providing global, long-term measurements of key components of the Earth's atmosphere for the continued health of Earth and its inhabitants. SAGE III is launched into orbit in an inverted configuration on SpaceX;s Falcon 9 launch vehicle. As one of its four supporting elements, a Contamination Monitoring Package (CMP) mounted to the top panel of the Interface Adapter Module (IAM) box experiences high-frequency response due to structural coupling between the two structures during the SpaceX launch. These vibrations, which were initially observed in the IAM Engineering Development Unit (EDU) test and later verified through finite element analysis (FEA) for the SpaceX launch loads, may damage the internal electronic cards and the Thermoelectric Quartz Crystal Microbalance (TQCM) sensors mounted on the CMP. Three-dimensional (3D) vibration isolators were required to be inserted between the CMP and IAM interface in order to attenuate the high frequency vibrations without resulting in any major changes to the existing system. Wire rope isolators were proposed as the isolation system between the CMP and IAM due to the low impact to design. Most 3D isolation systems are designed for compression and roll, therefore little dynamic data was available for using wire rope isolators in an inverted or tension configuration. From the isolator FEA and test results, it is shown that by using the 3D wire rope isolators, the CMP high-frequency responses have been suppressed by several orders of magnitude over a wide excitation frequency range. Consequently, the TQCM sensor responses are well below their qualification environments. It is indicated that these high-frequency responses due to the typical instrument structural coupling can be significantly suppressed by a vibration passive control using the 3D vibration isolator. Thermal and contamination issues were also examined during the isolator selection period for meeting the SAGE III-ISS instrument requirements.

Li, Y.↗

Studies Of Residual Flexibility And Vibration Testing

Collection of reports presents theoretical and experimental studies in which concept of residual flexibility applied to modal vibration testing and verification of mathematical models of vibrations of flexible structure constrained by another structure. "Residual flexibility" denotes that part of interface flexibility due to mode shapes out of frequency range of test. Studies directed toward assessing residual-flexibility approach as substitute for fixed-base vibrational testing of payloads installed in spacecraft.

Admire, John R.↗

Challenges Associated with In-Situ Calibration of Load Cells in Force Limited Vibration Testing

The difference in mounting configuration between flight and test can significantly impact the effectiveness of the test in environmental vibration testing. Many tests are performed with large electrodynamic shakers, which utilize interfaces that seek to replicate a fixed base, such as slip tables and head expanders. This fixed base configuration is rarely seen in flight configurations; rather a more realistic configuration would include a flexible mounting structure with its own compliance and dynamics. This causes significant over and under tests in various frequency bands depending on the differences between the test article and fixture dynamics. The traditional way of avoiding these high loads is to limit the acceleration responses at multiple locations on the test article. However, the effectiveness of this approach is highly dependent upon the validity of the test article’s analytical in order to derive accurate acceleration response limit specifications. Also this technique requires limiting the acceleration responses at many locations throughout the test article, which may not be implementable due to such things as access and cleanliness issues An improved environmental vibration testing technique known as force limiting incorporates measurements of the forces between the test article and shaker system interface and limiting them to a specification that more accurately replicates the interface impedance of the structure the test article will be mounted to in flight. In effect this transforms the high mechanical impedance at the test article to shaker interface to more closely match the mechanical impedance of the flight interface, which avoids producing the unrealistically high interface loads. Typically force gauges or load cells are used to measure these interface forces. However, utilizing load cells can present a multitude of challenges depending upon such things as their installation method, geometric layout, and test fixture setup. Regardless, it is extremely important to perform an in-situ calibration of the load cells prior to vibration testing at any significant levels. This paper will discuss the challenges associated with utilizing load cells during the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C) gridded ion thruster proto-flight vibration test performed at the NASA Glenn Research Center’s Structural Dynamics Laboratory.

Kenneth J Pederson↗

Challenges Associated with In-Situ Calibration of Load Cells in Force Limited Vibration Testing

The difference in mounting configuration between flight and test can significantly impact the effectiveness of the test in environmental vibration testing. Many tests are performed with large electrodynamic shakers, which utilize interfaces that seek to replicate a fixed base, such as slip tables and head expanders. This fixed base configuration is rarely seen in flight configurations; rather a more realistic configuration would include a flexible mounting structure with its own compliance and dynamics. This causes significant over and under tests in various frequency bands depending on the differences between the test article and fixture dynamics. The traditional way of avoiding these high loads is to limit the acceleration responses at multiple locations on the test article. However, the effectiveness of this approach is highly dependent upon the validity of the test article’s analytical in order to derive accurate acceleration response limit specifications. Also this technique requires limiting the acceleration responses at many locations throughout the test article, which may not be implementable due to such things as access and cleanliness issues An improved environmental vibration testing technique known as force limiting incorporates measurements of the forces between the test article and shaker system interface and limiting them to a specification that more accurately replicates the interface impedance of the structure the test article will be mounted to in flight. In effect this transforms the high mechanical impedance at the test article to shaker interface to more closely match the mechanical impedance of the flight interface, which avoids producing the unrealistically high interface loads. Typically force gauges or load cells are used to measure these interface forces. However, utilizing load cells can present a multitude of challenges depending upon such things as their installation method, geometric layout, and test fixture setup. Regardless, it is extremely important to perform an in-situ calibration of the load cells prior to vibration testing at any significant levels. This paper will discuss the challenges associated with utilizing load cells during the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C) gridded ion thruster proto-flight vibration test performed at the NASA Glenn Research Center’s Structural Dynamics Laboratory.

K. J. Pederson↗

Hybrid active vibration control of rotorbearing systems using piezoelectric actuators

The vibrations of a flexible rotor are controlled using piezoelectric actuators. The controller includes active analog components and a hybrid interface with a digital computer. The computer utilizes a grid search algorithm to select feedback gains that minimize a vibration norm at a specific operating speed. These gains are then downloaded as active stillnesses and dampings with a linear fit throughout the operating speed range to obtain a very effective vibration control.

Palazzolo, A. B.↗

Effects of Transverse Seat Vibration on Near-Viewing Readability of Alphanumeric Symbology

We measured the impacts on human visual function of a range of vibration levels (0.15, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7 g) at the frequency and along the axis of the anticipated Ares thrust oscillation. We found statistically significant and equivalent decrements in performance on a reading and a numeric processing task at tested vibration levels above 0.3 g (0-to-peak), but no evidence of after-effects. At the smallest font and highest vibration level tested, the average effect was a 50 percent increase in response time and six-fold increase in errors. Our findings support a preliminary trade space in which currently planned Orion font sizes and text spacing appear to be too small to support accurate and efficient reading at the tested vibration levels above 0.3 g, but not too small to support reading at 0.3 g. This study does not address potential impacts on crew cognitive decision-making or motor control and does not test either the full induced Orion-Ares environment with its sustained Gx-loading or the full complexity of the final Orion seat-helmet-suit interface. A final determination of the Orion-Ares program limit on vibration must take these additional factors into consideration and, thus, may need to be lower than that needed to support effective reading at 1-Gx bias.

Readability↗

Simulation efficiency in acoustic testing of Shuttle payloads

Comparative evaluations of payload vibration responses from ground acoustic tests and Shuttle flights of several payloads indicate that ground acoustic testing will generally underestimate the Shuttle flight vibrational response of a payload, particularly in the low frequency range. This underestimation is found to be primarily due to the lack of simulation during the acoustic test of the in-flight mechanical energy transmission normally transmitted through the Orbiter-payload structural interface. It is suggested that test efficiency corrections be applied when developing random vibration criteria based on ground acoustic test data.

On, Frank J.↗