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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2004

Evaluation of High Temperature Knitted Spring Tubes for Structural Seal Applications

Control surface seals are crucial to current and future space vehicles, as they are used to seal the gaps surrounding body flaps, elevons, and other actuated exterior surfaces. During reentry, leakage of high temperature gases through these gaps could damage underlying lower temperature structures such as rudder drive motors and mechanical actuators, resulting in impaired vehicle control. To be effective, control surface seals must shield lower temperature structures from heat transfer by maintaining sufficient resiliency to remain in contact with opposing sealing surfaces through multiple compression cycles. The current seal exhibits significant loss of resiliency after a few compression cycles at elevated temperatures (i.e., 1900 F) and therefore would be inadequate for advanced space vehicles. This seal utilizes a knitted Inconel X-750 spring tube as its primary resilient element. As part of a larger effort to enhance seal resiliency, researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center performed high temperature compression testing (up to 2000 F) on candidate spring tube designs employing material substitutions and modified geometries. These tests demonstrated significant improvements in spring tube resiliency (5.5x better at 1750 F) through direct substitution of heat treated Rene 41 alloy in the baseline knit design. The impact of geometry modification was minor within the range of parameters tested, however trends did suggest that moderate resiliency improvements could be obtained by optimizing the current spring tube geometry.

Taylor, Shawn C.↗
NASA NTRS2007

In-Flight Subsonic Lift and Drag Characteristics Unique to Blunt-Based Lifting Reentry Vehicles

Lift and drag measurements have been analyzed for subsonic flight conditions for seven blunt-based reentry-type vehicles. Five of the vehicles are lifting bodies (M2-F1, M2-F2, HL-10, X-24A, and X-24B) and two are wing-body configurations (the X-15 and the Space Shuttle Enterprise). Base pressure measurements indicate that the base drag for full-scale vehicles is approximately three times greater than predicted by Hoerner's equation for three-dimensional bodies. Base drag and forebody drag combine to provide an optimal overall minimum drag (a drag "bucket") for a given configuration. The magnitude of this optimal drag, as well as the associated forebody drag, is dependent on the ratio of base area to vehicle wetted area. Counter-intuitively, the flight-determined optimal minimum drag does not occur at the point of minimum forebody drag, but at a higher forebody drag value. It was also found that the chosen definition for reference area for lift parameters should include the projection of planform area ahead of the wing trailing edge (i.e., forebody plus wing). Results are assembled collectively to provide a greater understanding of this class of vehicles than would occur by considering them individually.

Saltzman, Edwin J.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Hypervolemia from Drinking Hyperhydration Solutions at Rest and Exercise

The mechanism of muscular fatigue from physical work and exercise (high metabolism) is not clear, but involves disturbances of muscle surface membrane excitation-contraction coupling from changes in sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ release, cell H+ and Pi responses, and carbohydrate metabolism. Fatigue in people at rest (low metabolism) involves both psychological and physiological factors, probably in different proportions. One common factor appears to be the level and distribution of water and electrolytes within muscle cells and other vascular, interstitial, body fluid compartments. The vascular fluid volume, composed of plasma and red blood cells, is a primary regulatory factor for cardiovascular function; reduction of vascular volume (hypovolemia) and total body water (hypohydration) adversely affect exercise performance. Plasma volume and plasma ionic-osmotic constituent concentrations are also regulatory factors for body thermoregulation, which is often compromised from exercise induced hypovolemia and hypohydration. Rehydration of dehydrated people on earth is relatively easy with appropriate food (osmols), fluid, and a restful environment. But ad libitum drinking under stressful conditions; e.g., heat, exercise, or prior dehydration, results in involuntary dehydration defined as the delay in full fluid replacement (euhydration) during and following loss of body fluid. Astronauts, with their reduced total body water are euhydrated while in weightlessness, but become "dehydrated" during reentry and landing. Thus, people subjected to acute or chronic stress are probably somewhat "dehydrated" as well as fatigued. Many rehydration drinks are more concentrated (hypertonic-hyperosmotic) with respect to the normal plasma osmolality of 285 mOsm/kg H2O and more of the drink osmols are contributed by carbohydrates than by ionized substances. There have been few studies on the efficacy of various drink formulations for increasing body fluid compartment volumes, especially plasma volume, in rested hydrated subjects. Recent findings from our laboratory have indicated that drinks containing greater concentrations of ionized substances (Performance 1 and AstroAde) up to 157 mEq/L Na+ induced greater levels of hypervolemia in resting, moderately dehydrated men, and were also better than water for attenuating the characteristic hypovolemia during supine, submaximal, leg ergometer exercise.

Greenleaf, John E.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Fluid dynamic aspects of cardiovascular behavior during low-frequency whole-body vibration

The behavior of the cardiovascular system during low frequency whole-body vibration, such as encountered by astronauts during launch and reentry, is examined from a fluid mechanical viewpoint. The vibration characteristics of typical manned spacecraft and other vibration environments are discussed, and existing results from in vivo studies of the hemodynamic aspects of this problem are reviewed. Recent theoretical solutions to related fluid mechanical problems are then used in the interpretation of these results and in discussing areas of future work. The results are included of studies of the effects of vibration on the work done by the heart and on pulsatile flow in blood vessels. It is shown that important changes in pulse velocity, the instantaneous velocity profile, mass flow rate, and wall shear stress may occur in a pulsatile flow due to the presence of vibration. The significance of this in terms of changes in peripheral vascular resistance and possible damage to the endothelium of blood vessels is discussed.

Nerem, R. M.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Thermoregulation in unrestrained rats during and after exposure to 1.5-4 G

Unrestrained rats were exposed to cold for 1 h during and immediately after exposure to hypergravic fields (1.5-4 G) to determine if they recover their ability to thermoregulate on reentry to 1-G conditions. In contrast to the decreased body temperatures observed when cold exposure occurred concurrently with acceleration, hypothalamic, carotid, and brown fat temperatures did not fall when rats were exposed to cold immediately after return to 1 G. These results support the hypothesis that the thermoregulatory alterations seen under hypergravic conditions are manifestations of an effect of ongoing exposure to hypergravity and can be reversed on termination of acceleration. The reversibility of the thermoregulatory impairment is apparently unaffected by the magnitude of the acceleration field over a range of 1.5-4 G.

Giacchino, J.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Direct simulation of hypersonic flows over blunt slender bodies

Results of a numerical study of low-density hypersonic flow about cylindrically blunted wedges and spherically blunted cones with body half angles of 0, 5, and 10 deg are presented. Most of the transitional flow regime encountered during entry between the free molecule and continuum regimes is simulated for a reentry velocity of 7.5 km/s by including freestream conditions of 70 to 100 km. The bodies are at zero angle of incidence and have diffuse and finite catalytic surfaces. Translational, thermodynamic, and chemical nonequilibrium effects are considered in the numerical simulation by utilizing the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. The numerical simulations show that noncontinuum effects such as surface temperature jump, and velocity slip are evident for all cases considered. The onset of chemical dissociation occurs at a simulated altitude of 96 km for the two-dimensional configurations. Comparisons between the DSMC and continuum viscous shock-layer calculations highlight the significant difference in flowfield structure predicted by the two methods.

Moss, J. N.↗
NASA NTRS1966

Project Fire photographic summary and record of reentry phenomena at hyperbolic velocities

Project Fire was undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to measure the total and radiative heating experienced by a blunt body reentering the earth's atmosphere at 11 300 meters per second. This report presents a photographic record of the Fire II spacecraft during its reentry. The photographs were clear enough to establish the times of major events, and they show that adequate-separation was maintained between the reentry package and the spent Antares. This report also identifies operational problems encountered in spacecraft reentry at hyperbolic velocities and presents the solutions satisfactorily employed.

Reentry vehicle↗
NASA NTRS2005

A Numerical Study of Resistivity and Hall Effects for a Compressible MHD Model

The effect of resistive, Hall, and viscous terms on the flow structure compared with compressible ideal MHD is studied numerically for a one-fluid non-ideal MHD model. The goal of the present study is to shed some light on the emerging area of non-ideal MHD modeling and simulation. Numerical experiments are performed on a hypersonic blunt body flow with future application to plasma aerodynamics flow control in reentry vehicles. Numerical experiments are also performed on a magnetized time-developing mixing layer with possible application to magnetic/turbulence mixing.

Yee, H. C.↗
NASA NTRS1980

A three-dimensional body-fitted coordinate system for flow field calculations on asymmetric nosetips

A three dimensional body-fitted coordinate system developed for use in the calculation of inviscid flows over ablated, asymmetric reentry vehicle nosetips is described. Because of the potential geometric asymmetries, no standard coordinate system (e.g., spherical, axisymmetric reference surface-normal) is capable of being closely aligned with the nosetip surface. To generate a 3-D, body-fitted coordinate system an analytic mapping procedure is applied that is conformal within each meridional plane of the nosetip; these transformations are then coupled circumferentially to yield a three dimensional coordinate system. The mappings used are defined in terms of hinge points, which are points selected to approximate the body contours in each meridional plane. The selection of appropriate hinge points was automated to facilitate the use of the resulting nosetip flow field code.

Hall, D. W.↗