Dynamic loads on airplane structures during landing
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In this work, the static and dynamic fracture properties of several thermosetting resin based composite laminates are presented. Two classes of materials are explored. These are homogeneous, thermosetting resins and toughened, multi-phase, thermosetting resin systems. Multi-phase resin materials have shown enhancement over homogenous materials with respect to damage resistance. The development of new dynamic tests are presented for composite laminates based on Width Tapered Double Cantilevered Beam (WTDCB) for Mode 1 fracture and the End Notched Flexure (ENF) specimen. The WTDCB sample was loaded via a low inertia, pneumatic cylinder to produce rapid cross-head displacements. A high rate, piezo-electric load cell and an accelerometer were mounted on the specimen. A digital oscilloscope was used for data acquisition. Typical static and dynamic load versus displacement plots are presented. The ENF specimen was impacted in three point bending with an instrumented impact tower. Fracture initiation and propagation energies under static and dynamic conditions were determined analytically and experimentally. The test results for Mode 1 fracture are relatively insensitive to strain rate effects for the laminates tested in this study. The test results from Mode 2 fracture indicate that the toughened systems provide superior fracture initiation and higher resistance to propagation under dynamic conditions. While the static fracture properties of the homogeneous systems may be relatively high, the apparent Mode 2 dynamic critical strain energy release rate drops significantly. The results indicate that static Mode 2 fracture testing is inadequate for determining the fracture performance of composite structures subjected to conditions such as low velocity impact. A good correlation between the basic Mode 2 dynamic fracture properties and the performance is a combined material/structural Compression After Impact (CAI) test is found. These results underscore the importance of examining rate-dependent behavior for determining the longevity of structures manufactured from composite materials.
The impact of anthropogenic activities on the SO2 and sulfate aerosol levels over the Pacific region is examined in the Georgia Tech/Goddard Global Ozone Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) model. We focus on the analysis of the data from the NASA Pacific Exploratory Missions (PEM) over the western North Pacific and the tropical Pacific. These missions include PEM-West A in September-October 1991, when the Asian outflow was at the minimum but the upper atmosphere was heavily influenced by the Pinatubo volcanic eruption, and PEM-West B in March-April 1994 when the Asian outflow was at the maximum, and PEM-Tropics A in August-September at a region relatively free of direct anthropogenic influences. Specifically, we will examine the relative importance of anthropogenic, volcanic and biogenic sources to the SO2 and sulfate concentrations over the Pacific, and quantify the processes controlling the distributions of SO2 and sulfate in both the boundary layer and the free troposphere. We will also assess the global impact of SO2 emission in Asia on the sulfate aerosol loading.
Because Mars is just over half the Earth's diameter (about 6800 km), it does not exhibit global tectonism on a scale comparable to Earth and Venus. But because it is still a large body compared to Mercury and the moon, it has had an atmosphere and climate over the history of the solar system. This is why Mars has been able to retain surfaces produced both through volcanic and climatic processes that are intermediate in age between volcanic surfaces on the moon and Mercury and both types of surfaces on Venus and Earth. For the purposes of this discussion, this has important implications about the origins and evolution of topographic depressions that potentially may have contained lakes. Tectonism is probably the most important process on Earth for producing closed depressions on the continents, and is clearly responsible for maintenance of the ocean basins through geologic time. This is probably also true for depressions in the highland terrains and lowland plains of Venus. On Mars, however, tectonism appears limited to relatively small amounts of regional extension, compression, and vertical motion largely due to crustal loading of the two major volcanic provinces - Tharsis and Elysium Impact craters and large impact basins (including all or parts of the northern plains) are clearly more important sites for potential lake basins on Mars, though they were likely more important on Earth, and Venus as well, during the period of heavy meteorite bombardment throughout the solar system prior to 3.5 Ga. Comparisons of the relative importance of other formative processes on Mars with those on Earth are less obvious, and some may be quite speculative, since our understanding of the early Martian environment is still rather limited. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.
Detection of damage due to foreign object impact is an important factor in the development of new aerospace vehicles. Acoustic waves generated on impact can be detected using a set of piezoelectric transducers, and the location of impact can be determined by triangulation based on the differences in the arrival time of the waves at each of the sensors. These sensors generate electrical signals in response to mechanical motion resulting from the impact as well as from natural vibrations. Due to electrical noise and mechanical vibration, accurately determining these time differentials can be challenging, and even small measurement inaccuracies can lead to significant errors in the computed damage location. Wavelet transforms are used to analyze the signals at multiple levels of detail, allowing the signals resulting from the impact to be isolated from ambient electromechanical noise. Data extracted from these transformed signals are input to an artificial neural network to aid in identifying the moment of impact from the transformed signals. By distinguishing which of the signal components are resultant from the impact and which are characteristic of noise and normal aerodynamic loads, the time differentials as well as the location of damage can be accurately assessed. The combination of wavelet transformations and neural network processing results in an efficient and accurate approach for passive in-flight detection of foreign object damage.
A novel approach was used in this test for the creation of mobility requirements to be fed into the Human-Systems Integration Requirements and Engineering Requirements Documents. Existing suits may not provide adequate mobility to perform all functional tasks required in future missions. Looking solely at maximum unsuited mobility could be unrealistic and unnecessary to design into a suit. The new approach focused instead on functional range of motion. Setting design requirements based on the mobility necessary to perform a broad spectrum of functional tasks should save resources while still providing a suit capable of performing all tasks that a suited crewmember is likely to encounter. Unsuited functional mobility testing revealed some interesting nuances of human movement including variances in mobility utilized when completing functional tasks as well as the impact of compound joint motions and the influence of joint loading on range of motion. Suited requirements must reflect the fact that altered movement strategies are utilized while wearing a space suit. Improved methods for the creation of space suit design requirements should lead to improved suit performance while maintaining crewmember safety and reducing overall costs.
NASA is moving forward with the development of the next generation system of human spaceflight to meet the Nation's goals of human space exploration. To meet these goals, NASA is aggressively pursuing the development of an integrated architecture and capabilities for safe crewed and cargo missions beyond low-Earth orbit. Two important tenets critical to the achievement of NASA's strategic objectives are Affordability and Safety. The Space Launch System (SLS) is a heavy-lift launch vehicle being designed/developed to meet these goals. The SLS Block 1 configuration (Figure 1) will be used for the first Exploration Mission (EM-1). It utilizes existing hardware from the Space Shuttle inventory, as much as possible, to save cost and expedite the schedule. SLS Block 1 Elements include the Core Stage, "Heritage" Boosters, Heritage Engines, and the Integrated Spacecraft and Payload Element (ISPE) consisting of the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter (LVSA), the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Stage Adapter (MSA), and an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) for Earth orbit escape and beyond-Earth orbit in-space propulsive maneuvers. When heritage hardware is used in a new application, it requires a systematic evaluation of its qualification. In addition, there are previously-documented Lessons Learned (Table -1) in this area cautioning the need of a rigorous evaluation in any new application. This paper will exemplify the systematic qualification/assessment efforts made to qualify the application of Heritage Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) hardware in SLS. This paper describes the testing and structural assessment performed to ensure the application is acceptable for intended use without having any adverse impact to Safety. It will further address elements such as Loads, Material Properties and Manufacturing, Testing, Analysis, Failure Criterion and Factor of Safety (FS) considerations made to reach the conclusion and recommendation.
Spirit Aerosystems recently conducted screening tests on thermoplastic skin/stringer panels manufactured with Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) and stamp forming which were joined using Spirit’s Co-Fusion process. Skin and stringer gauge were both set to 0.168 cm. The resulting panel design is 48 cm tall, 49 cm wide, and has 3 stringers welded at a 21.5 cm pitch. Barely Visible Impact Damage (BVID) and Residual Compressive Strength were chosen to conduct a damage tolerance study. Zee stringers, made with IM8/PEKK-FC material, were Co-Fusion welded to a T1100/TC1225 skin. Out of these 5 panels, 1 was chosen to be a BVID survey panel, 1 for pristine compressive strength determination, and 3 to be impacted to create BVID followed by testing for residual compressive strength. On the survey panel, impacts ranged in energy from 40J – 65J and dent depth measurements were conducted at 24 hours, 48 hours, and two weeks after impacting. The residual compressive strength panel failed near the predicted load of 214 MPa. For the residual compressive strength panels, BVID was created at two different mid-bay locations: 1) striking the OML coincident with the stringer and 2) striking the skin IML 2.5 cm away from the stringer flange. Pulse Echo Ultrasonic Testing was used to inspect the panels before and after creating BVID.
Ice nucleating particles (INPs)—such as mineral dust and bacteria (1)—are a crucial source of seeds for cloud ice crystal formation, and can subsequently impact cloud radiative properties, lifetime, and precipitation formation processes (2-4). The presence of such particles in the atmosphere can be rare, but large concentrations are not required to have substantial impacts on cloud microphysics (3). However, knowledge of INPs, particularly in the Arctic, is limited due to the dearth of measurements in time and space. It is especially important to evaluate the sources and efficiency of INPs in the Arctic due to the role mixed-phase clouds play in facilitating the surface energy budget and thus energy reaching the sea ice and snow surfaces (4, 5). The purpose of this campaign, called INPOP (Ice Nucleating Particles at Oliktok Point), is to address the issue of limited information of Arctic INPs by providing time- and size-resolved INP concentrations over the course of a 3-month springtime campaign. This period is subject to Arctic haze, whereby pollutants from mid-latitudes are frequently transported to the Arctic and influence the relatively clean Arctic atmosphere (6-9). One unique aspect of this study is that the measurements were conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility third ARM Mobile Facility (AMF3) in Oliktok Point, North Slope of Alaska (NSA), which is located in the northwest edge of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield. Typically, oil and natural gas extraction emissions are not thought to serve as a significant source of INPs, since naturally produced primary aerosols are the most efficient and abundant INPs (e.g., 1). However, the goal of INPOP was to evaluate INPs in the context of supporting aerosol and meteorological observations to assess: (1) if local industrial activities due to the oilfield operations can serve as a source of INPs (e.g., such as road dust from routine vehicular operations) and (2) if other regional or long-range transported sources impact a polluted Arctic location by introducing higher concentrations of more efficient INPs (e.g., transport of primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs) from open ocean water or Arctic haze INPs). Unlike other Arctic coastal locations in the spring, Oliktok Point has a distinct combination of aerosol sources including long-range transported haze, regional/local marine emissions, and the local oilfield activities. Ground-based, immersion-mode, ice nucleation measurements were conducted on samples collected at the AMF3 in Oliktok Point from 1 March to 31 May, 2017. Samples were collected using a Davis Rotating-drum Unit for Monitoring (DRUM; DRUMAir, LLC) cascading impactor in 4 stages (i.e., size bins). Instrument information on the model used, the DA400, can be found at the DRUMAir website (http://www.drumair.com/). Stages A, B, C, and D, had particle size cuts at 2.96, 1.21, 0.34, and 0.15 μm particle diameter. Strips of sample substrate (PFA, perfluoroalkoxy; McMaster) were adhered to each disc in each stage and coated with petrolatum to enable particles to stick on impact. The discs move slowly over time, such that aerosol loading is streaked onto the PFA. Every 24 hours, a blank spot is created on the PFA to separate daily samples. The pump typically pulled 25 lpm at the inlet with all the discs in place in each stage. Daily samples were collected for each of the four stages, equaling 36,000 total L of air per sample. Discs rotated for approximately 24 days before the sampling per strip was complete and a new disc was installed by the ARM operators. Discs were stored frozen after collection until the end of the study.
3D simulations have been performed for a variety of SRF cavities which incorporate Higher Order Mode dampers, either in form of coaxial couplers or waveguide dampers. Instead of utilizing the rather standard approach of matching the output port of the dampers with a broadband coaxial or waveguide port, dissipative materials are modelled for RF field absorption. This for instance not only avoids the otherwise required definition of the number of modes considered for damping, which has an impact on the computational time, but also allows tailoring the load material to conform with experimental data of e.g. non-perfect absorbers. The new calculation scheme is presented. Findings are partially compared with those achieved with the standard waveguide port approach by means of external quality factors. CPU speeds are briefly discussed for both approaches.
A computational fluid dynamics study was performed for a cross-flow marine hydro-kinetic turbine. The analysis was done in three dimensions and used the unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes solver in the commercial code STAR-CCM+. The base turbine configuration is the RivGen® Turbine, designed by the Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC). A convergence and uncertainty analysis was performed for both the spatial and temporal discretization; this was done using the base configuration which features support struts and helical foils. The proposed study aims to compare the impact of the struts on both power performance and blade loading for helical and straight blades.
This paper presents results from the Floating Offshore-wind Controls Advanced Laboratory (FOCAL) Experimental campaign performed at the University of Maine's (UMaine's) Harold Alfond Wind/Wave Ocean Engineering Laboratory (W2). The project involves four Froude-scaled test campaigns considering the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind 15MW Reference Wind Turbine deployed on the VolturnUS-S semi-submersible platform with tuned-mass damper (TMD) elements in the hull. The turbine employs real-time rotor torque and blade pitch control through the Reference OpenSource Controller (ROSCO), including the additional control strategies of ROSCO's thrust peak shaving and a floating feedback control loop. Results with the floating feedback control are considered in this paper and show a significant reduction in platform pitch motion and loads around the platform pitch natural frequency with minimal negative impact of rotor power quality.
NASA’s Gateway Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) will employ high power Xenon Hall thrusters to transit from Earth orbit to a lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). Due to the extended duration of this transit phase and a high thruster duty cycle, there is expected to be significant material erosion caused by the ion plume and subsequent redeposition onto the main spacecraft radiators. While plume modeling and tests of redeposition have attempted to quantify the resulting impact to radiator optical properties, significant uncertainties remain. The flight of PPE presents an opportunity to validate some of the assumptions in this analytical chain, but there will be no specialized hardware that can directly characterize the property changes. However, the planned mission includes periods with significant solar flux to the radiators both early and late in the transit inducing differential heat loads on the vehicle. This presentation will explore options for analyzing possible impacts of various levels of redeposition and whether the severity can be accurately characterized via existing planned telemetry during a nominal mission.
The Earth’s magnetosphere is filled by particles from two sources: the solar wind and the ionosphere. Ionospheric ions are initially cold and contain He+ and O+, in addition to to H+. Depending on their initial magnetic latitude and local time, and the state of the magnetosphere, they may contribute to the plasmasphere, the plasma sheet, the ring current, the warm plasma cloak etc. Depending on which path they follow in the magnetosphere, some of these ionospheric ions remain cold when they reach the two key reconnection regions: the Earth’s magnetopause and the plasma sheet in the tail. In this presentation, we will first review previous statistical works that quantify the number of cold/ionospheric ions near these two regions. Several works have attempted to quantify these populations, but they are inherently difficult to characterize due to their low energy, often below the spacecraft potential. We will also discuss the impacts they have on the magnetic reconnection process. Ionospheric ions mass-load the regions where reconnection takes place and change the characteristic Alfven speed, resulting in a smaller reconnection electric field. They also take a portion of the energy that is imparted to particles, affecting the energy budget of magnetic reconnection. Finally, they introduce new length and time scales, associated to their gyroradius and gyroperiod. We will discuss what are the implications of these impacts for the evolution of the magnetosphere – solar wind interactions.
As a result of climate change, extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and with increasing impact. This trend poses a significant challenge for distribution utilities and system operators to ensure that there is uninterrupted power supply to critical loads in their networks; thus, the level of proactive preparation of the distribution system to be able to handle severe impacts of extreme weather events represents the system's resilience. One method that distribution systems use to prepare for extreme events is to form multiple microgrids and thereby isolate themselves from the grid supply by using local generation as much as possible to supply critical loads. But partitioning an existing system into multiple feasible islands capable of supporting critical loads is still challenging for distribution systems - first, because of the size of the graph partitioning problem and, second, because of the difficulty in properly formulating the desired attributes of such islands or microgrids. Therefore, this paper presents a genetic algorithmbased approach that facilitates incorporating multiple objectives for grid partitioning by formulating two types of problems - node allocation and edge elimination - and it considers multiple topological and resilience-enhancing objectives. The performance of the proposed genetic algorithm-based approach is numerically evaluated on multiple test systems as well as on a real distribution feeder in Colorado, USA.
During a loss-of-coolant-accident (LOCA), the fuel cladding is submitted to a high temperature increase in a steam environment, along with an internal pressure increase which would eventually lead to ballooning and burst of the cladding. Steam could then penetrate through the burst opening and lead to inner surface oxidation and secondary-hydriding of the cladding. Post-quench cladding rupture can then occur either in two-sided oxidized area with wall thinning due to ballooning, or in single-sided oxidized area with large hydrogen content. Common tests involved in the evaluation of the post-quench ductility are Ring Compression Tests (RCT), Expansion Due to Compression Test (EDC) or Axial Tensile Tests (AT). Questions arise about these mechanical tests, as for instance, the influence on sample failure of the oxide layer thickness partitioning between inner and outer diameter. A systematic study was carried out to compare several mechanical tests on both single-sided and two-sided Zircaloy-4 oxidized samples. Five different mechanical tests were compared, including RCT: C-shaped ring Compression Test (CCT), Axial Tensile test (AT), Ring Tensile Test with well-defined machined gage section (RTT) and plain Ring Tensile Test (pRTT). All samples were taken from cladding tubes which had been oxidized in steam at 1200 Celsius degrees and then water-quenched. Mechanical tests were performed at room temperature and two to three samples were tested for each oxidation conditions and for every sample geometry to assess the reproducibility. Metallographic examinations were carried out to measure the ZrO{sub 2} and αZr(O) layer thicknesses and the ex-β/α(O) phase fraction. Mean hydrogen content measurements were also performed systematically on each sample. Results indicate that the different mechanical tests have not the same sensitivity to the oxide layer partitioning: RTT and pRTT load at failure seems to depend mainly on the cumulated oxide layer thickness rather than on its partitioning, whereas this parameter has an impact on CCT and AT test results. For all tensile tests, stresses at failure were derived from load-displacement curves. The failure of brittle samples was assumed to be governed by linear elastic fracture mechanics. Using conventional stress intensity factor solution, a value of the material fracture toughness controlling the sample failure was determined from experimental results and discussed. (authors)
Many electrical loads may be operated flexibly to provide grid services, including peaking capacity, reserves, and load shifting. The authors model 14 demand end uses in Florida and analyze their operational impacts and overall value for a wide range of solar penetrations and grid flexibility options. They find demand response is able to reduce production costs, reduce the number of low-load hours for traditional generators, reduce starting of gas generators, and reduce curtailment.
Competitive water adsorption can have a significant impact on metal-organic framework performance properties, ranging from occupying active sites in catalytic reactions to co-adsorbing at the most favourable adsorption sites in gas separation and storage applications. Here, we investigate, for a metal-organic framework that is stable after moisture exposure, what are the reversible, loading-dependent structural changes that occur during water adsorption. Herein, a combination of in situ synchrotron powder and single-crystal diffraction, infrared spectroscopy and molecular modelling analysis was used to understand the important role of loading-dependent water effects in a water stable metal-organic framework. Through this analysis, insights into changes in crystallographic lattice parameters, water siting information and water-induced defect structure as a response to water loading were obtained. This work shows that, even in stable metal-organic frameworks that maintain their porosity and crystallinity after moisture exposure, important molecular-level structural changes can still occur during water adsorption due to guest-host interactions such as water-induced bond rearrangements.