Structures and Materials Commons^™

Dual Graphene Patch Antenna For Ka Band Satellite Applications, Mohammed Amin Rabah, Mohammed Bekhti

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Currently; grapheme offers a new opportunity to use in space technology and this is due to its amazing properties like conductivity, strength, flexibility and transparency which allows us to exploit new generation of ultra-fast nanoscale components; Since future wireless communication techniques are geared towards the use of the high frequency spectrum and many recent research prove this trend. This letter presents a proposal for design of a dual graphene-based antenna to use in new communication techniques in Ka band, where the proposed antenna can work for uplink and dowlink frequencies at same time since it has return loss less then …

Improving The Delivered Specific Impulse Of Composite Rocket Propellant Through Alteration Of Chemical Composition: Methodology And Parameters For Characterization Of Propellant And Validation Of Simulation Software Common To The Amateur Rocketry Community, Isaac O'Brien, Austin Ryan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this study, two solid composite rocket propellants were designed utilizing ProPEP, a rocket propellant formulation software common in the amateur and hobby rocketry communities. The two propellants were designed to optimize specific impulse relative to a literature propellant designed by 1020 Research Labs. The literature propellant was also tested in order to validate the design of experiment as well as the mixing and testing procedures. All three propellants, which includes the literature propellant RCS-P, and the two novel propellants AKR-P1 and AKR-P2 were characterized with static tests. The results of the static tests provide data on propellant performance and …

Prototype Landing Gear Conceptual And Embodiment Design, Derek Carr

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Collin’s Aerospace Mechanical systems engineering was tasked with designing a set of landing gear for an undisclosed project. The landing gear is required to comply with customer specifications, coordinate systems, and overall landing gear performance. The purpose of this project is to document the conceptual and embodiment design process for an articulated main landing gear system. Unfortunately, due to high expenses and high lead times required for 300M stainless steel components, no full size prototype can be produced within the timeframe of this report. Instead, this document should be viewed as a process mapping guide for initial landing gear design …

Interlaminar Damage Detection In Composite Materials, Hariharan Rangarajan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Using ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) for high-temperature applications in jet engines increases durability and reduces weight and cooling requirements resulting in improved efficiency and fuel savings. Understanding, detecting, and monitoring different types of damage is essential to achieve optimal performance of CMC components. The Direct Current Potential Drop (DCPD) method is a non-destructive technique of estimating damage in composite materials.

DCPD technique works by measuring nodal potential differences when current is flown through the material. Direct current spreading in different woven and laminate composites is modeled to follow a ladder resistor network in which the nodal voltages decrease exponentially as …

Bayesian Model Averaging Based Storage Lifetime Assessment Method For Rubber Sealing Rings, Di Liu, Shaoping Wang, Chao Zhang, Mileta M. Tomovic

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Rubber sealing ring is one of the most widely used seals. It is always stored for a period of time before put into use, especially in aeronautic and aerospace applications. It is necessary to evaluate the storage lifetime of rubber sealing rings. However, due to the long storage lifetime of rubber sealing rings, two issues need to be handled, including model uncertainty and lack of storage lifetime data. A Bayesian model averaging based storage lifetime assessment method for rubber sealing rings is proposed in this article. The Gamma distribution model and Weibull distribution model are selected as the candidate models …

Landing-Gear Impact Response: A Non-Linear Finite Element Approach, Tuan H. Tran

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this research is to formulate a methodology of assessing the maximum impact loading condition that will incur onto an aircraft’s landing gear system via Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and appropriately determining its corresponding structural and impact responses to minimize potential design failures during hard landing (abnormal impact) and shock absorption testing. Both static and dynamic loading condition were closely analyzed, compared, and derived through the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) airworthiness regulations and empirical testing data.

In this research, a nonlinear transient dynamic analysis is developed and established via NASTRAN advanced nonlinear finite element model (FEM) to …

Ultraviolet Imager Application For A Cube Satellite, Jason Grillo, Troy Hajjar, Brady Hill

Mechanical Engineering

This document serves as the final design review (FDR) report for the 2018 Cal Poly CubeSat Ultraviolet Imager senior project, sponsored by UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratories (SSL). SSL wants to monitor the ionosphere above Earth to gain a better understanding of its properties and particle interactions. Far Ultraviolet (FUV) imaging is a good way to obtain high quality images of the ionosphere and the Earth's auroras, and advancement in optic technologies have made cube satellites (CubeSats) an ideal vessel for a FUV imager, as they are relatively low-cost, lightweight, and can be repeatedly deployed. These CubeSat FUV imagers could …

Effect Of Aerogel On The Thermal Performance Of Corrugated Composite Sandwich Structures, Jacob Dillon Chess

Master's Theses

Current insulation solutions across multiple industries, especially the commercial sector, can be bulky and ineffective when considering their volume. Aerogels are excellent insulators, exhibiting low thermal conductivities and low densities with a porosity of around 95%. Such characteristics make aerogels effective in decreasing conductive heat transfer within a solid. These requirements are crucial for aerospace and spaceflight applications, where sensitive components exist among extreme temperature environments. When implemented into insulation applications, aerogel can perform better than existing technology while using less material, which limits the amount of volume allocated for insulation. The application of these materials into composites can result …

Shape-Stabilization Of Pcm/Hdpe Composites With 3d-Printing Applications For Battery Thermal Management, Thomas Benjamin Freeman

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Phase-change materials (PCMs) are a useful alternative to more traditional methods of thermal management of Li-ion batteries in electric or hybrid-electric vehicles. PCMs are materials which absorb large amounts of latent heat and undergo solid-to-liquid phase change at near-constant temperature. The goal of this thesis is to experimentally investigate the thermal properties of a novel shape-stabilized PCM/HDPE composite extruded filament. The extruded filament can then be used in a 3D printer for custom PCM/HDPE shapes. These custom PCM/HDPE shapes can be used to help reduce weight, energy consumption, and complexity of the thermal management of the ESS. The PCM used …

Thermal Management Of Satellite Electronics Via Gallium Phase Change Heat Sink Devices, Brian O. Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness and feasibility of additively manufactured heat sinks using gallium as a phase change material in the thermal management of satellite electronics. A design was created based on the footprint of an Astronautical Development, LLC Lithium 1 UHF radio and six heat sinks were additively manufactured; two each of stainless steel 316, Inconel 718, and ULTEM 9085. Each heat sink was filled with gallium for testing purposes. Models were created to simulate the behavior of the heat transfer and phase change processes occurring within the heat sink. Additionally, laboratory data was …

Carbon Nanotube Fibers: Mechanical Behavior And The Effects Of The Space Environment, Ryan A. Kemnitz

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon nanotube materials are promising multifunctional materials for incorporation into aerospace structures because of their high tensile strength, high electrical conductivity, and low density. This research aimed to characterize the mechanical failure mechanisms of carbon nanotube fibers and examine the effects of the space environment on their material properties. Tensile tests were conducted at varying strain rates and on fibers of varying gage lengths to examine the underlying molecular failure mechanisms and impact of defects on fiber strength. Tensile strength and elastic modulus were observed to increase with increasing strain rate and decrease with increasing gage lengths. The observed effects …

Techedsat 7 And 8-Nasa Missions For Earth Observation, Andrew Pham

STAR Program Research Presentations

Big results can come from small satellites, and Technology Educational Satellite 8 or TES-8 is the latest small satellite in the TechEdSat series from NASA Ames Research Center. TechEdSat is a collaborative program, in which advanced university students have a chance to work directly with researchers on NASA Space Projects. Thanks to the assistance of students from several universities around the country every year, TechEdSat has helped NASA develop Nano-satellite technologies and evaluate new ideas for future spacecraft. TES-8 is the eighth satellite of the continuing TechEdSat series. On December 01, 2018 TES-8 followed a Commercial Resupply Service mission to …

Design Of Selectively Compliant Morphing Wind Turbine Blade Section Using Bistable Laminate For Passive Load Alleviation, Abhishek Chopra, Dr. Andres Arrieta, Janav Udani, Jose Rivas Padilla

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The design of passively controlled compliant morphing structures for large scale wind turbine blades has been of interest due to the inherent advantages of lower mass and reduced complexity over their active counterparts. Previous studies have indicated that embedding a locally bi-stable element within the turbine blade section successfully allows for achieving passive load alleviation. The embedded bi-stable member switches from one stable state to another at a critical aerodynamic load. This local structural change results in a global shift in the aeroelastic response of the blade section. Building on these preliminary results, this research investigates a two- dimensional wind …

Characterization And Modeling Of Discontinuous Fiber Composites, Kenneth M. Serrano Rodriguez, Imad Hanhan, Ronald F. Agyei, Michael Sangid

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Composite materials, which are light and strong, are of great interest to engineers in the aerospace industry. Specifically in this work, a discontinuous short fiber reinforced polymer composite whose matrix is Polypropylene and fibers are Electric-glass oriented in different directions was studied. The performance of this material is highly dependent on its microstructure, and therefore the objective of this research is to non-destructively characterize the microstructure of the composite material. This includes characterization of its fiber orientation and length, fiber volume fraction, and void volume fraction. To do this, X-ray micro-computed tomography has been used, providing two dimensional cross-sectional images …

Localized Strain And Associated Failure Of Structural Materials, Hayden N. Hermes, Andrea Nicolas, Michael Sangid, Noelle C. Easter, James T. Burns

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Aircraft are made primarily out of strong and lightweight aluminum alloys, which are relatively low cost, easy to produce, and have allowed for several innovations in the airplane industry. Even though these alloys are highly corrosion resistant, they are susceptible to failure since airplanes experience some of the harshest fatigue and corrosion conditions. Predicting the location of crack initiation on these corroded materials could lead to preventative safety of aluminum components on an aircraft. To study the mechanisms leading to cracking, precorroded AA7050 samples were fatigue loaded to failure, virtually reconstructed form post-mortem characterizations, and modeled accordingly to obtain the …

High Dynamic Range Optical Devices And Applications., Elijah Robert Jensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much of what we know about fundamental physical law and the universe derives from observations and measurements using optical methods. The passive use of the electromagnetic spectrum can be the best way of studying physical phenomenon in general with minimal disturbance of the system in the process. While for many applications ambient visible light is sufficient, light outside of the visible range may convey more information. The signals of interest are also often a small fraction of the background, and their changes occur on time scales so quickly that they are visually imperceptible. This thesis reports techniques and technologies developed …

Design Survey Of Laminated Composite I-Beam, Mrinmoy Saha

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Composite I-beams are popular for high-strength low-weight applications. Learning the macro-mechanics and designing the composite I-beam properly are necessary. In this report, a design overview of the composite I-beam is discussed which is based on classical lamination theory where it includes the homogenization approach, the plane stress assumption and the Kirchhoff hypothesis. Using these assumptions, a method was developed to come up with the effective material properties of a beam. Formulas to calculate maximum deflection and maximum bending stress and shear stress and the stress concentration at the connection of web-flange are discussed which describe ways for designing and manufacturing …

An Evaluation Of Ultrasonic Shot Peening And Abrasive Flow Machining As Surface Finishing Processes For Selective Laser Melted 316l, Rhys Gilmore

Master's Theses

Additive Manufacturing, and specifically powder bed fusion processes, have advanced rapidly in recent years. Selective Laser Melting in particular has been adopted in a variety of industries from biomedical to aerospace because of its capability to produce complex components with numerous alloys, including stainless steels, nickel superalloys, and titanium alloys. Post-processing is required to treat or solve metallurgical issues such as porosity, residual stresses, and surface roughness. Because of the geometric complexity of SLM produced parts, the reduction of surface roughness with conventional processing has proven especially challenging. In this Thesis, two processes, abrasive flow machining and ultrasonic shot peening, …

Modification Of A Ground Based Atomic Oxygen Simulation Apparatus To Accommodate Three Dimensional Specimens, Charles Ward

Master's Theses

The space environment presents various challenges when designing systems and selecting materials for applications beyond Earth’s atmosphere. For mission success, these challenges must be considered. One of the detrimental aspects of the space en- vironment is Atomic Oxygen, AO. Only present in harmful quantities in Lower Earth Orbit, LEO, AO causes significant damage to materials by breaking molecular bonds. California Polytechnic State University’s, Cal Poly’s, space environments laboratory features an apparatus capable of simulating this environment. Very thin or short samples were tested to observe the mass loss due to erosion of the sample material. Recent modifications to the system …

The Effects Of Varying Composition And Build Direction On Direct Metal Deposition Fabricated Inconel 718, Abigail P. Nilan, Jessica M. Fordham

Materials Engineering

Inconel 718 (IN718) is a popular wrought superalloy, and is currently being investigated for additive manufacturing (AM) applications in the aerospace industry. However, overaging and the presence of microcracks have caused a significant reduction in properties. The purpose of this study is to meet or exceed the mechanical properties of wrought IN718 by varying the composition and build direction of the AM alloy. Alternative compositions were selected with Oerlilon Metco’s Rapid Alloy Development (RAD) software, and differ in niobium content, which increases the fraction of the primary strengthening phase (γʺ). Direct metal deposition (DMD) was used to fabricate the samples, …