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The latest tubing, fitting, and flexible line designs as well as the testing techniques presently used on production airplane hydraulic distribution systems are reviewed in this paper. Designs and materials that are being considered for future airplanes as well as their advantages are presented here in terms of weight and cost. Other major trade parameters such as reliability and maintainability are also considered along with the most significant of all distribution system areas requiring improvement-the installation criteria and techniques. Advanced tensile, impulse, and flexure testing techniques are evaluated and compared with actual airplane combined load environments encountered by hydraulic systems on large jet aircraft.

Power-amplified actuation systems for space vehicles are becoming a necessity with the advent of manned, lunar-mission space vehicles. Various actuation system types must be evaluated to appraise their ability to withstand the severe low-temperature and hard-vacuum environments that will be encountered. Problems must be solved through extensive analysis and breadboard test programs to ensure optimum subsystem selection and prove reliability before detailed design of space vehicles. This paper reviews a lunar-vehicle hydraulic system analysis and development program. The actuation tasks of many types of advanced space vehicles are determined. Subsystem trade studies presented for some of these tasks include evaluation of hydraulic, pneumatic, and electromechanical approaches to control requirements determined. The problems of developing hydraulic systems for long stay times in severe lunar environments are discussed.