Search Results

The McDonnell Douglas Delta family of launch vehicles, in its more than 30-year history, has proven to be the most reliable spacecraft deployment platform for both the US government and the private sector. This success is due to the continuous and focused application of advanced, affordable engineering and manufacturing technologies in all stages of the design, fabrication, assembly, quality assurance, and launch. One of the recent technological breakthroughs that has enhanced the Delta's service capabilities is the development and use of large composite structures in critical components. Among these structures is the payload fairing, which acts as a protective shroud for the spacecraft. Traditional composite manufacturing techniques, however, are very labor-intensive and time-consuming.

Although aircraft tires are traditionally tested on external dynamometers, the effects of the curved test surface on normal contact pressure distribution and footprint area of a tire have not been previously addressed. Using the Tire Force Machine (TFM) at the Wright Laboratory Landing Gear Development Facility (LGDF), trends for pressure distribution and footprint area were investigated for concave, convex and flat plate surfaces. This evaluation was performed using the F-16 bias, F-16 radial and B-57 bias main landing gear tires at rated load and inflation pressures. The trends for overall tire footprint behavior indicate that the more convex the surface, the smaller the contact area and the larger the normal contact pressures. Conversely, the more concave the surface, the larger the contact area and the smaller the normal contact pressures. Based on these results, the study recommends a 168″ diameter concave (internal roadwheel) dynamometer for tire wear/durability tests.

The Space Station Freedom program requires long-life thermal control coatings that are stable in low Earth orbit (LEO). To provide designers with a variety of coatings and optical properties, improvements were made to existing coatings, and new thermal control coatings were developed. Anodized aluminum was demonstrated to be an acceptable substrate for inorganic thermal control coatings such as Z-93. Mixtures of Z-93 with stable black oxides provided a wide range of optical properties and were stable in a simulated LEO environment. In addition, sulfuric acid anodized aluminum was developed to a production status to provide controlled optical properties for many aluminum alloys.