Design and maintainability considerations regarding the effects of suborbital flights on composite constructed vehicles
-
2010-08-13
Details:
-
Creators:
-
Corporate Creators:
-
Corporate Contributors:
-
Subject/TRT Terms:
-
Publication/ Report Number:
-
Resource Type:
-
Geographical Coverage:
-
Edition:Contractor report; Feb 2010- Jul 2010
-
Corporate Publisher:
-
Abstract:The Aerospace Corporation was tasked by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to provide technical support to the Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST), in developing guidance for AST and industry use on operational limitations and inspection requirements for suborbital reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) built using composite structures and subjected to a typical flight profile. Four representative suborbital flight profiles were selected from a previous study. A review of the literature was conducted, which included peerreviewed
journal articles, conference proceedings, and standards set forth by NASA, AIAA, and ASTM, with the goal of identifying the operational environment phenomena, and their adverse effects on fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites, and also considerations for maintenance of composites, including lessons learned in the use of composites by the aviation community. Additional contributions were obtained from interviews
with various subject-matter experts at The Aerospace Corporation. Environmental phenomena, their adverse effects on composite structure, and mitigation techniques, were identified. The phenomena were not ranked, in part due to lack of substantiated and uniform fidelity and maturity of data for each, but also due to the potential for synergistic effects and for environment coupling. Additionally, further study and data are necessary to
understand the influence of exposure time on the effects of these phenomena, and also the severity of their effect at a representative suborbital altitude. A substantial list of references is provided for further reading.
-
Format:
-
Funding:
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type: