ALBERT

Description: Approaches to optimize the adhesive joint strength between shape memory alloy ribbons and carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy composites were investigated for potential use as either an actuating structure or a dampening composite for structural applications. The interfacial bond strength between nickel-titanium (NiTi) and a polymer matrix composite (PMC) was measured by double lap shear testing as a function of NiTi surface treatment and adhesive material. The effect of NiTi surface treatment on damping was investigated using dynamic mechanical analysis. Lap shear data show that treating the surfaces of NiTi ribbons by light sandblasting and primer application increased the interfacial bond strength by 20 percent over the baseline composite structure. Lap shear data also reveal that out of three different film adhesives investigated, samples bonded with AF 191U and Hysol 9696U display the highest adhesive joint strengths. Optical microscopy reveals that most samples failed by either cohesive failure within the adhesive or by adhesive failure at either the adhesive/PMC or NiTi/adhesive interface. Adhering NiTi to the PMC did not appear to negatively impact damping performance; however, a more thorough examination into NiTi's role on vibration damping should be investigated.

Description: Application of polymer matrix composite materials for jet engine fan blades is becoming attractive as an alternative to metallic blades; particularly for large engines where significant weight savings are recognized on moving to a composite structure. However, the weight benefit of the composite of is offset by a reduction of aerodynamic efficiency resulting from a necessary increase in blade thickness; relative to the titanium blades. Blade dimensions are largely driven by resistance to damage on bird strike. Further development of the composite material is necessary to allow composite blade designs to approximate the dimensions of a metallic fan blade. The reduction in thickness over the state of the art composite blades is expected to translate into structural weight reduction, improved aerodynamic efficiency, and therefore reduced fuel consumption. This paper presents test article design, subcomponent blade leading edge fabrication, test method development, and initial results from ballistic impact of a gelatin projectile on the leading edge of composite fan blades. The simplified test article geometry was developed to realistically simulate a blade leading edge while decreasing fabrication complexity. Impact data is presented on baseline composite blades and toughened blades; where a considerable improvement to impact resistance was recorded.

Description: Impact damage tolerance and damage resistance is a critical metric for application of polymer matrix composites where failure caused by impact damage could compromise structural performance and safety. As a result, several materials and/or design approaches to improve impact damage tolerance have been investigated over the past several decades. Many composite toughening methodologies impart a trade-off between increased fracture toughness and compromised in-plane strength and modulus. In large part, mechanical tests to evaluate composite damage tolerance include static methods such as Mode I, Mode II, and mixed mode failures. However, ballistic impact damage resistance does not always correlate with static properties. The intent of this paper is to evaluate the influence of a thermoplastic polyurethane veil interleave on the static and dynamic performance of composite test articles. Static coupon tests included tension, compression, double cantilever beam, and end notch flexure. Measurement of the resistance to ballistic impact damage were made to evaluate the composites response to high speed impact. The interlayer material showed a decrease of in-plane performance with only a moderate improvement to Mode I and Mode II fracture toughness. However, significant benefit to impact damage tolerance was observed through ballistic tests.

Description: In this work, the modeling of triaxially braided composites was explored through a semi-analytical discretization. Four unique subcells, each approximated by a "mosaic" stacking of unidirectional composite plies, were modeled through the use of layered-shell elements within the explicit finite element code LS-DYNA. Two subcell discretizations were investigated: a model explicitly capturing pure matrix regions, and a novel model which absorbed pure matrix pockets into neighboring tow plies. The in-plane stiffness properties of both models, computed using bottom-up micromechanics, correlated well to experimental data. The absorbed matrix model, however, was found to best capture out-of- plane flexural properties by comparing numerical simulations of the out-of-plane displacements from single-ply tension tests to experimental full field data. This strong correlation of out-of-plane characteristics supports the current modeling approach as a viable candidate for future work involving impact simulations.

Description: Composite spur gears were fabricated and then tested at NASA Glenn Research Center. The composite material served as the web of the gear between the gear teeth and a metallic hub for mounting to the torque-applying shaft. The composite web was bonded only to the inner and outer hexagonal features that were machined from an initially all-metallic aerospace quality spur gear. The Hybrid Gear was tested against an all-steel gear and against a mating Hybrid Gear. As a result of the composite to metal fabrication process used, the concentricity of the gears were reduced from their initial high-precision value. Regardless of the concentricity error, the hybrid gears operated successfully for over 300 million cycles at 10000 rpm and 490 in.*lbs torque. Although the design was not optimized for weight, the composite gears were found to be 20% lighter than the all-steel gears. Free vibration modes and vibration/noise tests were also conduct to compare the vibration and damping characteristic of the Hybrid Gear to all-steel gears. The initial results indicate that this type of hybrid design may have a dramatic effect on drive system weight without sacrificing strength.

Description: In order to design impact resistant aerospace components made of triaxially-braided polymer matrix composite materials, a need exists to have reliable impact simulation methods and a detailed understanding of the material behavior. Traditional test methods and specimen designs have yielded unrealistic material property data due to material mechanisms such as edge damage. To overcome these deficiencies, various alternative testing geometries such as notched flat coupons have been examined to alleviate difficulties observed with standard test methods. The results from the coupon level tests have been used to characterize and validate a macro level finite element-based model which can be used to simulate the mechanical and impact response of the braided composites. In the analytical model, the triaxial braid unit cell is approximated by using four parallel laminated composites, each with a different fiber layup, which roughly simulates the braid architecture. In the analysis, each of these laminated composites is modeled as a shell element. Currently, each shell element is considered to be a smeared homogeneous material. Simplified micromechanics techniques and lamination theory are used to determine the equivalent stiffness properties of each shell element, and results from the coupon level tests on the braided composite are used to back out the strength properties of each shell element. Recent improvements to the model include the incorporation of strain rate effects into the model. Simulations of ballistic impact tests have been carried out to investigate and verify the analysis approach.

Description: For angleply composites, lamina tension and compression strengths are commonly determined by applying classical lamination theory to test data obtained from testing of angleply composite specimens. For textile composites such as 2D triaxial braids, analysis is more complex and standard test methods do not always yield reliable strength measurements. This paper describes recent research focused on development of more reliable tensile test methods for braided composites and presents preliminary data for various approaches. The materials investigated in this work have 0deg+/-60 2D triaxial braid architecture with nearly equal fiber volume fraction in each of the three fiber directions. Flat composite panels are fabricated by resin transfer molding (RTM) using six layers of the braided preform aligned along the 0deg fiber direction. Various epoxy resins are used as matrix materials. Single layer panels are also fabricated in order to examine local variations in deformation related to the braid architecture. Specimens are cut from these panels in the shape of standard straight-sided coupons, an alternative bowtie geometry, and an alternative notched geometry. Axial tensile properties are measured using specimens loaded along the 0deg fiber direction. Transverse tensile properties are measured using specimens loaded perpendicular to the 0deg fibers. Composite tubes are also fabricated by RTM. These tubes are tested by internal pressurization using a soft rubbery material sealed between the inside diameter of the tube and the load fixtures. The ends of the tube are unconstrained, so the primary load is in the hoop direction. Tubes are fabricated with the 0deg fibers aligned along the tube axis by overbraiding the preform on a mandrel. Since the loading is in the hoop direction, testing of the overbraided tube provides a measure of transverse tensile strength. Previous work has indicated that straight-sided coupons yield a transverse tensile strength that is much lower than the expected material strength because of premature edge-initiated failure. Full-field strain measured during transverse tensile tests clearly showed accumulation of edge damage prior to failure. In the current work, high speed video and testing of single layer specimens are used to investigate potential failure mechanisms in more detail. High speed video clearly shows the edge initiation in six layer transverse tensile test coupons. Specimens with the bowtie geometry and the notched geometry minimize this edge effect and yield significantly higher transverse tensile strength values compared to the straight-sided coupons. However, bowtie and notched specimens geometries are not ideal because of the non-uniform stress and strain fields in the region of failure. Testing of tubes using internal pressurization eliminates edge-initiated failure and provides a more uniform state of stress and strain. Preliminary results indicate that bowtie, notched, and tube specimens yield comparable values for transverse tensile strength and that these values are much higher than the strength measured using a straight-sided coupon.

Description: This poster summarizes 2 years of aging on E862 epoxy and E862 epoxy with triaxial braided T700s carbon fiber composite. Several test methods were used to characterize chemical, physical, and mechanical properties of both the resin and composite materials. The aging cycle that was used included varying temperature and humidity exposure. The goal was to evaluate the environmental effects on a potential jet engine fan section material. Some changes were noted in the resin which resulted in increased brittleness, though this did not significantly affect the tensile and impact test results. A potential decrease in compression strength requires additional investigation.

Description: This paper describes exploratory modeling of an on-demand urban air mobility (UAM) network and sizing of vehicles to operate within that network. UAM seeks to improve the movement of goods and people around a metropolitan area by utilizing the airspace for transport. Aircraft sizing and overall network performance results are presented that include comparisons of battery-electric and various hybrid-electric vehicles that are fueled with diesel, jet fuel, compressed natural gas, and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Hybrid-electric propulsion systems consisting of internal combustion engine-generators, turbine-generators, and solid oxide fuel cells are explored. Ultimately, the "performance" of the UAM network over a day for each of the different vehicle types, propulsion systems, and stored energy sources is described in four parameters: 1) the average cost per seat-kilometer, which considers the costs of the energy/fuel, vehicle acquisition, insurance, maintenance, pilot, and battery replacement costs, 2) carbon dioxide emission rates associated with vehicle operations, 3) the average passenger wait time, and 4) the average load factor, i.e., the total number of seats filled with paying passengers divided by the total number of available seats. Results indicate that the "dispatch model," which determines when and where aircraft are flown around the UAM network, is critical in determining the overall network performance. This is due to the often-conflicting desires to allow passengers to depart with minimal wait time while still maintaining a high load factor to reduce operating costs. Additionally, regardless of the dispatch model, hybrid-electric aircraft powered by internal combustion engines fueled with diesel or LNG are consistently the lowest cost per seat-kilometer. Battery-electric and future technology LNG/solid oxide fuel cell aircraft produce the lowest emissions (assuming the California grid) with LNG-fueled internal combustion engine-powered hybrids producing only slightly more carbon dioxide.

Description: Urban air mobility (UAM) is an emerging aviation market that seeks to revolutionize mobility around metropolitan areas via a safe, efficient, and accessible on-demand air transportation system for passengers and cargo. In this paper we describe our three-pronged approach to studying passenger-carrying UAM missions, and we detail the first phase of this approach, which consists of defining an initial set of requirements for multiple exemplar UAM missions. The development of these mission requirements provides justifiable assumptions that feed the second phase of the approach, which is performing aircraft conceptual design studies. Vehicle design is not included in this paper, but the work described here will define sizing missions for follow-on design and sizing studies. The aircraft that emerge from the design studies can then feed the third phase of our UAM analysis approach, which involves simulating an entire UAM network over a metropolitan area to study transportation-system level characteristics. Iteration between each of the three phases of the UAM analysis approach will be necessary to propagate lessons learned as our research progresses and as the UAM community coalesces on a more unified vision for UAM. Therefore, we anticipate that the mission requirements set forth in this paper will be modified over time as the urban air mobility concept matures.