Design and Maintainability Considerations Regarding the Effects of Suborbital Flights on Composite Constructed Vehicles
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 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, and standards set forth by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the American Society for Testing and Materials (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.
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- Record URL:
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Corporate Authors:
Aerospace Corporation
2350 East El Sequdo Boulevard
El Sequndo, CA United States 90245Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
55 Broadway
Cambridge, MA United States 02142Federal Aviation Administration
Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20591 -
Authors:
- Lundgren, Eric C
- Publication Date: 2010-8-13
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Edition: Final Report
- Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 34p
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Aircraft materials; Environmental phenomena; Fiber reinforced polymers; Interviewing; Literature reviews
- Uncontrolled Terms: Polymer matrix composites; Reusable launch vehicles; Suborbital flight
- Subject Areas: Aviation; Vehicles and Equipment;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01638271
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: DOT-VNTSC-FAA-10-13, ATR-2010(5569)-1
- Contract Numbers: DTRT57-05-D-30103, Task 27B
- Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
- Created Date: Jun 2 2017 2:25PM