Design Guide for Bearings Used in Cryogenic Turbopumps and Test Rigs

Cryogenic bearings are a unique and specialized area of the overall group of bearings that are used every day in industrial and aerospace applications. Cryogenic bearings operate in a unique environment that is not experienced by most bearing applications. The high speeds of turbomachinery, flow of cryogenic coolants, use of nonstandard materials, and lack of lubrication place unique demands on cryogenic bearings that must be met for the safety and success of the mission. To meet the goals of safety and success, requirements are put on the designer, manufacturer, and user that are not normally applied to off-the-shelf bearings. The designer has to have knowledge of the operating conditions, rotational speeds, loads, stresses, installation methods, inspection criteria, dimensional requirements, and design and analytical tools. The manufacturer needs to be aware of the materials used for cryogenic bearings, special heat treatments required, cleanliness of the processes, and inspection techniques to ensure a good product. The user needs to be aware of the safe handling practices to eliminate corrosion and debris, correct installation and removal procedures, pre- and post-test inspections, and the documentation that follow the bearings. This guide is based on the experiences of engineers at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) that have been involved in bearing research and testing along with specific bearing references that have been written. It is not meant to be a bearing design textbook for cryogenic bearing applications. These are available from many authors. Its purpose is to help the designer, manufacturer, or user in the application of cryogenic bearings to better understand the requirements placed on these bearings

Turbulence and turbulent mixing in natural fluids

Turbulence and turbulent mixing in natural fluids begins with big bang turbulence powered by spinning combustible combinations of Planck particles and Planck antiparticles. Particle prograde accretions on a spinning pair releases 42% of the particle rest mass energy to produce more fuel for turbulent combustion. Negative viscous stresses and negative turbulence stresses work against gravity, extracting mass-energy and space-time from the vacuum. Turbulence mixes cooling temperatures until strong-force viscous stresses freeze out turbulent mixing patterns as the first fossil turbulence. Cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies show big bang turbulence fossils along with fossils of weak plasma turbulence triggered as plasma photon-viscous forces permit gravitational fragmentation on supercluster to galaxy mass scales. Turbulent morphologies and viscous-turbulent lengths appear as linear gas-proto-galaxy-clusters in the Hubble ultra-deep-field at z~7. Proto-galaxies fragment into Jeans-mass-clumps of primordial-gas-planets at decoupling: the dark matter of galaxies. Shortly after the plasma to gas transition, planet-mergers produce stars that explode on overfeeding to fertilize and distribute the first life.Comment: 23 pages 12 figures, Turbulent Mixing and Beyond 2009 International Center for Theoretical Physics conference, Trieste, Italy. Revision according to Referee comments. Accepted for Physica Scripta Topical Issue to be published in 201

A real-time digital computer program for the simulation of a single rotor helicopter

A computer program was developed for the study of a single-rotor helicopter on the Langley Research Center real-time digital simulation system. Descriptions of helicopter equations and data, program subroutines (including flow charts and listings), real-time simulation system routines, and program operation are included. Program usage is illustrated by standard check cases and a representative flight case

The All-dq-domain Emtp

This paper presents an improvement to dq-domain method of calculating electromagnetic transients. The proposed methodology works on dq-domain model for all components of the power system and during all time iterations. This is a new direction distinct from the old one where the network is invariably modeled in phase-domain. By modeling the network in dq-domain there is no more problem of interfacing machine to network as usually met in the existing method as machine is modeled invariably in dq-domain. Besides eliminating the time consuming transformation procedure between dq-domain to phase-domain or visa versa the new method is able now to fully exploit the infinite stability region of the trapezoidal rule of integration. The prediction/correction procedure of the conventional dq-domain method, which is notoriously known limiting the stability region, is no longer required. Comparing simulations using the new method and ATP, one of the conventional dq-domain version, show perfect conformity for small time step. For long time step while ATP is failing, the new method still converges accurately up to Nyquist\u27s interval

Closed Form Solution of Synchronous Machine Short Circuit Transients

This paper presents the closed form solution of the synchronous machine transients undergoing short circuit. That analytic formulation has been derived based on linearity and balanced conditions of the fault. Even though restrictive, the proposed method will serve somehow or other as a new resource for EMTP productivity. Indisputably superior, the closed-form formulation has some features inimitable by discretization such as continuity, accuracy and absolute numerical stability. Moreover, it enables us to calculate states at one specific instant independent of previous states or a snapshot, which any discretization methods cannot do

An evaluation of bearings operating in a cryogenic environment with silicon nitride rolling elements

The bearings used in the space shuttle main engine (SSME) high pressure oxidizer turbopump (HPOTP) do not meet the expected life goals that were set for them. In an effort to improve their performance, many solutions are being studied. New bearing materials are being developed, better manufacturing techniques are being investigated, and improved cage materials for better lubrication are being tested. The focus is on the replacement of steel balls with ones made of silicon nitride in 57-mm HPOTP bearings. The bearings were then installed in a test rig and run at near turbopump operating conditions. The results from this test series are encouraging, with silicon nitride showing good wear resistance and thermal stability

The Apollo Virtual Microscope Collection: Lunar Mineralogy and Petrology of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 Rocks

We report on the new Virtual Microscopes on Apollo 16 lunar samples in our Apollo Virtual Microscope collection

XMM-Newton Observations of NGC 507: Super-solar Metal Abundances in the Hot ISM

We present the results of the X-ray XMM-Newton observations of NGC 507, a dominant elliptical galaxy in a small group of galaxies, and report 'super-solar' metal abundances of both Fe and a-elements in the hot ISM of this galaxy. We find Z_Fe = 2-3 times solar inside the D25 ellipse of NGC 507. This is the highest Z_Fe reported so far for the hot halo of an elliptical galaxy; this high Iron abundance is fully consistent with the predictions of stellar evolution models, which include the yield of both type II and Ia supernovae. The spatially resolved, high quality XMM spectra provide enough statistics to formally require at least three emission components: two soft thermal components indicating a range of temperatures in the hot ISM, plus a harder component, consistent with the integrated output of low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). The abundance of a-elements (most accurately determined by Si) is also found to be super-solar. The a-elements to Fe abundance ratio is close to the solar ratio, suggesting that ~70% of the Iron mass in the hot ISM was originated from SNe Type Ia. The a-element to Fe abundance ratio remains constant out to at least 100 kpc, indicating that SNe Type II and Ia ejecta are well mixed in a scale much larger than the extent of the stellar body.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, Accepted in ApJ (v613, Oct. 1, 2004); Minor revisions after referee's comments; A high-resolution pdf file available at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~kim/pap/N507_XMM.pd

Human fur gene encodes a yeast KEX2-like endoprotease that cleaves pro-beta-NGF in vivo.

Extracts from BSC-40 cells infected with vaccinia recombinants expressing either the yeast KEX2 prohormone endoprotease or a human structural homologue (fur gene product) contained an elevated level of a membrane-associated endoproteolytic activity that could cleave at pairs of basic amino acids (-LysArg- and -ArgArg-). The fur-directed activity (furin) shared many properties with Kex2p including activity at pH 7.3 and a requirement for calcium. By using antifurin antibodies, immunoblot analysis detected two furin translation products (90 and 96 kD), while immunofluorescence indicated localization to the Golgi apparatus. Coexpression of either Kex2p or furin with the mouse beta-nerve growth factor precursor (pro-beta-NGF) resulted in greatly enhanced conversion of the precursor to mature nerve growth factor. Thus, the sequence homology shared by furin and the yeast KEX2 prohormone processing enzyme is reflected by significant functional homology both in vitro and in vivo