Flight test of a resident backup software system

A new fault-tolerant system software concept employing the primary digital computers as host for the backup software portion has been implemented and flight tested in the F-8 digital fly-by-wire airplane. The system was implemented in such a way that essentially no transients occurred in transferring from primary to backup software. This was accomplished without a significant increase in the complexity of the backup software. The primary digital system was frame synchronized, which provided several advantages in implementing the resident backup software system. Since the time of the flight tests, two other flight vehicle programs have made a commitment to incorporate resident backup software similar in nature to the system described in this paper

Normal-fault stress and displacement through finite-element analysis

We compute displacement and stress due to a normal fault by means of two-dimensional plane-strain finite-element analysis. To do so, we apply a system of forces to the fault nodes and develop an iterative algorithm serving to determine the force magnitudes for any slip distribution. As a sample case, we compute the force magnitudes assuming uniform slip on a 10-km two-dimensional normal fault. The numerical model generates displacement and stress fields that compare well with the analytical solution. In fact, we found little difference in displacements (<5%), displacement orientation (<15°), and stress components (<35%, half of which due to slip tolerance). We analyze such misfit, and discuss how the error propagates from displacement to stress. Our scheme provides a convenient way to use the finite-elements direct method in a trial-and-error procedure to reproduce any smooth slip distribution

Physical and mechanical properties of sustainable hydraulic mortar based on marble slurry with waste glass

This paper aims to propose and characterize a sustainable hydraulic mortar entirely obtained by the reuse of waste materials, with marble slurry coming from quarries in the northwestern Sicily and glass powder coming from a waste collection plant in Marsala (Province of Trapani). The first was used as raw material to produce the mortar binder by a kilning and slaking process, while the second was used as a pozzolanic additive. The chemical and morphological characterization of the marble slurry was done by XRD, FTIR, STA and SEM analyses. Glass powder was analyzed through particle size distribution measurements, XRD and standard pozzolanic tests. Hydraulic mortars constituted by slaked lime from kilned marble slurry and waste glass powder (LGS) were prepared beside commercial Natural Hydraulic Lime (NHL) based mortars (NGS) and air-hardening lime (LSS)-based mortars. Mechanical and absorption properties of the mortars were investigated as a function of the grain size of the glass powder by means of three-point bending and compressive strength tests, capillary uptake, helium pycnometry and simultaneous thermal analysis. The results demonstrated that the formulation LGS exhibits significantly improved mechanical and absorption properties compared to air-hardening mortars (LSS). It confirms the possibility of producing a more sustainable hydraulic mortar exclusively from waste materials for civil engineering