Energy Efficient Engine: Flight propulsion system final design and analysis

The Energy Efficient Engine (E3) is a NASA program to create fuel saving technology for future transport engines. The Flight Propulsion System (FPS) is the engine designed to achieve E3 goals. Achieving these goals required aerodynamic, mechanical and system technologies advanced beyond that of current production engines. These technologies were successfully demonstrated in component rigs, a core engine and a turbofan ground test engine. The design and benefits of the FPS are presented. All goals for efficiency, environmental considerations, and economic payoff were met. The FPS has, at maximum cruise, 10.67 km (35,000 ft), M0.8, standard day, a 16.9 percent lower installed specific fuel consumption than a CF6-50C. It provides an 8.6 percent reduction in direct operating cost for a short haul domestic transport and a 16.2 percent reduction for an international long distance transport

Investing in Innovation: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry

This dissertation explores the role that organizations play in bringing scientific innovations to society. Chapter 1 situates this work in the current landscape of innovation research and motivates the need for further research on this topic. Chapter 2 explores the role thatfailure, both technological and regulatory, plays in understanding how organizations make future investments in innovative projects. I find that following FDA rejection, biopharmaceutical firms become significantly less likely to further invest in unrelated products already under development. However, they experience a higher proportion of future successes, as they redirect investment into less risky innovations. In contrast, I find no evidence of these effects in response to technological failures at the end of clinical trials, suggesting that this effect is not driven by the loss of firm value nor does it support a traditional Bayesian updating framework. Rather, these findings are consistent with the idea that there is a difference between failure at the technological level versus failure at the decision making level.Chapter 3 illustrates how the boundaries of an organization influence the type of innovations in which organizations do and not choose to invest following a sudden reshuffling of consumer demand. I demonstrate that a sudden increase in market size (and therefore expected revenue) increases an established firm’s propensity to make larger investments in products in their pipeline that are less likely to receive approval. However, I find that this result only holds for those organizations that diversify into fewer therapeutic spaces and are additionally more centralized. I theorize that, in line with findings from organizational economics and internal capital allocation inefficiency, this is due to management having greater control over resource allocation decisions in more centralized firms.Finally, Chapter 4 studies how the type of innovation pursued may affect market outcomes and competitive interactions between organizations. Using drug repurposing as a research context, I explore how the repurposing of a pharmaceutical drug for a new disease impacts its sales, and the sales of its competitors, for other approved uses. By leveraging variation in the combination of diseases that one drug treats and the timing of those disease approvals, I find a positive spillover effect of repurposing on sales of the drug for other diseases and this effect also spills over into the drug’s close competitors. Furthermore, I find that this growth in sales comes at the expense of competitors further away in therapeutic type. These findings have important implications for a pharmaceutical firm’s R&D strategy and the strategic responses to be made by competitors

Relationships Between Self-Concept, Teacher Expectation, and Academic Achievement: An Analysis of Social-Emotional Well Being and its Relation to Classroom Performance

As a current teacher at McAlister Intermediate School in Suffield, Connecticut, I am interested in analyzing the relationship between a student’s self-concept, their academic achievement, and the expectations that their teacher holds for them within the classroom. My personal interests lead to a literature review and subsequent study examining existing research surrounding self-concept, teacher expectation, and their relationships to academic achievement

Deep reconditioning of batteries during DSCS 3 flight operations

Deep reconditioning of batteries is defined as discharge below the 1.0 volt/cell level to a value of about 1.0 volt/battery. This type of reconditioning was investigated for use on the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) spacecraft, and has been used during the first year of orbital operation. Prior to launch of the spacecraft, the deep reconditioning was used during the battery life test, which has now complete fourteen eclipse periods. Reconditioning was performed prior to each eclipse period of the life test, and is scheduled to be used prior to each eclipse period in orbit. The battery data for discharge and recharge is presented for one of the life test reconditioning cycles, and for each of the three batteries during the reconditioning cycles between eclipse period no.1 and eclipse period no.2 in Earth orbit

Combustion system processes leading to corrosive deposits

Degradation of turbine engine hot gas path components by high temperature corrosion can usually be associated with deposits even though other factors may also play a significant role. The origins of the corrosive deposits are traceable to chemical reactions which take place during the combustion process. In the case of hot corrosion/sulfidation, sodium sulfate was established as the deposited corrosive agent even when none of this salt enters the engine directly. The sodium sulfate is formed during the combustion and deposition processes from compounds of sulfur contained in the fuel as low level impurities and sodium compounds, such as sodium chloride, ingested with intake air. In other turbine and power generation situations, corrosive and/or fouling deposits can result from such metals as potassium, iron, calcium, vanadium, magnesium, and silicon

High temperature environmental effects on metals

The gas turbine engine was used as an example to predict high temperature environmental attack on metals. Environmental attack in a gas turbine engine derives from high temperature, combustion products of the air and fuel burned, and impurities. Of all the modes of attack associated with impurity effects, hot corrosion was the most complicated mechanistically. Solutions to the hot corrosion problem were sought semi-empirically in: (1) improved alloys or ceramics; (2) protective surface coating; (3) use of additives to the engine environment; and (4) air/fuel cleanup to eliminate harmful impurities

Energy efficient engine: Flight propulsion system, preliminary analysis and design update

The preliminary design of General Electric's Energy Efficient Engine (E3) was reported in detail in 1980. Since then, the design has been refined and the components have been rig-tested. The changes which have occurred in the engine and a reassessment of the economic payoff are presented in this report. All goals for efficiency, environmental considerations, and economic payoff are being met. The E3 Flight Propulsion System has 14.9% lower sfc than a CF6-50C. It provides a 7.1% reduction in direct operating cost for a short haul domestic transport and 14.5% reduction for an international long distance transport