NARC Rayon Replacement Program for the RSRM Nozzle, Phase IV Qualification and Implementation Status

The Space Shuttle NARC Rayon Replacement Program has down-selected Enka rayon as a replacement for the obsolete NARC rayon in the nozzle carbon cloth phenolic (CCP) ablative insulators. Full qualification testing of the Enka rayon-based carbon cloth phenolic is underway, including processing, thmal/structural properties, and hot-fire subscale tests. Required thermal-structural capabilities, together with confidence in erosio/char performance in simulated and subscale hot fire tests such as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Laser Hardened Materials Evaluation Laboratory testing, NASA-MSFC 24-inch motor tests, NASA-MSFC Solid Fuel Torch - Super Sonic Blast Tube, NASA-MSFC Plasma Torch Test Bed, ATK Thiokol Forty Pound Charge and NASA-MSFC MNASA justified the testing of the new Enka-rayon candidate on full-scale static test motors. The first RSRM full-scale static test motor nozzle, fabricated using the new Enka rayon-based CCP, was successfully demonstrated in June 2004. Two additional static test motors are planned with the new Enka rayon in the next two years along with additional A-basis property characterization. Process variation or "corner-of-the-box" testing together with cured and uncured aging studies are also planned as some of the pre-flight implementation activities with 5-year cured aging studies over-lapping flight hardware fabrication

Flight 20 (STS-45) polysulfide gas path investigation

This report documents the results of the investigation into causes of gas paths on the 20A and 20B case-to-nozzle joints on STS-42. The investigation was conducted by the Investigation Board appointed by the senior vice president and general manager of Space Operations, Mr. R. E. Lindstrom, on 7 Feb. 1992. The probability of gas path occurrence in the nozzle-to-case-joint polysulfide had been identified during joint redesign. However, actual flight gas path incidence has been limited to RSRM-11 and the 20A and 20B segments. The blow-by condition on the 20A segment was a first time occurrence which was a special concern. The investigation covered all technical aspects associated with the gas path and blow-by conditions: materials and processing history, design requirements and as-built compliance to the design, thermal and structural analyses, computer modeling, and laboratory experimentation with the materials involved. The investigation was coordinated with Mr. Ken Jones at NASA Marshall in bi-weekly teleconferences. The Board also supported Dr. James C. Blair's independent NASA investigation team by providing copies of collected data, conducting requested analyses, and supporting several all-day teleconferences to provide understanding and resolve issues. The Dr. Blair support requirement was successfully concluded on 4 Mar. 1992

Acoustic and optical variations during rapid downward motion episodes in the deep north-western Mediterranean Sea

An Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) was moored at the deep-sea site of the ANTARES neutrino telescope near Toulon, France, thus providing a unique opportunity to compare high-resolution acoustic and optical observations between 70 and 170 m above the sea bed at 2475 m. The ADCP measured downward vertical currents of magnitudes up to 0.03 m s-1 in late winter and early spring 2006. In the same period, observations were made of enhanced levels of acoustic reflection, interpreted as suspended particles including zooplankton, by a factor of about 10 and of horizontal currents reaching 0.35 m s-1. These observations coincided with high light levels detected by the telescope, interpreted as increased bioluminescence. During winter 2006 deep dense-water formation occurred in the Ligurian subbasin, thus providing a possible explanation for these observations. However, the 10-20 days quasi-periodic episodes of high levels of acoustic reflection, light and large vertical currents continuing into the summer are not direct evidence of this process. It is hypothesized that the main process allowing for suspended material to be moved vertically later in the year is local advection, linked with topographic boundary current instabilities along the rim of the 'Northern Current'.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figure

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Improved Tensile Adhesion Specimens for High Strength Epoxy Systems in Aerospace Applications

An improved tensile adhesion button has been designed and tested that results in higher measured tensile adhesion strength while providing increased capability for testing high strength epoxy adhesive systems. The best attributes of two well-established tensile button designs were combined and refined into an optimized tensile button. The most significant design change to the tensile button was to improve alignment of the bonded tensile button specimens during tensile testing by changing the interface between the tensile button and the tensile test machine. The established or old button design uses a test fixture that pulls from a grooved annulus or anvil head while the new button design pulls from a threaded hole in the centerline of the button. Finite element (FE) analysis showed that asymmetric loading of the established anvil head tensile button significantly increases the stress concentration in the adhesive, causing failure at lower tensile test loads. The new tensile button was designed to eliminate asymmetric loading and eliminate misalignment sensitivity. Enhanced alignment resulted in improved tensile adhesion strength measurement up to 13.8 MPa (2000psi) over the established button design. Another design change increased the capability of the button by increasing the threaded hole diameter allowing it to test high strength epoxy systems up to 85 MPa(less than 12,000 psi). The improved tensile button can be used in button- to-button or button-to-panel configurations

Thermal Characterization of Epoxy Adhesive by Hotfire Testing

This paper describes subscale solid-rocket motor hot-fire testing of epoxy adhesives in flame surface bondlines to evaluate heat-affected depth, char depth and ablation rate. Hot-fire testing is part of an adhesive down-selection program on the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Nozzle to provide additional confidence in the down-selected adhesives. The current nozzle structural adhesive bond system is being replaced due to obsolescence. Prior to hot-fire testing, adhesives were tested for chemical, physical and mechanical properties, which resulted in the selection of two potential replacement adhesives, Resin Technology Group's TIGA 321 and 3M's EC2615XLW. Hot-fire testing consisted of four forty-pound charge (FPC) motors fabricated in configurations that would allow side-by-side comparison testing of the candidate replacement adhesives with the current RSRM adhesives. Results of the FPC motor testing show that: 1) the phenolic char depths on radial bondlines is approximately the same and vary depending on the position in the blast tube regardless of which adhesive was used, 2) the replacement candidate adhesive char depths are equivalent to the char depths of the current adhesives, 3) the heat-affected depths of the candidate and current adhesives are equivalent, and 4) the ablation rates for both replacement adhesives were equivalent to the current adhesives