KC-135: Particle Damping in Vibrating Cantilever Beams Midterm Report Team Leader: Bill Tandy Rob Ross John Hatlelid Tim Allison Advisors: Marcus Kruger, Dr. Ronald Stearman The University of Texas at Austin Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics March 5, 2004
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KC-135: Particle Damping in Vibrating Cantilever Beams Midterm Report
Team Leader: Bill Tandy Rob Ross
John Hatlelid Tim Allison
Advisors: Marcus Kruger, Dr. Ronald Stearman
The University of Texas at Austin Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
March 5, 2004
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MEMORANDUM
TO: Dr. Ronald O. Stearman, Marcus Kruger, Jennifer Lehman FROM: William D. Tandy, Jr., Tim Allison, Rob Ross, John Hatlelid DATE: March 5, 2005 SUBJECT: KC-135 Particle Damping Project Midterm Report Dear Dr. Stearman: The following report contains detailed information about the KC-135 Particle Damping Project. After our proposal (submitted to NASA during the fall 2003 semester) was accepted by NASA, our objectives for this semester included building an experimental apparatus and conducting our experiment on the KC-135. This document gives the details regarding the various aspects of our project, including the project team, project background, supporting theory, structural and electrical design, budget, and schedule. You will find that our project is currently on schedule and within budget. We anticipate that we will accomplish all of our objectives this semester. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Sincerely, William D. Tandy, Jr. Project Leader Tim Allison Flight Crew Rob Ross Flight Crew John Hatlelid Flight Crew
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Abstract
Five students from the University of Texas at Austin are working with NASA’s student flight opportunity program to test the effectiveness of particle damping on cantilever beams in a reduced gravity environment. The concept of the experiment was derived from industry inquiry into the applicability of particle damping on space structures. However, due to a lack of data the idea has seen limited use on actual flight hardware. To investigate the effect of particle damping in a microgravity environment the team of students designed, built, and are currently testing a series of cantilever beams filled with particles of varying material properties. The accelerations at the end of the cantilever beam will be measured with an accelerometer and data recorded with National Instrument’s suite of software applications. It is expected that at the conclusion of testing that clear differences in the magnitude and frequency of accelerations will be evident when comparing nominal, ground gravity influences and the reduced gravity field environment available on NASA’s KC-135. The flight dates for the team are April 1-10.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to the following individuals and companies:
Dr. Ronald O. Stearman: For providing advice regarding our equipment design and for supporting our team’s experiment with NASA.
Marcus Kruger: For his input during our weekly meetings. His
experience has been invaluable. NASA Reduced Gravity Office: For administrating the Reduced Gravity Student
Flight Opportunities Program and helping us with our experiment.
UT Department of ASE/EM: For the funds they provided to us and the equipment
they allowed us to borrow. We would have been unable to conduct the experiment without them.
Texas Space Grant Consortium: For providing funding to our project. They are
accomplishing their mission of making NASA’s goals achievable for every Texan.
Honeywell: For generously donating equipment for our project. National Instruments: For generously providing software licenses and
2.0 Project Description........................................................................................................ 4 2.1 Design the experiment .............................................................................................. 4 2.2 Write a successful TEDP .......................................................................................... 6 2.3 Fly the experiment .................................................................................................... 6 2.4 Draw conclusions from the data ............................................................................... 7
3.0 Team member’s roles.................................................................................................... 8 4.0 Theory ......................................................................................................................... 10
6.1 Test Bay Structural Analysis .................................................................................. 21 6.2 Test Bay Construction............................................................................................. 21 6.3 Data Acquisition System Design ............................................................................ 21 6.4 DAQ System Hardware Acquisition....................................................................... 25 6.5 Experimental Hardware System Design ................................................................. 26 6.6 Experimental Hardware Acquisition....................................................................... 29
7.0 Project Budget............................................................................................................. 30 7.1 Project Costs ........................................................................................................... 30 7.2 Project Funding and Other Assistance.................................................................... 32 7.3 Financial Status of the Project ................................................................................ 34
It was necessary to calculate these expressions for variations in energy in order to use the
extended Hamilton’s Principle to find an equation of motion. Extended Hamilton’s
Principle can be derived from the principle of virtual work, but the derivation is lengthy
and only the result is given below [3]:
02
1
=+−∫ dtWVTt
tncδδδ , if ( ) ( ) 0, 2,12,1 =+ txuty δδ (11)
Inserting equations (9) and (10) into equation (11), with δWnc equal to zero (there are no
forces other than the base excitation acting on the system, and the base excitation has
already been accounted for in the energy expressions), and after using integration by parts
several times, we obtain
( )( ) ( ) ( )∫ ∫ =+″′′−++−2
1 0
0......t
t
L
dtudxuEIuyuyA δδδρ &&&& (12)
Noting that δu is an arbitrary virtual displacement and can be set to any nonzero value,
we can conclude that the terms multiplying δu must be equal to zero. Rearranging those
terms gives the partial differential equation (PDE) describing the motion of the system:
14
( ) yAuEIuA &&&& ρρ −=″′′+ (13)
The modes of vibration can be found by solving the free response problem, i.e. setting the
right-hand side of equation (13) equal to zero. We can then employ the separation of
variables technique so ( ) ( ) ( )tFxUtxu =, . This method splits the PDE into two ordinary
differential equations (ODEs). The solution of the x-ODE is an algebraic eigenvalue
problem, which has an infinite number of solutions. Each solution represents a mode of
vibration and allows us to calculate the natural frequencies and deformation shape
associate with that mode.
Eventually, the orthogonality property of the modes can be used to calculate an ODE for
each mode and we can solve for the time-dependent portion of the response. Although
we have not yet calculated the mode shapes and solved the modal ODEs, we do know
that the final solution will be of the form [3]
( ) ( ) ( )txUtxu rr
r η∑∞
=
=1
, (14)
In equation (14), the Ur’s are the solutions to the algebraic eigenvalue problem and the
ηr’s are solutions to the modal ODEs. This infinite sum may be truncated after many
terms, leading to an analytical solution for the motion of the beam.
4.5 Analytical Goals As shown in the previous sections, relationships have been derived to describe
viscoelastic damping, frictional damping, and the response of a cantilever beam.
Initially, our goal had been to combine these relationships to predict the motion of each
sample. However, after speaking with Dr. Bennighof, it became apparent that finding
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analytical solutions for our samples is a much more complex task than for a simple
hollow rod. This fact compelled us to modify our goals; we have determined that finding
analytical solutions for every sample is beyond the scope of our project. Instead, we will
examine the effects of particle damping by analyzing the data acquired during our
experiments on the KC-135 and on the ground. The methods for data reduction have
been explained previously in section 2.4, “Draw Conclusions From the Data”.
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5.0 Test-bay Design In considering the design of our test bay we first had to answer the question, “How is the
experiment going to be designed?” We all agreed that the best way to implement an
experiment in a microgravity environment, which promotes clumsiness and involves
many hazards, would be to fully automate the process. Everyone would agree that
experimental procedures that consist of pressing a single button to run the experiment,
retrieve all of the data, and terminate the experiment automatically would be ideal. We
will be designing our experiment to do just that. In order to design an automated
experiment, we needed to design a test bay that would complement our desire to enjoy
the free floating portion of the microgravity flight. However, it was important that our
desire to enjoy the time spent in flight not be the only determining factor in our design.
Many other factors have gone into the design such as the requirements set forth by
NASA, the size restriction on the KC-135, and the materials available. These are factors
that seem to have been prescribed for us to a certain extent. The test bay must be able to
withstand 9 G’s, all of the components must stay attached to the test bay, and it all has to
fit in the test cabin within the KC-135. This space requirement is also closely related to a
more important design factor: human interaction (i.e. procedures); we wanted to provide
ample room for ourselves to move around the test bay during the flight. Overall, these
factors played a major role in the aesthetics of the test bay, but not so much in how we
intended to interact with it.
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Our interactions with the test bay are the major factor in the test bay and overall
experiment design. Human interaction should be the major factor in the design of just
about everything. It’s one thing to be able to make some calculations and lower the
weight of an aircraft; it’s a totally different thing to make sure the pilot of that aircraft
intuitively knows where the cockpit is located.
Donald Norman suggests in his book, “The Design of Everyday Things”, that things
should be obvious. He tells a story in which his friend got stuck in the breezeway of a
building [4]. This man walked through the first door of the breezeway, he inadvertently
got distracted between the first and second door, and when he went to walk through the
second door he had shifted to the hinge side of the door. The door wouldn’t open, as if it
were locked, so he attempted to go back outside, on the hinge side again. Something can
be taken from this situation aside from the obvious humor of a man being locked in a
breezeway between two unlocked doors. It is clear that the proper use of the doors was
not obvious.
That story is interesting because it actually has a lot to do with the design of the doors on
our test bay. Keep in mind that these doors are going to be the beginning and end of our
interactions with the test bay, and we will be interacting with them in a 1.8 G
environment, not a 1 G environment. Anybody who has ever been hit in the head by a
luggage compartment door underneath a bus can appreciate and anticipate the differences
a 1.8 G environment would have on the ensuing head injury. For this reason, our test
section (bottom) door opens down so that it lays flat on the floor when open. But this
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raises a problem that the breezeway door designers didn’t think about. How do you
design a flat handle that pulls a door open and make its use obvious to the user? A door
meant to be pushed open is one that could incorporate a flat plate, similar to the door you
see in the entrance of a kitchen. But, this door must be pulled open (it would consume all
the area on the inside of the test section if it were pushed open) and it must have a flat
handle on the outer side. Any handle that extrudes out of the surface of the door would
prevent it from laying flat on the floor, which is a problem because our magnified weight
could overstress the door as we stand on it during the 1.8 G phase. The team’s solution to
this problem was a handle that extends vertically from the end off the door. In the spirit
of making things obvious to the user (reader) as suggested by Donald Norman, we
decided to include Figure 5 as a probable description:
Figure 5: Bottom test bay door with handle mount.
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This design is not perfected yet. Norman suggests that the problem with doors is that
people “don’t know what to do” [4] when they approach a door. It is obvious that the
door should not be pushed open, but the design still lends itself susceptible to someone
trying to pull it straight up. There need to be more visual clues that indicate that the door
opens flat. Properly placed hinges do the trick, as shown in Figure 6:
Figure 6: Bottom test bay door with handle mount and hinges.
As you can see, this door can open flat as required, and with the assistance of hinges that
are placed in plain sight at the bottom, the door now has an obvious proper function.
This design also has an unanticipated benefit. The handle can act as a restraint for the
upper test bay doors that open like traditional cabinet doors. Norman calls this a
“physical constraint”. Notice how this physical constraint is made “more effective by its
ease to see and interpret. The set of actions is restricted before anything has been done,
while other designs may restrict a proper function only after it has been attempted” [4].
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Our procedures specifically call for the bottom test bay doors to open first and for the
upper test bay doors to be closed first, so this design also hints at some of the correct
specimen-swap procedures. This is in agreement with Norman’s design theory.
Finally, we would like to address the audience of our design. When you are writing a
book entitled “The Design of Everyday Things”, it becomes apparent that your audience
is everyone, or at least a very large portion of the world’s population. This is not the case
for our test bay. Specifically it is designed for an audience of four, who incidentally
happen to be the designers. For us, the proper operation of the bottom door will not be an
issue, but the smooth and coordinated swap of test specimens during the 40 second 1.8 G
phase will be. This highlights an added plus to the handle design on our bottom door.
The physical constraints provided by the handle on the upper test bay doors enables us to
eliminate an upper test bay door latch, which in turn saves time. Furthermore, while an
uninformed bystander may look at the layout of our test specimens, which are behind
those upper doors, with confusion, we will know that they are laid out in a specific
configuration aimed at minimizing the timing of the specimen swap procedures. This test
bay is definitely not designed with emphasis on how the general population would
interact with it; rather, it is designed with an emphasis of how we will interact with it.
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6.0 Progress Made
The initial progress of the experiment was primarily concerned with the design of the test
bay, data acquisition system, and experimental hardware.
6.1 Test Bay Structural Analysis A structural analysis was preformed on the 7-ply that will make up the walls and shelves
of the test bay. This structural analysis assumed that all the test equipment detached and
collided with the same wall at the same time. Taking into consideration the number of
bolts and the diameter of the washers used, it was found that such a collision would result
in a load of approximately 30 psi on the walls. The ultimate tensile strength of 7-ply is
on the order of 5000 psi [5] and therefore would be more than adequate to completely
contain all of our test equipment under a 9 G load.
6.2 Test Bay Construction The supplies for the test bay have all been purchased, with the exception of the 7-ply for
the walls and the shelves. Test bay construction is well underway. The frame is
completely finished. All that remains to complete the test bay construction is adding the
walls, shelves, and doors, as well as some miscellaneous items such as restraint handles
and pipe insulation that will act as padding on the corners.
6.3 Data Acquisition System Design Based on the recommendations from professors, TAs, and other design teams, National
Instruments hardware was decided upon for the data acquisition system. Initially a call
was placed to the National Instruments office in Austin Texas. The office requested a
few details about the experiment and offered to have a National Instruments
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representative visit campus to discuss possible data acquisition options. The National
Instruments representative, Travis Fergusson, visited the University of Texas at Austin on
February 8, 2004. He recommended a set of equipment for data acquisition based on our
projects needs. The data acquisition system consists of accelerometer data which is fed
into a laptop for data reduction. This process requires a series of hardware to properly
transform and condition the signal into one that can be read by the computer. The first
major component in this system is the data acquisition card that interfaces with the
laptop.
NI – 6036 DAQ Card
The data acquisition card recommended by Travis Fergusson was the NI-6036 DAQ card
(see Figure 7). This card is a good solution for this experiment because it is lightweight
and can be interfaced with a laptop, which is a key requirement for the experiment
because the team did not want to use a cumbersome desktop computer onboard the KC-
135. This data acquisition card is also useful because of its high sampling rate. If the
sampling rate of the data acquisition card is not high enough, the signal will not be
properly reproduced in the data. The NI-6036 data acquisition card has a maximum
sampling rate of 200 kS/s [6]. This will be more than sufficient for the purposes of this
experiment. The data acquisition card has a maximum of sixteen inputs. Since the
experiment only requires data from two accelerometers, the experiment requirements are
satisfied. The data acquisition card is also low cost, which is another key motivator in
equipment selection for this experiment. Finally, the data acquisition card requires that
the signal from the accelerometers be properly conditioned. This is accomplished
through a signal line conditioner, which is discussed in the next section.
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SCC Line Conditioner
The signal line conditioner recommended by both Travis Fergusson and the National
Instruments Online Data Acquisition Advisor was SCC line conditioning. SCC line
conditioning offers a low cost solution to signal conditioning. This system is also
lightweight and modular. Many of the alternative signal conditioning systems are bulky
and would not fit into the test cabinet. SCC line conditioning also offers the advantage of
being an entirely modular system [7]. There are a variety of modules available that plug
into the signal conditioner to allow the use of a variety of sensor types. The backbone of
the SCC signal conditioning system is the NI-SC-2345 shielded carrier.
NI-SC-2345 Shielded Carrier
The carrier system is the “heart” of the signal conditioning system. The carrier interfaces
with the data acquisition card and has modules attached to it for interfacing with the
accelerometers (see Figure 8). Additionally, this model is ideal because it is designed to
operate with the E-Series data acquisition cards manufactured by National Instruments
[7]. The NI-6036 data acquisition card being used in this experiment is one of the E-
Series data acquisition cards [6]. Also, the chosen carrier is very lightweight and
designed to be portable. Given the limited amount of space and weight constraints of the
experiment, the carrier’s portability is a key advantage. As an added benefit, the carrier
Figure 7: NI-6036 DAQ Card
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can support up to twenty modules for data input and output. Since there are only two
accelerometers being used in this experiment, this parameter is more than sufficient.
Power is input to the carrier from a variety of options, depending on the exact model
ordered from National Instruments. One of the available options is 120 VAC power
which is available on the KC-135 [7]. The SC-2345 interfaces with National Instruments
LabVIEW software [7]. The experiment will be easier to automate since the carrier
interfaces with LabVIEW. The SC-2345 is compatible with all recent versions of the
Windows operating system, which is all that is available for the experiment [7]. In order
for the SC-2345 to receive signals from the accelerometers, the appropriate SCC modules
must be connected to the SC-2345.
NI-SCC-ACC01 Accelerometer Modules
The SCC modules for interfacing with accelerometers are the NI-SCC-ACC01 (Figure 9).
These modules provide power to an accelerometer and send the accelerometer’s output to
the SC-2345. The SCC-ACC01 inputs the analog output of the accelerometer. The
SCC-ACC01 provides a 4 milliamp current excitation to the accelerometer [8]. This is
Figure 8. NI-SC-2345 Shielded Carrier
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what provides the power for the accelerometer. The module then filters out any signals
coming from the accelerometer above a frequency of 19 kHz [8]. Filtering is convenient
because it will prevent an overwhelming amount of erroneous data from being fed into
the data acquisition system. The module applies a gain of 2 to the accelerometer signal
[8]. The voltage range of the signal is between plus and minus five volts [8]. Each of
these modules can only interface with one accelerometer. Since two accelerometers will
be used, two of these modules are required. This is well within the limits of the SC-2345.
6.4 DAQ System Hardware Acquisition Once all of the desired hardware was selected, John Hatlelid began the process of
obtaining all of the needed hardware. Because of the limited budget of the program, the
research team needed as much of the hardware donated as possible. Travis Fergusson
recommended that the team contact Jason Clifton for hardware donations. An e-mail was
sent to Mr. Clifton on February 9, 2004 informing him of our project. After waiting
some time for a response from Mr. Clifton, Dr. Bishop informed us that Mr. Clifton was
the head of National Instruments academic division. Because of this, there was a concern
that Mr. Clifton was extremely busy and might not have a chance to read the request.
Dr. Bishop recommended that we contact Jim Cahow, another National Instruments
Figure 9: NI-SCC-ACC01 Accelerometer Modules
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employee. After an initial contact with Mr. Cahow, he requested a formal proposal with
a detailed technical abstract. A modified and updated version of the NASA proposal was
sent to Mr. Cahow. This proposal detailed the scientific merit of the experiment and
informed Mr. Cahow of the exact National Instruments hardware needed. On
March 4, 2004 a response was received from Mr. Cahow stating the he was interested in
our project and thought the proposal looked sufficient. Mr. Cahow requested that the
team complete the National Instruments Student Partnership form. This form is to
formalize the process of obtaining National Instruments hardware and is currently being
completed. It will be sent to Mr. Cahow on March 5, 2004.
6.5 Experimental Hardware System Design The experimental hardware consists of the accelerometers, shaker, and equipment used to
drive the shaker. Hardware must be carefully selected for the experiment to operate
properly. For instance, the accelerometers must be properly selected to ensure that the
data obtained in the experiment is useful.
Accelerometer Selection
Two accelerometers are used in this experiment. One is mounted on the point mass at the
tip of the cantilever beam to measure the response at the end of the beam. The other
accelerometer is mounted outside of the test bay to determine the overall acceleration of
the aircraft.
The selected accelerometers needed to meet a variety of requirements. Primarily, the
accelerometers needed to be light. If the accelerometers were heavy, they would have a
significant impact on the response of the beam. Along with being lightweight, the
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accelerometers must also be small in size. This is a matter of convenience. If the
accelerometers were large, they would be difficult to attach to the experiment.
Additionally, the accelerometers must have a high natural frequency. This is because if
the response of the beam is around the accelerometer’s natural frequency, the data output
by the accelerometer will be inaccurate.
John Hatlelid is a former Honeywell employee. Since Honeywell is an accelerometer
manufacturer, the team decided to see if any Honeywell accelerometers matched the
requirements. Initially the team wanted to use the Honeywell Sensotec MA35
accelerometer. However it was determined that this accelerometer would be difficult to
obtain. Lorenzo Rankins, a Honeywell employee, suggested the Honeywell Sensotec PA
accelerometer for this experiment (see Figure 10).
The PA is a suitable accelerometer for the experiment. The PA has a frequency range
from 3-5,000 Hz [9], while the response of the experiment system is not expected to
exceed 5,000 Hz. It was thus determined that the PA is a good compromise because it is
designed to measure both high and low frequencies. However, since the accelerometer is
not attempting to measure high frequencies, the resolution in the expected response range
will not be compromised. From further investigation it was found that the natural
frequency of the PA accelerometer is 30 kHz [9], which is well above any expected
output of the beam. Finally, the PA accelerometer weighs 3 ounces, which is small
enough for the experiment [9] and the accelerometer “is well suited to a rough
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environment” [9]. Having a rugged accelerometer is important, because the team cannot
obtain a large number of accelerometers.
Shaker and Shaker Input Hardware Selection
A shaker is needed to provide an excitation to the cantilever beam. The shaker is driven
using a power supply and function generator. The power supply provides the power to
drive the shaker and the function generator provides the waveform to determine the
frequency and peak to peak displacement of the shaker.
There is a wide range of shakers available. The size and weight limitations of the
experiment are the driving factor in shaker selection. The shaker only needs to provide
an output of 100 Hz; with approximately 0.75 inches of displacement. Fortunately, the
majority of shakers on the market are able to provide this output. However, the
experiment’s limiting factor in obtaining a shaker is cost. Several companies were
contacted regarding shakers and it was determined that the team could not purchase a
Figure 10. Honeywell Sensotec PA Accelerometer
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shaker given the team’s budget. The team then consulted Dr. Stearman about using one
of his shakers and is awaiting final approval.
Unfortunately, the shaker input hardware cannot be determined until the shaker has been
determined because the shaker input is dependent upon the shaker used. There are a wide
variety of power options available on the KC-135 so the exact shaker input device is only
limited by the output frequency. Virtually all function generators can output a signal of
100 Hz; for this reason the shaker input device will be determined by the shaker used in
the experiment.
6.6 Experimental Hardware Acquisition To obtain the accelerometers the team contacted Honeywell. The initial contact was with
John Hatlelid’s former supervisor, Harry Zulch. Mr. Zulch was able to direct the team
towards the sensors division inside of Honeywell. Next, the team contacted Lorenzo
Rankins, a representative of the sensors division in Honeywell. The team initially
requested the Sensotec MA35 accelerometer, but Mr. Rankin responded that Honeywell
would be able to supply the Sensotec PA accelerometer, which he felt matched the design
criteria of the experiment. Honeywell has agreed to donate at least one PA
accelerometer.
The team has talked with Dr. Stearman about using one of his shakers and input devices.
Dr. Stearman is also willing to provide an accelerometer if the team cannot obtain
another one from Honeywell or another source.
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7.0 Project Budget Although NASA provides a microgravity environment via the KC-135 for free, all
research teams are required to solicit any other needed funds from other sources. This
section explains the project costs and sources of funding.
7.1 Project Costs The team estimated that $5000 was needed for equipment, travel, lodging, and medical
costs. This amount is broken down in this section and summarized in Table 1.
Rods
This budget item covers the hollow copper rods that will be filled with damping particles
and excited by the shaker. A large number of rods are required because each rod must be
pre-filled with various configurations of damping particles in order to test a variety of
configurations quickly.
Cabinet Materials
This category covers all of the costs associated with cabinet construction, i.e. steel angle
irons, steel support struts, steel L-clamps, MDF base and shelves, 7-ply walls, bolts, and
door latches.
Damping Particles
We plan to purchase three types of damping particles (sand, metal BBs, and plastic BBs)
to place inside the various rods at different fill ratios.
Rod Mount
The rod mount is the component that will connect the rods to the shaker.
Miscellaneous Construction
31
This category provides a safety margin for any incidental expenses incurred for
equipment.
Casters
These heavy-duty casters will be used for loading and unloading of equipment on the
KC-135.
Wiring
This category includes the cost of surge protectors and electrical wiring used to connect
electrical components of the experiment.
End Masses
A large mass will be placed at the end of each rod in order to increase vibration
amplitude.
Meals
A cost of $7 per person per meal was assumed for the 5 team members over a 10-day stay
in Houston.
Hotel Fees
The ASE/EM department has arranged for the team to stay at the Hilton Hotel in Houston
for 9 nights at approximately $100/night.
Travel
The ASE/EM department has arranged the rental of two minivans for a period of 11 days.
This category covers the rental cost as well as the cost for gasoline.
Student Physicals
32
Four of the students were required to receive a special physical from an FAA-certified
medical examiner. The fifth team member already had a valid FAA medical certificate
and was exempted from this requirement.
Item
Quantity Cost per Item Total Cost
Supplies and Materials - - - Rods 24 $15 $360 Cabinet Materials 1 $410 $410 Damping Particles 1 $100 $100 Rod Mount 1 $60 $60 Miscellaneous Construction 1 $50 $50 Casters 4 $10 $40 Wiring 1 $25 $25 End Masses 1 $5 $5 Travel, Lodging and Medical - - - Meals 150 $7 $1050 Hotel Fees 9 $100 $900 Travel 2 $850 $1700 Student Physicals 4 $75 $300
TOTAL COST $5000
7.2 Project Funding and Other Assistance The team was able to obtain funding and other financial assistance from several sources.
The sources and assistance received from each source are explained below and
summarized in Table 2.
NASA Reduced Gravity Office (RGO)
In addition to allowing us to fly our experiment free of charge on the KC-135, the NASA
RGO is providing engineering and medical support for us.
Table 1. Experiment Cost Details
33
UT Dept. of Aerospace Engineering & Engineering Mechanics
The chairman of the department, Dr. Robert H. Bishop, generously agreed to provide
$3000 for our experiment. Dr. Bishop’s motivation for providing funding was that he
wished to support a research project conducted by students from within the department.
Dr. Ronald O. Stearman, also from the department, has indicated that he is willing to lend
a shaker to the team if they are unable to obtain one from another source. Efforts to
obtain a shaker through this point have been unsuccessful and we will likely borrow Dr.
Stearman’s shaker.
Finally, the team has requested permission to use the digital video camera and a laptop
computer owned by the department’s learning resource center (LRC). The team leader,
Bill Tandy, currently works there and is following up with the lab director.
Texas Space Grant Consortium
The Texas Space Grant Consortium (TSGC) is a group of 35 institutions that are joined
to ensure that the benefits of space research and technology are available to all Texans.
After reviewing our application and budget, TSGC has offered to provide $2000 towards
any lodging, travel, and medical expenses incurred by our team.
National Instruments
National Instruments (NI) has an education software licensing agreement with the
University of Texas that allows us to use their LabView software at no charge. They are
also in the process of considering our requests for donations or price cuts on data
acquisition cards and function generators.
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Honeywell
Honeywell has agreed to provide the team with the accelerometers required for our
experiment. One of our team members, John Hatlelid, was previously employed by them
and was able to obtain donations by speaking with his former supervisor.
Institution Type and Amount of Assitance UT Dept. of ASE/EM $3000, Shaker, Digital Video Camera,
Laptop Computer Texas Space Grant Consortium $2000 National Instruments LabView Software, DAQ Card, Function
Generator Honeywell Accelerometers
7.3 Financial Status of the Project The project is currently within budget, although the test assembly construction has not
been completed. Some materials were less expensive than anticipated, leaving extra
funds to handle any unforeseen expenses. It is expected that the project will easily be
completed within the budget detailed above.
Table 2. Sources of Funding and Other Assistance
35
8.0 Schedule The schedule of this project is driven by the assigned flight period of April 1st through
April 10th at which point all aspects of the project must be completed by this date.
Naturally, the tasks must be completed during the project in a nearly sequential order.
Ground experiments must be completed prior to the experiments on-board the aircraft
because there needs to be a way of verifying if the experimental data is valid. Prior to
conducting the ground tests the entire test setup needs to be built and tested. NASA
requires that the teams conduct outreach programs to educated people about the research
project and the aerospace industry in general. These projects will carried out during the
duration of the project. In order to visualize the project schedule a GANT chart was
created with all of the project milestones. This is a convenient way of visualizing the
task hierarchy. Table 3 shows the tasks that need to be completed. Figure 11 is the
GANT chart generated for the project.
Table 3 – Project Tasks
36
Figure 1 – Gant Chart
37
9.0 References 1. Olson, Stephen E. “Development of Analytical Methods for Particle Damping.” CSA Engineering Technical Papers.1999. http://www.csaengineering.com/techpapers/
techpapers.shtml (5 Mar. 2004). 2. Liechti, K.M. “Aerospace Materials Laboratory (ASE 324L) Manual.” 2002, p. 78. 3. Meirovitch, Leonard. “Distributed-Parameter Systems: Exact Solutions.” Fundamentals of Vibrations, 1st ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001, pp. 374-458. 4. Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York, 1988,
pp. 3-85. 5. Clouston, P., and Lam, F., “Computational modeling of Strand-Based Wood
Composites in Compression.” 2000. http://timber.ce.wsu.edu/Resources/ papers/1-3-3.pdf (3 March 2004).
6. “NI-6036 Data Sheet.” http://www.ni.com/pdf/products/us/4daqsc205-207_229_238-
243.pdf (3 Mar 2004). 7. “NI-SC-2345 Data Sheet.” http://www.ni.com/pdf/products/us/4daqsc251-52_266-
69_194-96.pdf (3 Mar 2004). 8. “NI-SCC Configuration Guide” http://www.ni.com/pdf/products/us/4daqsc253-
265_194-196.pdf (3 Mar 2004). 9. “Honeywell Sensotec PA Accelerometer Product Data Sheet.”