Session: 17-01-01 Research Posters

Paper Number: 71881

Start Time: Thursday, 02:25 PM

71881 - Mechanical Design and Development of a Suborbital Payload For Real-Time Data Acquisition and Structural Health Monitoring 

Real time data acquisition and structural health monitoring are vital functions to include in any aerospace black box. To facilitate the development of products that utilize these technologies, test payload architectures must be designed to safely deliver experimental components to the environments they are expected to perform in. The purpose of this project was to design, analyze, assemble, and launch a payload mounting support system to space for a New Mexico Tech structural health monitoring (SHM) experiment and Immortal Data Inc. innovative data acquisition system experiment. The payload container securely mounted electronic components and internal connecting wires inside of a specified volume, including room for external connectors. The mount was designed to tolerate the loads experienced on the flight to space including vibrational, thermal, and g-loads. The team rapidly iterated through the design process due to a particularly tight timeline while responding to rapid changes in design criteria. The expected environment for the payload is much more strenuous than environments seen on manned flights: the radial accelerations are likely to exceed 18.5 g’s and axial accelerations are likely to exceed 18 g’s. Additionally, the design was severely limited by an extremely tight allowable mass budget. With these criteria in mind, an industrial strength 3D printing material called ULTEM 1010 was chosen due to its significant yield strength and low density when compared to other 3D printing material and aluminum candidates. The choice to pursue 3D printing opened up a variety of architectural options in payload design. To determine whether or not the tolerances and requirements are sufficiently met, the team has performed finite element analysis on the payload structure in COMSOL Multiphysics and Soliworks. Stresses due to acceleration loads, de-spinning event, and ground impact were evaluated and safety factors were determined. Thermal analysis of the payload was performed for a suborbital flight environment. Particular attention was given to the integration of the hardware pertaining to the SHM experiment. This experiment monitors the condition of a cantilever beam throughout the flight using an electro-mechanical impedance method. A special fixture to enable a fixed condition at one end of the beam was designed and integrated into the payload. To enable the electro-mechanical impedance diagnostics, a thin piezoelectric wafer sensor was bonded to the beam and connected to a portable impedance analyzer. This allowed for local storage of the electro-mechanical impedance data. Validation of this experimental setup was performed in laboratory conditions in which the impedance of the beam was measured in several frequency bands. Based on dynamic characteristics of the beam, low frequency bandwidth was selected for impedance analysis. To maximize the effect of load conditions on the dynamics of the beam, the beam axis was set perpendicular to flight direction. Numerical and experimental studies confirm the design validity and the possibility of electro-mechanical impedance diagnostics of the payload. 

Presenting Author: Dane Robergs New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology

Authors:

Dillon Cvetic-Thomas New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
Amy Tattershall New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
Eli Jackson New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
Dane Robergs New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
Funmilola Nwokocha New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
Andrei Zagrai New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology