Design, manufacture, and testing of the Armstrong Hall drop tower decelerator
Abstract
A decelerator was needed for the Armstrong Hall Microgravity tower. Three designs were considered as concepts and the one chosen was an airbag. The airbag is 5 feet tall and 4.5 feet in diameter due to floor constraints. The deceleration was controlled by designing the vent system to provide the needed vent area as a function of time. This dynamics vent area controls the rate at which volume is expelled from the airbag. The volume expelled depends on the pressure inside the airbag, thus, a direct relation between the vent area and the deceleration profile was determined. The airbag and associated infrastructure was designed, manufactured, and tested. This system includes an airbag with a cushion on top to prevent wear, cart and rails, a drop package, and a latch and release system. More than forty tests were done with different drop height and drop weight combinations culminating in three drops of 200 lbs from the third floor. The drop weight was varied by adjusting the water level in a plastic barrel in the drop package. Pressure measurements inside the bag and vent were taken using two pressure transducers. The pressure transducers sampled the pressure at one of the exit vents and at the center of the bottom of the airbag. The signals were low-pass filtered for noise and scaled for pressure. The pressure traces were processed to find the mean deceleration. The deceleration was found to be independent of drop weight, only depending on drop height. The traces were also integrated to find a momentum per unit area. This value was then compared to the momentum of the drop package. From these two results an effective impact area can be found. It was found that the cushion not only reduced wear but also increased the effective impact area substantially. This increase in area reduced the value of the mean deceleration by reducing the pressure inside the airbag. The airbag proved to work well for the drops, decelerating the package and preventing a direct hit with the bottom of the container and cart.
Degree
M.S.A.A.
Advisors
Collicott, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Aerospace engineering
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