Advanced Control Surface Seal Development for Future Space Vehicles

TITLE AND SUBTITLE:
Advanced Control Surface Seal Development for Future Space Vehicles

AUTHOR(S):
J.J. DeMange, P.H. Dunlap, Jr., and B.M. Steinetz

REPORT DATE:
January 2004

FUNDING NUMBERS:
WBS-22-794-40-4V

PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES):
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field
Cleveland, Ohio 44135-3191

PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER:
E-14305

SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES):
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, DC 20546-0001

REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED:
Technical Memorandum

SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY REPORT NUMBER:
NASA TM-2004-212898

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES:
Prepared for the 39th Combustion/27th Airbreathing Propulsion/21st Propulsion Systems Hazards/3rd Modeling and Simulation Joint Subcommittee Meeting sponsored by the Joint-Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force (JANNAF) Interagency Propulsion Committee, Colorado Springs, Colorado, December 1-5, 2003. J.J. DeMange, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio 43606; and P.H. Dunlap, Jr. and B.M. Steinetz, NASA Glenn Research Center. Responsible person, P.H. Dunlap, organization code 5950, 216-433-3017.

ABSTRACT:
NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) has been developing advanced high temperature structural seals since the late 1980's and is currently developing seals for future space vehicles as part of the Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) program. This includes control surface seals that seal the edges and hinge lines of movable flaps and elevons on future reentry vehicles. In these applications, the seals must operate at temperatures above 2000 °F in an oxidizing environment, limit hot gas leakage to protect underlying structures, endure high temperature scrubbing against rough surfaces, and remain flexible and resilient enough to stay in contact with sealing surfaces for multiple heating and loading cycles. For this study, three seal designs were compared against the baseline spring tube seal through a series of compression tests at room temperature and 2000 °F and flow tests at room temperature. In addition, canted coil springs were tested as preloaders behind the seals at room temperature to assess their potential for improving resiliency. Addition of these preloader elements resulted in significant increases in resiliency compared to the seals by themselves and surpassed the performance of the baseline seal at room temperature. Flow tests demonstrated that the seal candidates with engineered cores had lower leakage rates than the baseline spring tube design. However, when the seals were placed on the preloader elements, the flow rates were higher as the seals were not compressed as much and therefore were not able to fill the groove as well. High temperature tests were also conducted to asses the compatibility of seal fabrics against ceramic matrix composite (CMC) panels anticipated for use in next generation launch vehicles. These evaluations demonstrated potential bonding issues between the Nextel fabrics and
CMC candidates.

SUBJECT TERMS:
Seals; Flow; Design; Test; High temperature

NUMBER OF PAGES:
22

PDF AVAILABLE FROM URL:
2004/TM-2004-212898.pdf ( 864 KB )
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