Evaluation of machine sewn joints for the flexible heat shield curtain

Feasibility of machine sewing wire reinforced asbestos and silica cloth plies of flexible heat shield curtain assembl

Measurement and analysis of critical crack tip processes during fatigue crack growth

The mechanics of fatigue crack growth under constant-amplitudes and variable-amplitude loading were examined. Critical loading histories involving relatively simple overload and overload/underload cycles were studied to provide a basic understanding of the underlying physical processes controlling crack growth. The material used for this study was 7091-T7E69, a powder metallurgy aluminum alloy. Local crack-tip parameters were measured at various times before, during, and after the overloads, these include crack-tip opening loads and displacements, and crack-tip strain fields. The latter were useed, in combination with the materials cyclic and monotonic stress-strain properties, to compute crack-tip residual stresses. The experimental results are also compared with analytical predictions obtained using the FAST-2 computer code. The sensitivity of the analytical model to constant-amplitude fatigue crack growth rate properties and to through-thickness constrain are studied

Worldwide flight and ground-based exposure of composite materials

The long-term durability of those advanced composite materials which are applicable to aircraft structures was discussed. The composite components of various military and commercial aircraft and helicopters were reviewed. Both ground exposure and flight service were assessed in terms of their impact upon composite structure durability. The ACEE Program is mentioned briefly

Nonlinear optical thresholding in a 4-Channel OCDMA system via two-photon absorption

We demonstrate the use of a Two-Photon Absorption based detector in an OCDMA system. This detector provides a significant performance improvement over standard linear detection

GRMHD simulations of accretion onto Sgr A*: How important are radiative losses?

We present general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) numerical simulations of the accretion flow around the supermassive black hole in the Galactic centre, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). The simulations include for the first time radiative cooling processes (synchrotron, bremsstrahlung, and inverse Compton) self-consistently in the dynamics, allowing us to test the common simplification of ignoring all cooling losses in the modeling of Sgr A*. We confirm that for Sgr A*, neglecting the cooling losses is a reasonable approximation if the Galactic centre is accreting below ~10^{-8} Msun/yr i.e. Mdot < 10^{-7} Mdot_Edd. But above this limit, we show that radiative losses should be taken into account as significant differences appear in the dynamics and the resulting spectra when comparing simulations with and without cooling. This limit implies that most nearby low-luminosity active galactic nuclei are in the regime where cooling should be taken into account. We further make a parameter study of axisymmetric gas accretion around the supermassive black hole at the Galactic centre. This approach allows us to investigate the physics of gas accretion in general, while confronting our results with the well studied and observed source, Sgr A*, as a test case. We confirm that the nature of the accretion flow and outflow is strongly dependent on the initial geometry of the magnetic field. For example, we find it difficult, even with very high spins, to generate powerful outflows from discs threaded with multiple, separate poloidal field loops.Comment: Resubmitted to MNRAS, including modifications in response to referee report. 13 pages, 15 figure

Aberrational Effects for Shadows of Black Holes

In this paper, we discuss how the shadow of a Kerr black hole depends on the motion of the observer. In particular, we derive an analytical formula for the boundary curve of the shadow for an observer moving with given four-velocity at given Boyer--Lindquist coordinates. We visualize the shadow for various values of parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; Proceedings of the 524. WE-Heraeus-Seminar held at the Physikzentrum, Bad Honnef, Germany, 17.--23.2.201

Radiative Models of Sagittarius A* and M87 from Relativistic MHD Simulations

Ongoing millimeter VLBI observations with the Event Horizon Telescope allow unprecedented study of the innermost portion of black hole accretion flows. Interpreting the observations requires relativistic, time-dependent physical modeling. We discuss the comparison of radiative transfer calculations from general relativistic MHD simulations of Sagittarius A* and M87 with current and future mm-VLBI observations. This comparison allows estimates of the viewing geometry and physical conditions of the Sgr A* accretion flow. The viewing geometry for M87 is already constrained from observations of its large-scale jet, but, unlike Sgr A*, there is no consensus for its millimeter emission geometry or electron population. Despite this uncertainty, as long as the emission region is compact, robust predictions for the size of its jet launching region can be made. For both sources, the black hole shadow may be detected with future observations including ALMA and/or the LMT, which would constitute the first direct evidence for a black hole event horizon.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to the proceedings of AHAR 2011: The Central Kiloparse