NASA Headquarters and Centers
Lewis Research Center
Located in Cleveland, Ohio, Lewis Research Center is engaged in advancing
propulsion technology, permitting aircraft to fly faster, farther and higher,
and focusing its research talents on aircraft fuel economy, noise abatement,
reliability, and reduced pollution.
Lewis is NASA's Center of Excellence in turbomachinery and commands
top priority research in aeropropulsion. The Lewis Aeronautics Directorate
and Aeropropulsion Research Program Office lead efforts in subsonic and
supersonic propulsion, propulsion materials and structures, associated
propulsion support technologies, as well as hybrid hyperspeed propulsion
for aerospace application.
Among the specialty areas of investigation at the center are instrumentation
and controls; fluid mechanics and heat transfer; high temperature metallic,
intermetallic, ceramic, polymeric, and composite materials; structural
mechanics and durability; basic chemistry and electrochemistry; tribology;
photovoltaics; and microwave electronics. Both theoretical and applied
research are pursued, the latter ranging from small laboratory experiments
to full -scale component and systems tests.
Organized in 1941 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA), the forerunner organization to NASA, this center is one of four
assigned to NASA's Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology Enterprise.
Research efforts at Lewis have affected every United States aircraft
built since the early 1940s and have contributed to American leadership
in international aviation. This is characterized by the Icing Research
Tunnel, the world's largest, established in 1944. Research in this facility
led to the development of ice protection technologies that largely have
diminished icing problems for aircraft, although improvements in this arena
continue at the tunnel.
| NASA's Advanced Communications Technology
Satellite (ACTS) is the technology leader of satellite communications,
using futuristic dynamic hopping beams and advanced on-board switching
and processing. |
The year 1973 saw Lewis intent on reducing jet engine noise. A ground
and flight test phase of a program aimed at significantly reducing the
jet engine noise of DC-9 and 727 commercial transports was being shaped.
Studies had been completed at the time, indicating it was possible, using
existing technology, to quiet these aircraft jet engines without degrading
engine or aircraft performance. NASA-contracted studies were done by Pratt
and Whitney Aircraft Division of United Aircraft Corporation (now United
Technologies Corporation), the Douglas Aircraft Company of McDonnell Douglas
Corporation, and the Boeing Company.
A refanning phase of the program dealt with modifying a JT8D jet engine.
Where the engine's present two-stage fan was contained, a larger, single
stage fan would be installed. As a result of the larger single fan, the
jet engine exhaust velocity was reduced, thereby significantly reducing
jet engine noise. Acoustic treatment to muffle fan noise was incorporated
in the engine housing. Two booster stages were added to the jet engine,
lowering pressure compression to maintain the proper airflow conditions
to the engine core.
Intensive work at Lewis was also carried out in 1973 on the guidance
equations for NASA's liquid -hydrogen fueled Centaur launch vehicle. The
Centaur, an upper stage for the Atlas and Titan rockets which was pioneered
and perfected under Lewis management, had been updated to automatically
check by computer the vehicle systems prior to and during the flight. A
16,000 -word capacity computer had replaced the original 4,800 word capacity
computer.
On the environmental front, Lewis assisted the Environmental Protection
Agency in developing the technology for a low pollution automobile using
a gas turbine engine. Still another move by Lewis on modifying automobile
engine exhaust made use of technology originally designed to protect nuclear
rocket nozzles from vibration.
That same year, Lewis engineers were also occupied by installing a solar
system at the center. Not quite on the planetary scale, this experimental
solar system collected sunlight to heat and cool a one-story office building.
The hardware itself was being planned for Langley Research Center in Hampton,
Virginia.
This rich history and diversity of work continues today at Lewis. Aeronautical
and related programs in 24 major facilities and over 500 specialized research
facilities are done at the center's 350-acre Cleveland location and 6,400-acre
Plum Brook Station site in Sandusky.
One of those facilities, the Hypersonic Wind Tunnel, is the only nonvitiated
hypersonic tunnel in the United States. It produces high mass-flow rates
of high temperature, uncontaminated air for simulating Mach 5 through Mach
7 velocities. Other wind tunnels support supersonic, transonic, and subsonic
research.
| Advanced high-temperature materials with
lifetimes up to 18,000 hours are critical to the design of low-emission
powerplants for a future high -speed civil transport. NASA's Enabling Propulsion
Materials program seeks to meet the technical challenges of supersonic
airliner engine requirements. |
Fundamental microgravity science experiments are tasked to the Lewis
Microgravity Division. Academic, industry and government researchers have
access to the Lewis ground-based research facilities. The program also
supports the conduct of microgravity science experiments on the Shuttle
and in the future aboard the International Space Station.
Combustion Module-1 (CM-1), for example, is the largest payload of Lewis-developed
experiments ever flown. Slated to fly in 1997, lessons learned from CM-1
will improve awareness regarding the process of combustion. This appreciation
may lead to practical applications both in space and here on Earth, such
as improved fire safety and more efficient, clean-burning combustion engines.
Moreover, CM-1 is a prototype for a permanent combustion experiment facility
on board the International Space Station.
Plum Brook Station at Lewis received a taste of Mars. The Station hosted
tests of the air bag landing gear that provided the Mars Pathfinder with
a soft, upright landing when it encounters the rugged terrain of Mars in
July 1997. In addition, Pathfinder was fitted with three experiments designed
and built by Lewis to determine the effects of the Martian environment
on surface exploration systems.
Back down on Earth, satellite communications is another Lewis specialty.
The center manages the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS)
project, essentially an orbiting technology laboratory for communications.
ACTS is examining and verifying advanced high-gain spot-beam Ka-band technologies.
Industry, government, and university organizations are using ACTS to conduct
a wide variety of integrated video, data, voice, and multimedia tasks.
Experiment operations are now conducted 24 hours a day, seven days a week
after it was deployed from a Space Shuttle in September 1993, then boosted
into geostationary orbit.
Satellite operations and experiments are expected to continue to the
year 2000. The 14 Federal Communications Commission filings for orbital
slot locations demonstrate the impact that the ACTS experiment has had
on the future of communications services.
Lewis Research Center is committed to playing a critical role in sustained
aerospace leadership of the United States in the 21st century. It has the
necessary technical assets, core capabilities, human capital, and facilities
to support aeropropulsion and space research, technology, and development.
Just as important, it has the support of its customers, stakeholders, and
strategic partners in the business, university and public sectors. That
confab assures that Lewis will have a major impact on the scope and direction
of the nation's aerospace program and on national competitiveness in the
approaching new millennium.
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