As a Mechanical Engineer at FSI, I've had the opportunity to gain a ton of experience with large assemblies in SolidWorks, 3D printing, machining, as well as testing procedures with cryogenics and vacuum chambers. I have been a part of two projects so far at my time at FSI. One is called miniXMESS which was a 3U CubeSat designed to compress and shear regolith when being dropped from a drone as a payload in a rocket. The other project is a copper cooling box designed to actively cool regolith simulant with cryogenically cooled air in a vacuum chamber to simulate a space like environment.
3U CubeSat (miniXMESS)miniXMESS was a 3U CubeSat (100x100x300mm) that had a mass budget of 1.5 kg. It's purpose was to compress regolith simulant in the regolith container and shear it by using a linear actuator to slide the bottom shear box.
This CubeSat was used as a payload for a senior design rocket during a drop test at Florida Polytechnic University (4/17/23) in hopes of gaining data during free fall. Unfortunately the rocket was not recoverable due to the parachute not deploying. My CubeSat, however, withstood a majority of the impact and was salvageable in the wreckage. Most of the electronics weren't salvageable, but the mechanical part of the CubeSat were in fairly good shape. Most of the parts were 3D printed to accommodate the mass budget and for ease of manufacturing. However, 2 of the regolith chambers were machined using a mill and bandsaw. This project was great for learning my way around the machine shop. |
Copper Cooling Loop (LATS)
Description:
The vacuum chamber in the lab is used to perform tests on regolith simulant related experiments to test the geophysical properties of different extraterrestrial bodies. In particular, the project I am working on is a cooling box made out of copper, and has copper tubing running on the inside of it which will have liquid air from running a line through LN2. The cooling box I am working on will have a shear box on the inside of it, and will actively cool the shear box cool while it is conducting the experiment. The shear box and regolith simulant are cooled with liquid nitrogen before they are put into the cooling chamber as well. Material Selection: Copper was chosen because of it's high thermal conductivity, but will need insulation on the outside of the box to focus more of the heat transfer to the inside of the cooling assembly. |
Machining and Assembly:
The machining process for the copper plates was as follows: 1) Cut copper sheet in relatively equal sized squares to then machine each plate more precisely. 2) Use the end mill to square off each of the plates to the precise dimensions. 3) Continue use of end mill to machine out details in each of the copper plates. Basically just small rectangular pieces to take out for the linear rail and piece that allows the box to shear. 4) Utilize drill press to drill holes for the input and output piping. The assembly process for the copper tubing was as follows: 1) Take two pieces of tubing and apply flux to the outside end of the straight tubing, and the inside of the 90/180 degree fitting. 2) Join the two pieces, and use the blowtorch to heat up the flux and liquify it. 3) Hold solder to joint between straight pipe and fitting and wait for solder to start being pulled into the joint. 4) Wait for enough solder to be pulled in to secure the tubing. 5) Pull blowtorch away from tubing and let copper cool down. 6) Repeat for rest of assembly. Assembly and Integration of cooling loop and copper plates are on hold for testing the cooling loop for leaks. |