Method for Design and Analysis of Externally Mounted Antenna Fairings in Support of Cryospheric Surveying

Snow and ice penetrating radar antenna arrays have been developed and flown on NASA DC-8 and P-3 aircraft as part of the NASA Operation Ice-Bridge program. These arrays required custom, externally-mounted fairings to house the antennas. This paper documents the method for generating project requirements, load development, and subsequent structural design and analysis. Static load and modal tests were also performed to verify the physics based simulations. Involvement in such interdisciplinary work provides the basis for large numbers of graduate and undergraduate students to gain practical experience in designing, fabricating, ground testing and flight testing aerospace structures.

[1]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[2]  R Etkins,et al.  The Rise of Global Mean Sea Level as an Indication of Climate Change , 1982, Science.

[3]  Kimio Hanawa,et al.  Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level , 2007 .

[4]  Wonjin Jin.  A computational study of icing effects on the performance of an S-duct inlet , 2009 .

[5]  Sivaprasad Gogineni,et al.  Polar radar for ice sheet measurements , 2003, IGARSS 2003. 2003 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium. Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37477).