The Development of Methodologies and Solvent Systems to Replace CFC-113 in the Validation of Large-Scale Spacecraft Hardware

TL;DRAbstract

Liquid oxygen is used as the oxidizer for the liquid fueled main engines during the launch of the space shuttle. Any hardware that comes into contact with pure oxygen either during servicing of the shuttle or in the operation of the shuttle must be validated as being free of nonvolatile residue (NVR). This is a safety requirement to prevent spontaneous combustion of carbonaceous NVR if it was to come into contact with pure oxygen. Previous NVR validation testing of space hardware used Freon (CFC-113) as the test solvent. Because CFC-113 no longer can be used, a program was conducted to develop a NVR test procedure that uses a safe environmentally friendly solvent. The solvent that has been used in the new NVR test procedure is water. Work that has been conducted over the past three years has served to demonstrate that when small parts are subjected to ultrasound in a water bath and NVR is present a sufficient quantity is dispersed into the water to analyze for its concentration by the

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