The International Space Station Assembly on Schedule

As engineers continue to prepare the International Space Station (ISS) for in-orbit assembly in the year 2002, ANSYS software has proven instrumental in resolving a structural problem in the project's two primary station modules -- Nodes 1 and 2. Proof pressure tests performed in May revealed "low temperature, post-yield creep" in some of the Nodes' gussets, which were designed to reinforce ports for loads from station keeping and reboost motion of the entire space station. An extensive effort was undertaken to characterize the creep behavior of the 2219-T851 aluminum forging material from which the gussets were made. Engineers at Sverdrup Technology, Inc. (Huntsville, AL) were responsible for conducting a combined elastic-plastic-creep analysis of the gussets to determine the amount of residual compressive stress which existed in the gussets following the proof pressure tests, and to determine the stress-strain history in the gussets while on-orbit. Boeing, NASA's Space Station prime contractor, supplied the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model geometry and developed the creep equations from the experimental data taken by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and Langley Research Center. The goal of this effort was to implement the uniaxial creep equations into a three dimensional finite element program, and to determine analytically whether or not the creep was something that the space station program could live with. The objective was to show analytically that either the creep rate was at an acceptable level, or that the node module had to be modified to lower the stress levels to where creep did not occur. The elastic-plastic-creep analysis was performed using the ANSYS finite element program of ANSYS, Inc. (Houston, PA). The analysis revealed that the gussets encountered a compressive stress of approximately 30,000 pounds per square inch (psi) when unloaded. This compressive residual stress significantly lowered the maximum tension stress in the gussets which decreased the creep strain rate. The analysis also showed that the gussets would not experience a great deal of creep from future pressure tests if braces or struts proposed by Boeing were installed to redistribute stress away from them. Subsequent analysis of on-orbit station keeping and reboost loads convinced Boeing that the gussets should be removed altogether.