Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

About: Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre is a facility organization based out in Thiruvananthapuram, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Aerosol & Ultimate tensile strength. The organization has 2092 authors who have published 3058 publications receiving 47975 citations. The organization is also known as: VSSC.

Hard X-ray polarimetry with Astrosat-CZTI

Abstract: X-ray polarimetry is largely an unexplored area of an otherwise mature field of X-ray astronomy. Except for a few early attempts during the 1970s, no dedicated X-ray polarimeter has been flown during the past four decades. On the other hand, the scientific value of X-ray polarization measurement has been well known for a long time, and there has been significant technical progress in developing sensitive X-ray polarimeters in recent years. But there are no approved dedicated X-ray polarimetric experiments to be flown in the near future, so it is important to explore the polarimetric capabilities of other existing or planned instruments and examine whether they can provide significant astrophysical polarization measurements. In this paper, we present experimental results to show that the CZTI instrument onboard the forthcoming Indian astronomy mission, Astrosat, will be able to provide sensitive measurements of X-ray polarization in the energy range of 100 300 keV. CZTI will be able to constrain any intrinsic polarization greater than 40% for bright X-ray sources (>500 mCrab) within a short exposure of 100 ks with a 3-sigma confidence level. We show that this seemingly “modest” sensitivity can play a very significant role in addressing long pending questions, such as the contribution of relativistic jets to hard X-rays in black hole binaries and X-ray emission mechanism and geometry in X-ray pulsars.

Synthesis and characterization of poly(vinyl ferrocene) grafted hydroxyl‐terminated poly(butadiene): A propellant binder with a built‐in burn‐rate catalyst

Abstract: The graft copolymer hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene-g-polyvinyl ferrocene (HTPB-g-PVF) was synthesized free radically from HTPB and vinyl ferrocene (VF) in benzene, using azobisisobutyronitrile as the radical initiator at 75°. The graft copolymer was analysed for its structural and thermal characteristics. The chemically bound ferrocene in HTPB-g-PVF, catalysis the oxygen up-take and oxidative degradation reactions of HTPB, and the mechanisms of the catalysis are discussed. The most probable grafting sites on HTPB and the mechanism of grafting also are discussed. The extent of the grafting, which was a function of VF concentration, was low. The graft copolymer also was tried as a propellant-binder-cum-burn-rate (BR) catalyst in a composite solid propellant, using toluene diisocyanate and trimethylol propane as curatives with dibutyl tin dilaurate as the curing catalyst, and the BRs of the propellants were evaluated at 3.9 MPa. The BRs increased with the extent of VF grafting but not proportionally. The BRs also were compared with those of reference HTPB propellants containing VF, Fe2O3, copper chromite, and so forth as BR catalysts. Chemically linked ferrocene in the binder augmented the propellant BR, probably because of the presence of catalytically active sites in the binder for its degradation. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 37: 4090–4099, 1999

Effect of drilling induced damage on notched tensile and pin bearing strengths of woven GFR-epoxy composites

Abstract: Analytical and experimental studies were made to evaluate the notched tensile and pin bearing strengths of the woven glass fiber reinforced (GFR)-epoxy composite laminates. The symmetric glass/epoxy woven mat cross-ply laminates containing 16 woven mats were prepared using hand lay-up technique with 45% of volume fraction. The laminates were cut into specimens as per ASTM standards. The experiments were done at three different feed rates, spindle speeds and hole diameters to examine the influence of drilling parameters on the notched tensile strength and bearing strengths of the laminates. The design of experiments and analysis of variance (ANOVA) techniques of Taguchi, were utilized to study the statistical influence of the drilling parameters on the extension of delamination. The fracture data of center-hole tensile specimens were correlated using a modification in one of the stress fracture criteria viz., the point stress criterion (PSC). The bearing strength was correlated with notched and un-notched tensile strengths of the woven fabric composite laminates.