The Boeing Company

Darby Grant Cooper

Steven Fulton Griffin

Raju Dharmaraj

Patrick A Swartzell

James Michael Engle

Karl David Heiman

Naval Kishore Agarwal

An impact-compensating bucking bar and its use to reduce impacts during riveting, where the bucking bar includes a body; a strike surface on a distal portion of the body, a compensating inertial mass coupled to the body by a flexible and resilient mass support, and a handgrip coupled to the body and configured for the user to urge the strike surface of the bucking bar against a tail of a rivet to facilitate upsetting the rivet tail during riveting. A relative movement of the compensating inertial mass of the bucking bar in response to a strike on the rivet head at least partially dissipates energy imparted to the body during riveting, reducing impact stresses on the bucking bar user.

Impact-compensating bucking bar

A habitation module with a gravity chamber that provides an artificial gravity environment. In one embodiment, the gravity chamber is annular and includes an outer cylindrical wall, an inner cylindrical structure, and opposing side walls that connect the outer cylindrical wall and the inner cylindrical structure. The gravity chamber attaches to an outer surface of a hull of the habitation module with support bearings. The support bearing includes an inner race attached to the outer surface of the hull, and an outer race attached to the gravity chamber. A drive mechanism drives the outer race of the support bearing to rotate the gravity chamber about an axis to simulate a gravitational force within the gravity chamber.

Gravity chamber that rotates on support bearings mounted on an outer surface of a hull of a habitation module

Growing community of inventors

Madison, AL, United States of America

Darby Grant Cooper