Design and development of a space station hazardous materials information system for assessing chemical compatibility

This dissertation addresses the need for and development of a modeling process which will perform chemical and material compatibility analyses for the Space Station Microgravity and Material Processing Facility (MMPF). The modeling process includes development of a data base containing physical, chemical, toxicological, reactive, corrosive, and incompatibility properties for materials to be used in construction of the Space Station Freedom or in experiments to be conducted on-board. The underlying hypothesis of the modeling process is that by knowing the number of chemical incompatibilities, hazards and corrosivities for any given facility or mission, one can modify or substitute chemicals for a facility or facility manifest to reduce the number of chemical incompatibilities, hazards and corrosivities thus reducing the number of potential safety problems aboard the Space Station MMPF. The proposed process was developed into a computerized system with the aid of a relational data base and the development of application programs. An experiment was performed to validate the proposed model. This experiment consisted of utilizing the computerized system to identify the number of chemical incompatibilities, hazards and corrosivities for a given facility and a mission. The chemical requirements for the facility were modified utilizing "substitute" chemicals where appropriate, and the mission set was modified by replacing facilities with "substitute" facilities. The model was utilized to identify any reduction in the number of chemical incompatibilities, hazards and corrosivities resulting form the substitutions. The results of the study and the experiments establish both the process and the hypothesis to be accurate.