Pressure-stabilized tanks

[Nanimo]

Hello,

I am looking for technical information on the design of pressure-stabilized tank or "balloon tank". That kind of tank was used for the propellants of the centaur upper stage rocket. I have found a few documents online but I was wondering of some people might have experience with that kind of pressure vessel and if you have literature you would recommend me to read.

Thanks

 

[WKTaylor]

Nanimo...

NASA/SP-2004-4230 Taming liquid hydrogen : the centaur upper stage rocket, 1958-2002

Regards, Wil Taylor

Trust Me! I'm an engineer!

Trust - But Verify!

We believe to be true what we prefer to be true.

For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible.

Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant – "Orion"

 

[Nanimo]

I read it a couple of years ago (very good book). The details are a bit scattered everywhere in the document although. I was hoping for a more technical apparatus (with drawings?). Most info I have on the design comes from Huzel and Huang in Modern Engineering design for Liquid-propellant rockets.

 

[WKTaylor]

Also...

Structural design of missiles and spacecraft, Abraham, Lewis H. 1962
ch. 9. Pressure stabilized structure

http://www.amazon.com/Structural-Design-Missiles-Spacecraft-Abraham/dp/0070001502

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...g_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&sr=&qid=

Regards, Wil Taylor

Trust Me! I'm an engineer!

Trust - But Verify!

We believe to be true what we prefer to be true.

For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible.

Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant – "Orion"

 

[MikeHalloran]

I saw a few during an interview in 1970 or so.
I think they were .010" thick, maybe five-ish feet in diameter and ten-ish feet long.
The head to shell joint was reinforced a little so an external fixture could be attached to hold the shell in tension to keep it from wrinkling. The other choice for handling the tanks was to keep them pressurized to 10-ish psi.
Great care was taken to not scratch their shiny surfaces.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Nanimo]

Thanks all, that's good info. I'd love to sit down and chat with an engineer from the centaur era !

 

[WKTaylor]

Mike... I alway heard the comparison that the skin on Atlas was about the thickness of a US dime [10-cent coin].

Regards, Wil Taylor

Trust Me! I'm an engineer!

Trust - But Verify!

We believe to be true what we prefer to be true.

For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible.

Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant – "Orion"

 

[btrueblood]

I had a professor in university (Gordon Oates) who gave us a lecture regarding structural-propulsion dynamics interactions. One of his examples was the Atlas missile, wherein at a certain altitude, the missile would start to veer off course. It turned out that as the tank emptied, the node of bending vibration of the missile moved, which eventually affected the yaw gyro. The gyro signals would increase as it saw the increasing bending mode vibrations, which then fed back to the engine yaw controls until the controls started hitting their stops. If you review the test history of the Atlas, there were multiple failures at something like 63 nm altitude. The fix was to put the yaw gyro onto an axially oriented rail, and to move it along that rail during flight so it would always be at a location where it was not affected by the bending mode.

 

[MikeHalloran]

The tanks I saw were _much_ thinner than a US dime; just a little thicker than an aluminum beer can.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[tbuelna]

You might want to take a look at the space shuttle external tank design. I understand it had to be pressurized during transport in a horizontal position to keep it from collapsing.

Another interesting factor to consider with large cryogenic propellant tank structures is the significant effects of "cryo-shrinkage" when they are filled with LOx/LH2 on the launch pad.

 

[Nanimo]

The thickness of the centaur tanks were between 0.35 and 0.8mm (the thickest being on the lowest part of the tank)