Tuesday, January 11, 2011

A Plan for tanks.

The rocket equation has two parts structural efficiency and motor performance. Since the beginning of our project we have spent considerable effort thinking about structural efficency.

Clearly modern composite structures hold real promise for improving structural efficiency. I've dabbled in composite structures but I am very much a beginner. The tanks produced by professionals like Scorpius Launch Systems/Microcosm are both amazingly functional and beautiful. It would take me a decade to acquire that level of expertise. The recent composite coupons I tested for peroxide compatibility were fabricated by Microcosm/Scorpius. I'm currently riding home from a meeting at their facility where we finished the details of a joint development program to build peroxide compatible liner less tanks.

I think this is a win win for both parties Scorpius will get a new product line and we will gain access to world class tanks.

8 comments:

William said...

That's awesome, Paul! Look forward to hearing more about it.

Martijn Meijering said...

Great news! Are linerless tanks much lighter than overwrapped ones?

Paul Breed said...

Not necessarily lighter, but they remove one whole set of complications and failure modes.

Andrew Mooney said...

This entry upon the famous "yarchive" might be worth reading before you go any further.

http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/small_rocket_inefficiencies.html

In this posting, the general direction of the discussion is about thrust to weight ratios, but propellant tanks and composites get mentioned. At small sizes it doesn't seem that they offer that great a benefit over plain sheet metal, sadly.

Gus Gus said...

Hello Paul
I've been reading your blog for some time. I'm really happy that you are posting which allows some hope to dream heads like me. I would like to ask questions. Could you email me???
gus.montoya@gmail.com

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