Rocket Motor Tanks

Figure 5.64 Schematics of "racetrack filament winding machines. Top view shows a schematic of a machine built to fabricate 150,000 gal rocket motor tanks other view is machine in action...

Products can be found in every principal market area including rocket motor and shell casings, air and gas pressure tanks, aircraft wing fuel tanks, utihty poles, automotive and tmck drive shafts, sailboat masts, vaulting poles, fishing rods, golf shafts, railroad tanks cars, and pipes and tanks for oil, gas, and chemical processing. 

Parts with fiber volume fractions up to 60% can be fabricated by filament winding. The procedure is often used to manufacture composite rocket motors, corrosion-resistant tanks and storage containers, and piping for below-ground appHcations. 

In a solid-propellant rocket motor, the propellant is contained within the wall of the combustion chamber, as shown in Fig. 1. This contrasts with liquid systems, where both the fuel and oxidizing components are stored in tanks external to the combustion chamber and are pumped or pressure-fed to the combustor. In hybrid systems, one component, usually the fuel, is contained in the combustion chamber, while the other component is fed to the chamber from a separate storage tank, as in liquid systems. The solid-propellant motor also has an ignition system located at one end to initiate operation of the rocket. The supersonic nozzle affects the conversion of... 

Filament-wound structures are often used to store fluid under pressure fuel storage tanks, rocket motor cases, natural gas, and oxygen storage tanks. In some cases, the filament-wound structure is subjected to external pressure a diving bell or submarine. Filament winding has... 

The initiator in this instance is a length of detonating cord, donor and acceptor charges are both PETN, and the body is type 303S stainless steel with the bulkhead 0.075 " thick. This TBI was developed to initiate solid proplnt rocket motors that are used during stage separation to control the ullage in the main proplnt tanks and to provide retro thrust. The TBI ends are sealed so that the TBI will better withstand the temp environment (Ref 2)... 

Very small to large filament wound cases have been fabricated for use on rockets and missiles. As an example, a racetrack filament winding RP fabricating technique was used to fabricate a very large tank (rocket motor case) for NASA. See Chapter 5 Filament Windings, Racetrack and Other Winders. 

Figure 6-21. This 47.2-m- (155-ft.) tall rocket-motor external fuel tank weighs 720 metric tons (1.6 million lbs.) at launch and must withstand the strain of liftoff. The thermal protective system on the tank is composed of a 1-in. layer of a closed-cell polyurethane foam and a plastic charring ablator.

Applications. Uses for this alloy tend to be in the field of gas turbine components and cryogenic storage tanks. Examples are jet engines, pump bodies and parts, rocket motors and thrust reversers, nuclear fuel element spacers, and hot extrusion tooling. 

---