One of the first projects I ever worked on was a prototype LH2 tank for the DC-XA. The primary purpose of this tank was to prove that we could build a composite liquid hydrogen fuel tank for full scale reusable launch vehicles. The other purpose was to build the LH2 tank to be used on the working prototype DC-XA.
In the posts below I plan to fill in the details of this project. Hopefully other people will chime in with their memories as well.
Engineers Forum » Tales of the Composite Liquid Hydrogen Tank
3 posts • Page 1 of 1
Tales of the Composite Liquid Hydrogen Tank
by Grant on Tue Jun 10, 2008 10:35 am
- Grant
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Wed May 28, 2008 12:55 pm
Re: Tales of the Composite Liquid Hydrogen Tank
by Grant on Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:30 pm
Being a prototype project there were many challenges to overcome and they all took time. It soon became clear that we were not going to finish the lay-up within a 30 day window of time. We needed more man hours put on the job.
A second shift was started and I was assigned the overlap shift from 12 to 8. I didn't mind. Every day before I went home, I had to email a status report to a bunch of people including my manager's manager. It didn't take long before we realized that even with the second shift we still weren't going to complete the lay-up in time.
Over the course of a few meetings the concept of a heated debulk came up. This is where you partially cure it under pressure to buy you more time to complete the layup before the final cure. I believe RTH was the originator of using this idea for the tank. Everybody was skeptical including me but nobody else had any better ideas so we went with it. I remember one engineer, perhaps the lead project engineer, joking with RTH saying "It better work!"
The heated debuilk was a tough pill for many people to swallow. The designers cringed because none of the test specimens we had been making for months/years before had gone through the heated debulk process. The technicians shook their head because none of them had ever seen a heated debulk. Regardless, the heated debulk was done and we kept marching on.
Anybody who knows the story is welcome to chime in because there is a lot more...
A second shift was started and I was assigned the overlap shift from 12 to 8. I didn't mind. Every day before I went home, I had to email a status report to a bunch of people including my manager's manager. It didn't take long before we realized that even with the second shift we still weren't going to complete the lay-up in time.
Over the course of a few meetings the concept of a heated debulk came up. This is where you partially cure it under pressure to buy you more time to complete the layup before the final cure. I believe RTH was the originator of using this idea for the tank. Everybody was skeptical including me but nobody else had any better ideas so we went with it. I remember one engineer, perhaps the lead project engineer, joking with RTH saying "It better work!"
The heated debuilk was a tough pill for many people to swallow. The designers cringed because none of the test specimens we had been making for months/years before had gone through the heated debulk process. The technicians shook their head because none of them had ever seen a heated debulk. Regardless, the heated debulk was done and we kept marching on.
Anybody who knows the story is welcome to chime in because there is a lot more...
- Grant
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Wed May 28, 2008 12:55 pm
Re: Tales of the Composite Liquid Hydrogen Tank
by Secretary on Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:55 am
- Secretary
- Site Admin
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed May 28, 2008 7:59 am
3 posts • Page 1 of 1