On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 7:43 PM Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2019, Anthony Cesaroni wrote:
Frank once said that he'd really like to get back to the original
Centaur tank sidewall thickness instead of the heavier modern one...
What was the justification for increasing the wall thickness again?
IIRC, the wall thickness was reduced during the development of the
original vehicle design. It was thicker in the very first flight
vehicle(s) from what I understand.
If I've understood correctly (a quick look doesn't find a single reference
with all the details, so this is an attempt to pull the bits together, but
it may not be entirely right)...
The very first flight Centaur had 10-mil (10/1000in) sidewalls... but the
LH2 tank split open near max q, a very embarrassing failure eventually
traced to differential-thermal-contraction problems.
The ensuing design scrub increased the thickness to 14 mil temporarily to
increase the margins.
