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Something I did, once upon a time, was drawing tank designs for a company that made water treatment equipment.
One product line was super high pressure tanks.
I remember when the idea of using carbon fiber or fiberglass came up.
Fine for HOLDING pressure inside, not so great for keeping pressure OUT.
At the time, the steel tanks were viable and making carbon fiber tanks that big wasn't possible. It's been 30 years...
The main issue was how to make the ends. There simply wasn't anything that'd hold a metal end on the cylindrical carbon fiber body.
That might not be true today, but it was a complicated issue that kept steel in production as long as we could keep the three guys who knew how to weld happy enough to not head back to Electric Boat and return to making submarines.
Which is where I become "kinda" an expert. From talking to the engineers and welders.
The welders, when asked if our pressure vessels would do as a submarine hull, all indicated that it would not. The structures were different and what will hold in, doesn't really hold out.
It's interesting stuff.
My "expertise" sure as shit doesn't mean my opinion is worth anything, but it's been interesting seeing that keeping carbon fiber from collapsing is still something.
PS: I was actually hired by Electric Boat and fired before I even managed to find a place to live in Connecticut. I was going to do as-built drawings on SSN-24 Scorpion... The fourth Seawolf boat... You might notice that there is no fourth Seawolf. The loss of this job indirectly leads to the suicide run to Florida... A suicide that The Lovely Harvey stopped.
The issue of carbon fiber and resistance to pressure/depressure and great changes in temperature and pressure are what led SpaceX to abandon carbon fiber as a starship hull. And they went to stainless steel instead.
ReplyDeleteThey were sure that a carbon fiber starship would make one launch no problem. It was the repeated launches and reentries that were problematic.