What is (was) used to measure the chamber pressure and where was it located?
I have Filament Wound Case (FWC) SRB (the ones for Vandenburgh that were cancelled after Challenger) questions:1. Was the cancellation of the FWC boosters an overreaction? If so, why? Didn't they have the field joint capture feature (among other elements) of the post-Challenger steel SRB design?2. Could they have been used for KSC launches? Could they have replaced the heavier steel SRBs altogether?3. If the answer to the first part of question 2 is "yes", would the weight savings inherent in the FWC SRB design have been enough to allow the use of Columbia for ISS construction missions (she was considered too heavy for these missions, otherwise)?Thanks.
Quote from: brad2007a on 02/18/2015 05:53 pmI have Filament Wound Case (FWC) SRB (the ones for Vandenburgh that were cancelled after Challenger) questions:1. Was the cancellation of the FWC boosters an overreaction? If so, why? Didn't they have the field joint capture feature (among other elements) of the post-Challenger steel SRB design?2. Could they have been used for KSC launches? Could they have replaced the heavier steel SRBs altogether?3. If the answer to the first part of question 2 is "yes", would the weight savings inherent in the FWC SRB design have been enough to allow the use of Columbia for ISS construction missions (she was considered too heavy for these missions, otherwise)?Thanks.1. No, there were other concerns2. There were issues with the flexibility of the motors and the MLP's3. The SLWT took care of the weight issue.
SRBs are >heavy< because they're very high pressure and major structural elements of the Shuttle stack. They're mostly made of maraging steel for its very high strength and somewhat for temperature tolerance.Pressure fed liquid propellant tanks are almost lightweight by comparison, but hardly balloon tanks like Atlas was and Centaur is.
Quote from: Damon Hill on 12/25/2019 10:03 pmSRBs are >heavy< because they're very high pressure and major structural elements of the Shuttle stack. They're mostly made of maraging steel for its very high strength and somewhat for temperature tolerance.Pressure fed liquid propellant tanks are almost lightweight by comparison, but hardly balloon tanks like Atlas was and Centaur is.SRBs still have a very good dv, around 4.5 km/s (total mass 590 tons, fuel 500 tons, wikipedia). So a three stage rocket with SRB mass fraction would reach orbit. That's pretty good.
SRBs are >heavy< because they're very high pressure and major structural elements of the Shuttle stack. They're mostly made of maraging steel for its very high strength and somewhat for temperature tolerance.Pressure fed liquid propellant tanks are almost lightweight by comparison, but hardly balloon tanks like Atlas was and Centaur is.