Structural Design of Ares V Interstage Composite Structure

Abstract

Preliminary and detailed design studies were performed to mature composite structural design concepts for the Ares V Interstage structure as a part of NASA's Advanced Composite Technologies Project. Aluminum honeycomb sandwich and hat-stiffened composite panel structural concepts were considered. The structural design and analysis studies were performed using HyperSizer design sizing software and MSC Nastran finite element analysis software. System-level design trade studies were carried out to predict weight and margins of safety for composite honeycomb-core sandwich and composite hatstiffened skin design concepts. Details of both preliminary and detailed design studies are presented in the paper. For the range of loads and geometry considered in this work, the hat-stiffened designs were found to be approximately 11-16 percent lighter than the sandwich designs. A down-select process was used to choose the most favorable structural concept based on a set of figures of merit, and the honeycomb sandwich design was selected as the best concept based on advantages in manufacturing cost.

NASA Ares V Heavy Lift Vehicle Structural Analysis and Composite Material Weight Savings

“…They are similar in trend and magnitude as those produced by the NASA team using HyperSizer. The differences between results reported here and those of NASA [2], are due to Collier Research's experience optimizing with HyperSizer and having more current sizing results that include producibility cost reduction efforts with fabricating demonstration articles. This evaluation is the basis of the scoring presented in the Weight Maturity Level (WML) tables, Section 8.3.…”

“…The redesign is very recent and was not considered in reference 2 and is intended to address the cost concern listed in the figure-of-merit of reference 2. Affordability is the driving factor for 2011 plus, the new hat design is more manufacturable and the recurring and non-recurring cost reported in [2] should be substantially less. Cost estimates should also consider benefits of a relatively simple and easily fabricated and assembled internal ring frame attachment joint design that stiffened panels offer that other concepts do not.…”

Optimization of a Stiffened Interstage Structure of a Launch Vehicle using Differential Evolution Algorithm in Indigenous FE Software

“…Sleight et al [7] studied about the composite structural design concepts for the pre-V interstage structure as a part of NASA's advanced composite technologies project. Structural design and analysis were performed with the help of "Hyper sizer" design sizing software and "Nastran" finite element analysis software.…”

Structures and Design Phase I Summary for the NASA Composite Cryotank Technology Demonstration Project

“…A common global shell buckling knockdown factor was used for all concepts, regardless of the wall configuration or material. The local crippling knockdown factor was 1.0 based on previous design studies 4 . A maximum lamina strain of 5000 µin/in was specified by the project.…”