In the Chinese carbon fiber application market, the development of the box structure is relatively slow. At the beginning, its application fields were mostly military, such as military transportation boxes, equipment cases, and so on. But abroad, the development of carbon fiber box structure technology is relatively more mature. In order to better let everyone understand the application of carbon fiber box structure, we have invited a few domestic authoritative experts who focus on carbon fiber box structure and have a wealth of experience in the development and production of carbon fiber box structure to briefly introduce to you.
"In fact, the carbon fiber box structure has been limited to land applications abroad. In January 2017, the Space Exploration Technology Company's Falcon 9 rocket was successfully launched, sending 10 iridium stars into predetermined orbits. Successfully carried out marine recovery in the Pacific Ocean. "
It is well known that the return reuse of the carrier rocket needs to be based on a high carrying factor. The Falcon 9 rocket has achieved an amazing carrying factor with the Merlin liquid oxygen kerosene engine which is not outstanding. One of the key technologies is based on aluminum alloy. Ultra-light storage tank, but this is not the end of the rocket tank technology. Using carbon fiber composite technology, the rocket tank can also reduce the weight of the technology by about 30%, so that the carrying capacity and carrying coefficient reach unprecedented levels.
The expert went on to introduce. In fact, the composite material tank technology has a long history of application in the aerospace field. At the end of 2013, China's Chang'e 3 probe successfully landed on the moon. It was mentioned in the report that it uses T-700 carbon fiber winding. Metal diaphragm storage tanks, as for application satellites such as communication satellites, the use of composite material storage tanks has a long history.
Nevertheless, the large carbon fiber composite storage tank used in the launch vehicle is a breakthrough innovation, but the pioneer is not a space exploration technology company. As early as 2011, NASA signed a contract with Boeing to manufacture two experimental composite cryogenic propellant storage tanks.
NASA space technology project director said that the goal of this technology verification work is to reduce the weight of the new carbon fiber composite storage tank by 30% and the cost by 25% compared to traditional metal propellant storage tanks. There is no doubt that carbon fiber Composite materials have achieved this goal.
Even compared to the best-performing metal storage tanks such as aluminum-lithium alloys, carbon fiber composite storage tanks can bring huge improvements to liquid carrier rockets. The advantage of this disruptive technology is that carbon fiber is much stronger than metal materials. Taking the 2195 aluminum alloy used in the space shuttle's external ultralight storage tank as an example, its tensile strength is only over 500 MPa, and the tensile strength of T300 carbon fiber is about 3500 MPa, and the tensile strength of T800 carbon fiber is even more It reached about 5500 MPa.
The performance advantages of carbon fiber compared to metal materials are extremely prominent. Even if many troubles such as processing caused by carbon fiber composite materials are considered, carbon fiber composite material storage tanks also have strong performance and cost advantages.
However, in liquid rockets, there are still a lot of problems to be solved in the application of carbon fiber composite materials. Despite various difficulties, the high performance of carbon fiber composite storage tanks has attracted the attention of more and more rocket manufacturers. Looking to the future, as the practical use of carbon fiber composite storage tanks is getting closer, it will most likely become a game changer in the field of launch vehicles.