The damage tolerance of the External Tank (ET) lug welds were reassessed because of an increase in the loads due to the removal of the protuberance air load (PAT.,) ramp. The analysis methods included detailed finite element analysis (FEA) of the ET welded lugs and FEA of the lug weld test configuration. The FEA results were used as input to the crack growth analysis code NASGRO to calculate the mission life capability of the ET lug welds and to predict the number of cycles to failure in the lug weld testing. The presentation presents the method of transferring the FEM results to the NASGRO model and gives correlations between FEM and NASGRO stress intensity calculations.
Damage Tolerance Analysis of Space Shuttle External Tank Lug Fillet Welds Using NASGRO
NASGRO Consortium Meeting
;
2006
;
San Antonio, TX, United States
NASA Fracture Panel Meeting
;
2006
;
San Antonio, TX, United States
2006-01-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
NTRS | 1973
|Space Shuttle External Tank Instrumentation Evaluation
NTIS | 1979
|Space shuttle external tank performance enhancemnets
TIBKAT | 1996
|