NASA has been funding an ongoing development program to characterize the explosive environments produced during a catastrophic launch vehicle accident. These studies and small-scale tests are focused on the near field environments that threaten the crew. The results indicate that these environments are unlikely to result in immediate destruction of the crew modules. The effort began as an independent assessment by NASA safety organizations, followed by the Ares program and NASA Engineering and Safety Center and now as a Space Launch Systems (SLS) focused effort. The development effort is using the test and accident data available from public or NASA sources as well as focused scaled tests that are examining the fundamental aspects of uncontained explosions of Hydrogen and air and Hydrogen and Oxygen. The primary risk to the crew appears to be the high-energy fragments and these are being characterized for the SLS. The development efforts will characterize the thermal environment of the explosions as well to ensure that the risk is well understood and to document the overall energy balance of an explosion. The effort is multi-path in that analytical, computational and focused testing is being used to develop the knowledge to understand potential SLS explosions. This is an ongoing program with plans that expand the development from fundamental testing at small-scale levels to large-scale tests that can be used to validate models for commercial programs. The ultimate goal is to develop a knowledge base that can be used by vehicle designers to maximize crew survival in an explosion.


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    Title :

    An Overview of the Launch Vehicle Blast Environments Development Efforts


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    JANNAF Combustion Systems Joint Subcommittee Meeting ; 2014 ; Albuquerque, NM, United States
    JANNAF Exhaust Plume and Signatures Systems Joint Subcommittee Meeting ; 2014 ; Albuquerque, NM, United States
    JANNAF Airbreathing Propulsion Systems Joint Subcommittee Meeting ; 2014 ; Albuquerque, NM, United States
    JANNAF Propulsion Systems Hazards Systems Joint Subcommittee Meeting ; 2014 ; Albuquerque, NM, United States


    Publication date :

    2014-12-08


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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