George:
Occam's razor: the Russians in the past decade have had a lot of problems
that they concluded we due to a rag left in the tank....
Bill
On Saturday, September 10, 2016, George William Herbert <
george.herbert@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ok, I have a theory.
They were loading RP-1, Supercooled LOX, and GHe.
LOX tank was chilled but the Kero tank was not. Aluminum gets stronger at
cryo temps.
Partway through loading a GHe tank lets go. The flight kaboom some time
back had a full LOX tank so little space for the GHe to go, blew the LOX
tank. This time, half-full LOX tank is enough expansion space (just) to
avoid blowing the tank immediately. But the warmer tank bottom or feed
line down weren't as well chilled and are therefore weaker, and rupture.
*ping*. And pressure drops in LOX tank.
So the LOX and GHE drop into the RP-1 tank. They don't have time to mix
much to detonable mixture. Mixture of ongoing GHE venting and LOX boiling
from the RP-1 raises combines tanks pressure again and the warmest barrel
sections, the RP-1 tank outer walls, rupture. Possibly, a small volume
reached explosive mixed conditions and turbulence or static or impact
detonates a small explosion in a bigger mass of still mixing materials.
Some of what's ejected out is LOX - white fluffy non burnie cloud that
evaporates in the heat. Some is RP-1 and just burns. Some is mixing
RP-1/LOX and burns REALLY WELL.
When the RP-1 hoop section lets go you have say 100 PSI times pi/4 times
144 squared or say 1.6 million pounds downwards force on the lower RP-1
tank dome and the Vacuum Merlin, held up by the interstage. The Interstage
structure fails due to gross overload, Merlin and tank dome are forced down
into Stage 1 LOX tank and destroying the first stage.
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