3 ms·

Elon Musk Wants Fully Reusable Rockets–But That Won't Be So Easy

• aurizon 10y ago
  Erosion of exposed metal in the combustion chamber and throat will limit the number of cycles that such parts can go though before being replaced. In fact, every part needs to be assessed - it depends on the way they get worn/used in a launch. Test every part and replace them and gradually work out the wear pattern of every part. Some parts will not wear much at all. Since all rocket parts are designed for light weight they are already operating at their limits. The most important thing is vibration resistance. I used to work in an aerospace place that had a shake table. This was like a huge voice coil speaker magnet driven by 100,000 watts of power and it could shake a 100 pound object through 1 inch travel and up to 200 hertz. It could shake common items to bits. It even shook nuts and bolts apart, so all aerospace items are usually done with lock bolts. I am sure Spacex has these shake tables and does this. Might well be bigger than the 100KW ones I used - since they have bigger items to test than we did.