matty

Lemme see if I can ever possibly catch up to this in a bit, sorry, after the holiday's settled.

Oh, duh!lol Really outing myself here.--Yeah, guess even in progressive extrusion stamping dies with hole punching/blanking I've never seen a superthickness of material you'd expect to see in a rocket industry application. Wow, I have a lot of catching up with mainstream to do. Interesting, your number crunching thus far, though, going back to play catch up on that link you'd left earlier, thanks for sharing... Btw, ever seen a roll mill at work? Not appropriate to your application here but with respect to progressively wrapping/forming material (against rolls in this case) in order to eventually, by way of stations--as with progressive dies--meet a sharply concave spec not otherwise in the realm of do-able, as you suggest here, well, it's pretty interesting stuff.

Glad you returned with that, neato, you must naturally be referring to EDM? EDM can accomodate the size of this stuff today? Trying to wrap my brain around that... I'll have to return later, unfortunately, time's gotten away from me this evening.

Like to eventually make my way back to this one...

Hey, Marc, The hollow panels make total sense, sure, I just wondered if the fact your 'corrugations', as it were, would present G-load issues, considering they don't run parallel to the axis, but comparatively horizontal on that semi-45 degree angle?--But I suppose being as they're housed between skins eliminates that being an issue altogether, I just wondered the likelihood? I guess I'm having trouble visualizing where exactly the nonuniformity in regards to the thickness comes in?~The trouble in trying to impart some things across the 'net via diagram, but curious, you must goof with an at-home CAD program, what version? I wonder what you mean by airframes but folded sheet conjures a sense of shear strength...and your isogrid panels look crazy-strong, eh.--I have to go look at the sandwich panel in fig. 3 again, but I certainly gotchya' on the reliability of more material bonded across a greater surface area and twice so on the idea of any glueing being a preferred process here, eeshk, and certainly that cold wouldn't seem desirable. I thought the honeycomb looked cool, though, heh. Yeah, the new face of CNC is crazy and I bet your giant milling machine cost a shiny penny, alright.--Vaguely remember woodruff keys, all this goes a ways back for me but it was intriguing.--But, so what is current rocketpanel-theory today on the whole, I wonder, don't they have a standard configure?--I did cringe at the idea, say, 80 panels welded lengthwise together to make up the height, that didn't seem right, without some sort of additional inner rib running the length of those panel joints or something but it's all greek to me, hard to wrap my brain around. ~I suppose nearly everything can be improved upon and keeping the gears churning is good, it's what brought excel into the realm of CAD, which is still crazy morphing to me. Thanks for humoring me.

Verry interesting, Marc. I'm curious, should you look here: http://history.nasa....nd/structur.htm, scroll down a bit, under the heading entitled 'B. THIN SHELL STRUCTURES', take a look at the sheet stringer construction illustrated in Fig. 1, do you find it any more practical they've eliminated weight of that inner skin, maybe even more material in using this I-beamesque-construction, possibly fewer welds, and, further, with their running them strictly vertically, taking the compression factor into account they mention later on~wouldn't it do just as well?.. No offense, admittedly, I don't know this first thing about rockets and so feel free to laugh, I just found it curious; your post is very interesting. ...And how much are we experiencing these days, in the way of the buckling, with current design?.. I do find the extrusion process neat, and extruding would-be beams or anything else, such as the corrugated look of your own idea, has a lot to to offer in the way of adding exponential strength, as opposed to sheet metal fab.

I'm both a manufacturing/political enthusiast; former Automotive/mechanical QC inspector/SPC, basic electronics-certified & Electrical CAD Drafter/Designer in better mnfg times, looking to reenter the mainstream there; I'm degreed in Drafting and Design Tech and sport an intense curious interest in a wide ranging scope of anything-Science and with applications not just to that end--the mnfg & politically relevant--but reaching far beyond. To the dude from way back beneath me, I'm not sure at all that sounded any better than having walked in saying 'Hi,' but it was certainly fun to illustrate the difference. ~This place looks awesome, I'm stoked. Was directed, I thought, from a link to my email to first peek in here, hope it's the right place...