OPTIMIZATION OF TAPE WINDING PROCESS PARAMETERS TO ENHANCE THE PERFORMANCE OF SOLID ROCKET NOZZLE DIVERGENT LINERS USING TAGUCHI’S ROBUST DESIGN METHODOLOGY
Keywords:
Ablative Liners, Carbon Fabric, Phenolic Resin, Prepreg, Erosion Rate, Taguchi’s Robust Design Methodology, Orthogonal ArrayAbstract
The ablative liners are used to protect the nozzle structural members from the severe thermal environment in solid rocket nozzles. The ablative divergent liners are made with carbon phenolic prepregs by tape winding process. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the optimization of process parameters of tape winding process to achieve better erosion resistance using Taguchi’s robust design methodology. In this method four control factors machine speed, roller pressure, tape tension, tape temperature, were investigated for the tape winding process. The presented work was to study the cogency and acceptability of Taguchi’s methodology in manufacturing of ablative divergent liners. The quality characteristic identified was erosion rate.
Experiments carried out using L'16 Orthogonal array with four different levels of control factors. The test results were analyzed using smaller the better criteria for S/N ratio in order to optimize the process. The experimental results were analyzed conformed and successfully used to achieve the minimum erosion rate of the ablative liners. The enhancement in performance of the ablative liners were observed by carrying out the oxy acetylene tests. The influence of erosion rate on the performance of ablative liners was verified by ground firing test.
Downloads
References
Genichi Taguchi Subir Chowdhury Shin Taguchi (2000), "Robust Engineering", McGraw-Hill.
Madhav S Phadke's (1989), "Quality Engineering Using Robust Design", PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliff, NJ.
Phillip J Ross, (2005), “Taguchi Techniques for Quality Engineering", Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.
Bagchi Tapan P, "Taguchi Methods Explained: Practical Steps to Robust Design", Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi, 1993.
Joseph D Petruccelli Balgobin Nandram Minghui Chen (1999), "Applied Statistis for Engineers and scientists", Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Hall William B (1988), “Standardization of the Carbon Phenolic materials and processes Vol.1: Experimental studies” report NASA-CR-183226 pages 180 Acc No. 89N10127.
Toshio Ogasawara Takashi Ishikawa Tetsuya Yamada Rikio Yokota Masayoshi Itoh Shigeru Nogi (2002), “Thermal Response and Ablation characteristics of Carbon fiber Reinforces composite with Novel silicon Containing polymer MSP”, Journal of composite Materials, vol. 36, issue 02, page 143-157.
Marcus Luiz Pontarolli (2006), “Ablative carbon phenolic composites additivated with carbon nano particles”, Master’s thesis in physics and chemistry of Aerospace Materials at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics, ITA, Sao Jose dos compos, sao Paulo State, Brazil.
