More NASA machine shop

These pictures are from 1951 and 1953.



This last picture is one I am quite familiar with. He is working on an inner liner for a small rocket nozzle, I would guess about 2,000-5,000 lbs thrust. The nozzle is built of a copper alloy called NASA-Z. You can see the many cooling passages that the liquid hydrogen flows through. This keeps the nozzle from burning up and pre-heats the fuel. Each passage is a constant cross-sectional area, so as the diameter of the nozzle gets smaller, each passage goes from a wide, shallow groove to a narrow, deep groove in a continuous smooth transition. After the grooves are machined, they are filled with wax, then the entire nozzle goes in a nickel plating tank and is completely sealed with an outer layer of nickel that ends up about 1/2" thick, it takes weeks to plate it that much.

At the throat, the grooves are very deep and the remaining copper wall is only 0.010" thick to get good heat transfer to the fuel. The fuel is pressurized to the same pressure as the combustion chamber is running, usually 1000 to 2000 psi, so there is no pressure differential across the walls. We developed the high pressure Lox-hydrogen motor at Lewis. I worked with the engineer who held the patents for developing the solid-electroplated nozzles. Before that each engine was built up of hundreds of formed nickle tubes all wrapped with steel wire and the whole thing furnace brazed together. The Space Shuttle main engines are all electroplated to solid using our technique. In order to achive the maximum heat transfer at their throat, the inner surface is gold plated. Dennis

The nozzle is built of a copper alloy called NASA-Z.

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More fantastic pics (and history) Dennis. Thank you!

I've often wondered what kind of materials NASA was able to produce "out in space" that couldn't be produced here (in zero G) and kept to themselves over the years. Did a lot of our present day exotic materials come from that research?

Mark

where do you think Di-Lithium comes from?

"I've often wondered what kind of materials NASA was able to produce "out in space" that couldn't be produced here (in zero G) and kept to themselves over the years. "

Well, Chevy, I was the facility manager at our Zero Gravity Facility through the 1990's. Our Earthbound drop tower could only produce microgravity 5 seconds at a time, so it was not enough for materials research. But certainly that idea is frequently mentioned for on orbit research. On Earth, metals tend to separate as they cool, with the lighter elements rising towards the top. A tall casting might have different properties at each end.

By melting in zero G, this separation can be eliminated. In addition, there was research geared towards drawing certain elements towards all surfaces of the mold by controlling the cooling rates and letting convection drive the process. Imagine a steel casting where the outer portions contain more of the carbon then the center, there are some interesting possibilities. Dennis

Dennis,
Thanks for the photos and your comments - very interesting!

For your interest, I came across this article - "Space Shuttle Main Engine - The First Ten Years" by Robert E. Biggs. I printed it out - about 50 or so pages.

http://www.enginehistory.org/ssme.htm

If you like books, "Advanced Engine Development at Pratt & Whitney - The Inside Story of Eight Special Projects 1946-1971" by Dick Mulready is pretty good.

Mixdenny,

Thanks for the pics. Out of curiosity, is that a wood floor in those pictures? It looks like a wood floor, but I cannot see how (or why) you could have a wood floor with machines of that kind of weight inside. The wood would get ruined.

Gauge,

I can't speak about the floors at NASA, but the shop in the IBM building in Poughkeepsie, NY had beautiful wood floors. They were arranged in a diagonal pattern (I think it's called parquay?) Also not sure of the material, but maple comes to mind. I think it was originally built in the 50's. They re-did the shop about 10 years ago and replaced a lot of area with linolium. On subsequent tours, I did see some of the original flooring still there. No idea what they did to protect it, but it was still in pristine condition. I wish I had a few blocks as momentos to a day gone by.

Mark

Thanks for the pics. Out of curiosity, is that a wood floor in those pictures? It looks like a wood floor, but I cannot see how (or why) you could have a wood floor with machines of that kind of weight inside. The wood would get ruined.

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The machines do not sit on the wood. The Monarch Plant had wood block floor. They removed the blocks around the machine, and it sat on a concrete slab. Working on the floor was sweet compared to working on a concrete floot. Very little feet/leg/back problems from standing for long periods of time on the floor.

John

The machine shop, as well as the fab shop, wood shop, and wood model shop floors were end-grain wood parquet, the squares were about 4" across I think. They are loose fit and you can remove the ones you want to fasten machinery down to the sub floor. I remember once the roof got damaged in the wood shop and torrential rains poured in all weekend. The floor expanded and heaved up into waves about a foot high. Dennis

Dennis and John,
That's the same thing we had at NARF and shipyard in Norfolk. The wooden blocks were in nearly every working area (except the aircraft hangars.)
Must have been common practice in the 40' and 50's.

Nice on the feet and forgiving when you dropped something.

Every once in a while, a machine would start loosing coolant and soak into the wood and the heavals would start.

Can't imagine how hot that stuff would burn if it ever caught on fire! Lots of oil soaked into them over the years.