ARIANE 5 SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER SKIRT STRUCTURES : TOWARDS NEXTGENERATION INNOVATIVE AND COMPETITIVE CONCEPTS

摘要

The present Ariane 5 (A5) skirts have been designed onthe basis of specifications issued about 15 years ago, fortechnologies available at that time. Today raw material isavailable in a broader range of more elaborate forms, andcan be processed through improved production facilities,offering new possibilities. On the other hand, experienceof various nature (industrial, reliability, quality, costs)gained through the past and present programs provide auseful feedback that can indicate that an evolution ofspecification should be undertaken.This paper intends to show that classical assemblies offrames, rings, skins and stringers can be advantageouslyreplaced by the machining of large specific forgings ordedicated extruded profiles, thereby decreasing theamount of successive operations, extensive assemblysequences and time consuming work centre transfers.The result may be cheaper, lighter and higher qualitystructures. The new components are inherentlymultifunctional. Not only are the recurring costsreduced, but also non-recurring savings are possible atmost levels, from design-engineering to testing andindustrialisation. Not to be underestimated is the highpotential of these new concepts to tolerate sensible loadincrease without any significant impact on the conceptitself (design, tooling, raw material supply, productionfiles) and the recurring costs.