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RedditIN 1981, DEVELOPMENT OF INSULATING TILES CONTRIBUTED TO DELAYS IN THE FIRST SHUTTLE LAUNCH, and last year, the difficulty of repairing tiles raised the world’s anxiety about the shuttle’s most recent mission. Though both flights ultimately went smoothly, the tiles have become the shuttle’s most famous components.
Each shuttle is covered by more than 24,000 of the six- by six-inch blocks. Most of the tiles are made of silica fibers, which are produced from high-grade sand. Silica is an excellent insulator because it transports heat slowly. When the outer portion of a tile gets hot, the heat takes a long time to work its way down through the rest of the tile to the shuttle’s skin. The tiles keep the orbiter’s aluminum skin at 350 degrees or less.
The silica fibers are mixed with water and chemicals, and the mixture is poured into molds, which are zapped in microwave ovens at 2,350 degrees to fuse the silica fibers.
Tiles are too brittle to attach to the orbiter directly. The shuttle’s skin contracts slightly while in orbit, then expands during reentry. In addition, the stresses of launch and reentry cause the skin to flex and bend. Such motions could easily crack the tiles or shake them off. To keep them in place, workers glue the tiles to flexible felt-like pads, then glue the pads to the orbiter.
The primary tiles used are given one of two coatings. The tiles exposed to reentry temperatures of up to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, such as those on portions of the belly, are given a protective coating of black glass. Black tiles work by reflecting about 90 percent of the heat they’re exposed to back into the atmosphere, while the tiles’ interior absorbs the rest. The tiles’ interiors radiate absorbed heat so slowly that after landing, the tiles take hours to cool.
On parts of the shuttle’s upper fuselage, which are exposed to much lower temperatures, the tiles are covered with a whitewash of silica compounds and aluminum oxide; these tiles protect against temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees.
NASA also uses two other types of tiles; denser and coated with stronger material, they provide extra protection to areas that are particularly vulnerable to strikes from space debris.
About 30 to 100 tiles are replaced before each mission. Some were lost or damaged during flight, while others were removed because workers needed to get to structures below them. When a new tile is needed, it is fabricated and installed at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. A computer-controlled machine cuts the tile to fit, either from stored patterns or from measurements of the actual space on the orbiter. In thickness, most tiles vary from about half an inch to four inches, depending on how much heat resistance is necessary. Because no two tiles are exactly the same size, “each one is custom-made,” says Katherine Laufenberg, associate chief engineer for ground operations at United Space Alliance, the contractor that prepares the orbiters for flight. Installers leave small gaps between the tiles to prevent damage when the orbiter’s aluminum skin moves. Sometimes, though, the gaps are too wide and are plugged with fillers.
Comments
respected sir, The above article is really usefull for understanding the need of silica tiles for rentry vehicle.But I would have appreciated if you would have provided us the specific poroperties of silica fibres(tiles) used in the shuttle.. regards gautam(waiting for reply)
Posted by GAUTAM.N on March 25,2008 | 03:12AM