Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: SRB solutions
Message-ID: <1989Oct26.052429.22572@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <5474@umd5.umd.edu> <5149@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <12973@s.ms.uky.edu> <1989Oct18.172311.22863@utzoo.uucp> <838@cybaswan.UUCP> <1989Oct25.100345.2672@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 89 05:24:29 GMT

In article <1989Oct25.100345.2672@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> hogg@db.toronto.edu (John Hogg) writes:
>>Wouldn't it be possible to design
>>the SRB casing to have a venturi nozzle at both ends, but with the top one
>>usually plugged by the igniter? ...
>
>That sounds roughly equivalent to the SRB destruct charges, except that
>the goal of these is simply to reduce thrust to zero by reducing
>chamber pressure...

A small correction:  while some people have said in the past that the
SRB destruct charges work by blowing off the nose of the SRBs, and this
sort of procedure in fact is used in other solid motors, it is not what
the shuttle SRB destruct charges use.  The shuttle SRB destruct charges
are linear charges in the wiring tunnel up the side of each SRB; they
split the casing open lengthwise.
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu