Design and development of aluminum alloy 6061-T6 pressure vessel liner for aerospace applications: A technical brief

This work mainly focuses on designing a novel aluminum alloy 6061-T6 pressure vessel liner intended for use in launch vehicles. Fabrication of custom-made welding fixtures for the assembly of liner parts, namely two hemispherical domes and end boss, is illustrated. The parts of the liner are joined...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part L, Journal of materials, design and applications Journal of materials, design and applications, 2022-05, Vol.236 (5), p.1130-1148
Main Authors: Pramod, R, Shanmugam, N Siva, Krishnadasan, C K, Radhakrishnan, G, Thomas, Manu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aluminum alloys
Aluminum base alloys
Cold welding
Dendritic structure
Finite element method
Fixtures
Launch vehicles
Metallurgy
Microhardness
Pressure vessels
Tensile strength
Tensile tests
Weld metal
Welded joints
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Summary:This work mainly focuses on designing a novel aluminum alloy 6061-T6 pressure vessel liner intended for use in launch vehicles. Fabrication of custom-made welding fixtures for the assembly of liner parts, namely two hemispherical domes and end boss, is illustrated. The parts of the liner are joined using the cold metal transfer welding process, and the welding trials are performed to arrive at an optimized parametric range. The metallurgical characterization of weld joint reveals the existence of dendritic structures (equiaxed and columnar). Microhardness of base and weld metal was 70 and 65 HV, respectively. The tensile strength of base and weld metal was 290 and 197 MPa, respectively, yielding a joint efficiency of 68%. Finite-element analysis of a uniaxial tensile test was performed to predict the tensile strength and location of the fracture in base and weld metal. The experimental and predicted tensile test results were found to be in good agreement.
ISSN:1464-4207
2041-3076
DOI:10.1177/14644207211065114