Why SpaceX Cares About Concrete
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- How does concrete stack up against rocket engines?
When a launch or landing pad fails, it can be worse than if it wasn’t there at all, creating high-speed projectiles that jeopardize the safety of the vehicle and its support equipment, not to mention its crew. It’s a nice reminder that even the humblest provision here on earth - a solid, flat, and durable surface - is an absolute luxury on another world and of the importance of infrastructure in our interplanetary quests.
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How is this comment from 3 days ago?
@@AyushKumar-ov9el I was also confused but youtube allows upload plans etc, so maybe he had it for 3 days ready in the queue or something :)
Code for HelloFresh is not working here in the Netherlands... sorry, I wanted to support you a tiny bit by using it, but the website is not accepting it.
Yay the best way to instantly ruin the climate for less then 0 Reason. Fucking the climate more then a 1000 planes from JFk airport to London Heathrow in a single failed launch
My dad was an engineer and told a story about a new highway being built that ran into a mysterious problem. From every batch of concrete they would pour two cylinders of the concrete and leave them sitting beside the road to cure and then test. And in most cases, one would pass and one would fail, by quite a large margin. Obviously this was raising questions about the quality of the concrete, but no one could figure out why one would pass and one would fail even though they were the same batch cured in identical conditions. Finally someone was assigned to sit and watch the concrete cure (what a job that was) and they found that one guy on the finishing crew would come along and kick one of the cans to see if it was hardened yet. This guy was doing his work just about the time the concrete was starting to harden up, but not quite all the way, so he was damaging the structure of the cement in the can that he kicked. Mystery solved. I didn't hear how hard they kicked that poor guy :-).
lmao doesn't such curing process will have an estimated time for it to be finished? but probably that guy didn't know about such and how kicking the cylinder would affect the samples
Ugh 😩 god that would get on my nerves. I had guys tamper with my mix while mortaring. They’d add extra water as the mix started to thicken from curing.
Good story. I wonder if the SpaceX engineers have reinforced the GSE tank farm tanks to withstand the blast of thirty, plus or minus Raptor engines firing just a short distance away and only twelve meters or so above a flat surface, without any diversion system to deflect the blast away from those huge tanks, some containing LOX and liquid methane. What am I missing? There is an earth berm perhaps ten meters high between the OLT and the GSE farm, but the booster will slowly rise the first few hundred meters, exerting quite a bit of lateral pressure on those tanks for many seconds.
Timemachine, they'd X-ray it and confirm failure, but essentially yes, they'd destroy what was damaged.
@@elihavalot8111 I think they are a lot further away than they look in the pictures. The videos are taken with extreme telephoto lenses that make depth all screwy. The tanks themselves are also going to be pressurized to reduce boil off if nothing else. That gives them quite a bit of strength from everything except high speed bits of concrete. In addition to that they will be not flight weight tanks. While Starship might be a mm or two in most places I'd wager tanks that size on the ground are going to be half inch (12mm) steel with added insulation and such like. The force exerted on them by the rocket launch would be a small fraction of the force on them during a maximum hurricane I'd wager.
Watching this after the latest starship launch and seeing the crater in the concrete left behind gives this video a whole new meaning.
It really does... Like, you're gonna need flame diverters and sound suppression here on Earth, on Mars and the moon it'll be less needed but still a good idea to pack something like a foldable pad that can survive one launch of the Starship itself until you can get the infrastructure needed to build a permanent landing pad with a raised platform and flame diverter.
@@norliasmithBiiiiiig expert over here.
Lol proves they still haven’t learnt anything - also using cheap concrete for their pad - what a 🤡 show
The shot of you taking concrete out of the oven had MAJOR hello fresh vibes
😂 Yes, was looking for this comment! 🤣✌🏼
How did they deal with this problem when returning from the moon? 🤔
@@kitsuneneko2567 Oops, didn't mean to post it under this comment.
However, I meant on the moon, before flying back. All that moon dust and rocks had to be blown up, because they didn't have a starting pad on the moon.
@@dasKeks28 they didn't land a rocket on the moon. They landed the Lunar lander module on the moon while the rocket was still flying around around the moon. It separates from the rocket and makes it's way to the moon surface.
There's barely any gravity on the moon so it didn't take anywhere near as much force to launch or land compared to an actual whole rocket.
With a side of recessed bolt anchors.
As an aerospace engineer I never thought I'd see the glory of rocket plumes grace your videos but here I am
Hey just curious whats your work based on and where do u work?
I work on launch vehicle rocket engines at a well known space company!
@@scottgauer7299 Whatever company that is, you're living the life man, keep doing what you do!
*YES*
the best engineering channel explaining something about my favourite topic, I can’t dream for better
Are you Peppa Pig's dad??
Except, No.
By the time he gets to mixing his own, there's still no mention of the Martyte.
ruclips.net/video/m8g9wpTPZwU/видео.html
so much spam everywhere wtf
In college I had a part time job in a construction engineering firm's testing lab. My favorite test to perform was definitely blowing up concrete samples in the hydraulic press. That clip really takes me back!
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Wow those are some really bad drugs you're on. You should ask your dealer for a refund.
When I studied mix design for my civil engineering degree, hydraulic press testing cylinders was easily my favorite part of the class. I got some amazing photos of the results!
Many years ago I was camping in a Massachusetts state campground with some friends. The fireplace was brand new and made of cement. About an hour after lighting our camp fire the fireplace exploded, showering us with bits of cement and burning embers. No one was injured and we extinguished all the embers. We concluded later that the explosion was due to uneven thermal expansion in the concrete. In retrospect, steam was probably a factor too.
😂😂😂😂
Cement and fire just don't mix too well 😂
Steam pressure was THE cause-although I suppose you could call the explosion “thermal expansion”.
@@MarcosElMalo2 No, according to OP thermal expansion caused the explosion, that's why bridges all over the world explode during hot days XD.
It's dangerous to make fires in caves for this reason.. or to put rocks in a fire to heat up, they can explode
I hadn't given much consideration to launch pad failure, and just assumed it was a non-issue, since we've been launching rockets for so many decades. That was very interesting and informative.
I work with refractory a fair bit and know just a little about it, such as the curing process to drive off water:
1. Liquid free water (liquid water driven off using water vapor as propellant at +- 30°C to 60 °C). It's more efficient to drive water off here when it's liquid as when it heats up the channels can be overwhelmed by steam that can be up to 1600 times the volume of the liquid water, which is why step 2 is critical:
2. Steam release of free water happens at temperatures approaching boiling point of 100°C at sea level up to +- 120 °C and can be up to 150°C to drive off all free water if the refractory is thick and takes time to get heat to the core. Rushing this forces expansion of steam inside the refractory and usually causes catastrophic failure and chunks of refractory concrete flying.
After these two stages are the dehydration of alumina and calcia hydrates (removal of chemically bonded water):
3. 149°C: Gibbsite
4. 299°C: Boehmite
5. 399°C: Calcium Hydroxide
All refractories in industrial applications go through a lengthy initial curing process through all those stages (different rates for the different blends of Alumina, Cement, other bonding agents, needles/fibres and agregates), heating to a point and then either soaking at a certain temperature or very slowly ramping at as slow as 1°C per hour to get through critical stages such as at the boiling point of water, adding more heat slowly to replace energy lost from latent heat of evaporation, heating losses and still heating up thick refractory.
However once the initial cure is completed, you only soak for long periods at certain temperatures if the refractory got wet (exposed to moisture when cold such as atmospheric moisture or even rain) to drive off free water.
If it hadn't gotten wet, you pre-heat the refractory to a temperature as close to operating temperature as possible, often also at a limited temperaturegradient, so that when it experiences full heat load (such as steel pouring into a refractory lined ladle from steel smelting or indeed a sudden and very large flame impingement), it doesn't suffer as much heat shock. This is aided by fibres or 'needles' that conduct heat deeper into the material instead of relying on conductance of the refractory itself, which takes very long as, you know, it's refractory and is supposed to conduct heat very slowly.
That launch pad was one or more of these things:
1. Not dry
2. Not pre-heated (or not sufficiently so)
3. Possibly not the right material (not talking castable vs bricks, rather Alumina content, inclusion of needles, etc.)
4. Possibly not cast with expansion allowance, although that quick a reaction suggests one of the first two, but if they got those wrong they probably did this, too.
Super interesting,
I work at a zirconium dioxide and alumina plant, we use arc furnaces to melt away the Silica content, and create the conditions for the reactions to take place so the zircon silicates seperate and attach to oxygen ( I think)
A lot of our product are used for refractory.
The zirconium makes super high heat refractory used to hold nuclear cooling rods (also the atomic structure is right for the job)
For the zirconium we need heat of about 2800 degrees Celsius, and to make about a ton uses about 4300 kilo watt hours (which takes about 1 hour and 20 mins) 4.3 million watt hours!!!
We run 24/7. Because we can’t let the furnace cool down,
Like you say it’s slow to reheat.
A normal cycle is 1.5 hours between tilts
If the furnace is off for longer than an hour the next cycle takes 3 -5 hours to warm up
If the furnace is off for more than 3 hours.
then to restart it we have to have 1- 12 hour cycle the 2- 6 hour cycles , then a 3 hour , then back to 1.5 hour cycles.
( though they do make for cruisy shifts)
It was Interesting to read about the next step.
Hi there! Awesome comment, I also work with refractory, and on our lab we have been working with numerical simulations of this process! It is a very challenging subject and we want to make this process faster, trying to understand where do we really need to decrease the heating and where we can safely apply higher heating rates
@@Murilo08LOL it makes sense, I mean even being able to heat at marginally faster rate would save SOOOO much power.
wall of text
@@doaimanariroll5121 That's awesome. We've done some work in such plants as well but mostly just supply of the Combustion system solution and recently Zircon separation as well but under nda so can't discuss that part. Your process highlights yet another modern industrial balancing act we forget about unless directly involved in the process. The mass and energy balances for these processes are so crucial and any little deviation puts the production guys in a bind.
Fun to watch this again after starship blew up the pad when it did its test launch last week. Was surprised to see the rebar was still intact while all the concrete was gone.
I had forgotten about this video. Shows that SpaceX learned basically nothing in the last year.
@@nitehawk86literally not the case. It was only needed for that one launch anyway and it was the ground underneath becoming volcanic that was the issue not the pad itself
This was investigated by NASA scientists due to the fact it’s never happened before
You looked like you really enjoyed making that one - and it was an excellent crossover between two topics I enjoy. Had not considered landing ejecta being a threat to orbiting spacecraft, so once again Practical Engineering taught me something new.
ruclips.net/video/m8g9wpTPZwU/видео.html
Now waiting for the eventual Grady/Scott Manley crossover episode.
that aged very well. the concrete is gone again today (first super heavy + starship launch; April 20th 23 )
I was five years old. My oldest brother and a friend of his were chewing on some bubble gum and blowing bubbles. Naturally I wanted some gum seeing that they had some. I should have known better when my brother so readily gave me a perfectly round purple ball. This is 55 years later and can remember how the anticipation had my mouth watering. My teeth and jaw rebounded off of it when I bit down with my molars. It was a concrete ball painted purple.
Kids were brutal back in the day! And I thought I had it rough getting my Pokemon cards stolen. It's like everyone born before 1980 was guaranteed to be traumatized as a child.
So a dislocated jawbone or a brooken tooth?
I hope your dad wailed on him!
This reminds me of when I was in elementary school, my friend gave me a wasabi pea when I thought it was those small yogurt balls called “Yogos”
Oddly specific
Something to note about the length of time SpaceX fires their engines during static fires:
Static fires are only a couple seconds long. Duration burns with the engines are done without the vehicle in specialized stands. Static fires with the vehicle are just to make sure they were installed properly which they can see with the very short burns.
that is true, but at the same time, His blowtorch test that ran longer than most static fires, was also only hitting it with (a clean) ~1000ᵒ flame moving slightly faster than a soft breeze and exerting about as much force. as compared to +1500ᵒ, 410,000 lb f exhaust moving many times faster than the speed of sound :P (per engine)
@@nuarius Mind if i RANDOMLY recommend a cool Channel like Practical Engineering or Veritasium or Its ok to be smart?
@@slevinchannel7589 already long time followers lol. This is the primary contetnt i watch on youtube lol
@@nuarius Nice.
May i say something to that?
"Cliffside and Starship Goldfish are both COMEDY GOLD".
Yep, random sentence, but if you know, you know. Oh, and even if you dont know, you can just type it into the yt-searchbar.
@@nuarius
But about YT-Cahnnel overall,
there's surely stuff you dont know yet and will learn-and-then-enjoy thanks to ME!! Which makes ME happy.
So here, let me TRY:
-Legal Eagle.
-Cinema Therapy.
-Professor Dave Explains.
-Hbomberguy.
-Viced Rhino.
-Believe it or not.
-Michio Kaku!!
"You can never have too many small concrete cylinders"
I'm sure Grady's wife is 100% on board with this statement
they make excellent landscaping blocks if I might say so myself!
Some little kids play with plastic Duplos. Others are building fireproof infrastructure!
@@kevinvermeer9011 Hi
@@kevinvermeer9011 Excuse the Randomness but here you go,
have some warm Recommendations, cause the Learning never Ends! (Thats the
entire reason, yes)
-Veritasium.
-Professor Dave Explains.
-It’s ok to be smart.
-Krimson Rogue.
-Michio Kaku.
-Multiple channel with the word Engineering in it.
-The Best for Last: Hbomberguy!
Hey, she let him use the oven didn’t she? 😂
"it isn't feasible to pinpoint a rocket landing atop a fancy flame diverter"
Meanwhile, In Texas, What if we caught it with chopsticks.
the error is only allowed in one axis. I wonder how they are going to land that booster
refractory concrete is a bi*/ç to work with. most are mixed pretty dry and then have to be poured underneath a form. the one we use is about as hard as normal concrete when it's at it's normal usage temp of 1450c. ours is most often a high alumina ultra low cement mix with glass microfibres in it
I'm in the market for some refractory cement to reline my forge got any recommendations??
@@29wildfire55 where are you from?
Regular cement contains lots of water. You need to use fireclay bricks with fireclay cement. High silica or high alumina cements set with minimum water (commonly used in furnace lining) can be more useful.
@@laveturnerjones3954 western United States
"is about as hard as normal concrete at its normal temperature" Okay, sounds normal
"At 1450 C" bruh
I remember this moment at 0:22. I was watching live on the NASASpaceFlight stream. A couple days prior, SN8 had conducted a static fire for a couple seconds, just like this one, and it had thrown up sparks as well. When this happened, our first indication that something was wrong was not the engines stopping, as they had been a regular duration static fire, but red-orange, glowing liquid coming from one of the Raptor engines. The damaged rocket was unable to vent excess pressure from the LOX header tank, and it was later found out that had a burst disk not released that pressure, SN8 might have been lost. It was a very close call, and, if I remember correctly, valves were installed on SN8 and all subsequent prototypes to prevent this from reoccurring.
Once there was a large, commercial, lift lock on a canal that they closed down to refurbish. It was built in the 1930s around the time of the Hoover Dam. They needed to resurface the concrete walls and at one point tried to use explosives to blast away a few inches of concrete. They detonated the charges and when the dust settled.....not much happened. They realized that the original builders really knew what they were doing when they formulated the concrete.
thats a lot better than the whole thing getting destroyed LOL. but also now after this video, i learned that they may have done some invisible damage by using explosives
No, those oldtimers didn't "know what they were doing", they just used a HUGE safety margin, exactly because they didn't know a whole lot. What do you do if you have no way of calculating if something is strong enough? You over-engineer it, and then you over-engineer it again. If you can calculate exactly what something requires, you don't need a large safety margin. If you're only guessing, you better use a huge safety margin to make sure it'll survive.
@@timderks5960 and that way of thinking is why everything doesn't last anymore.
@@ClumsyCars And that way of thinking is also why you can afford literally anything. If cars were built like they used to, they'd be so expensive hardly anyone could afford one. Also, you may wanna take of your pink glasses. Old stuff isn't good 99% of the time. There's a reason why old buildings come done, and most old cars aren't around anymore.
I studied engineering in college and I love watching many of the RUclips channels about engineering, but I have definitely learned the most from your channel by far.
Perfect timing, was about to have dinner
It's ( evening)5:46 in South East Asia
2 p.m. in Spain
Perfect timing, taking a dump.
I haven't even had breakfast yet it's morning for me very early morning 🌄
OK, where you from buddy? I can't work it out.
A few years ago there was a searing fire at multi-storey car park in Liverpool, UK. The aftermath showed how the concrete had essentially got so hot it lost all cohesion and completely crumbled away. Fascinating lesson
Looks like they didn't solve this problem when launching starship the other day. The damage to the pad looked insane, like a drone strike :o
I have been in the concrete industry my whole life. One of the foundations of society. I love it. Liquid rock. Still amazed by it.
4:46 My favorite pastry: cylinders of ready-mix concrete 😍
Excuse the Randomness but here you go,
have some warm Recommendations, cause the Learning never Ends! (Thats the
entire reason, yes)
-Veritasium.
-Professor Dave Explains.
-It’s ok to be smart.
-Krimson Rogue.
-Cynical Reviews.
-Michio Kaku.
-Multiple channel with the word Engineering in it.
-The Best for Last: Hbomberguy!
I learned about moisture clog spalling when I placed my charcoal chimney on a sidewalk in my yard to get the coals hot. After ten minutes or so I saw it shoot up about five feet and spew red hot charcoal everywhere, as well as the concrete from an 18" wide 2" deep crater in the sidewalk. A lesson I won't forget :)
Water is also used to dampen the forces applied to the launch pads.
I was hoping this would be mentioned, but I guess we can't have everything
Because water isnt being used for starship/spaceX
@@mikeunleashed1 it is. There is a water deluge system on the sub orbital pads and there will be one on the orbital pad
I think the water is mainly used for sound dampening
@@gbcfan204 I always saw the roles as one and the same- super loud sound makes for massive pressure spikes which the water helps dissipate, lessening the energy forced against the concrete and local support structures
Last year we used the same refractory concrete as SpaceX in a burn building for firefighter training. The refractory the engineer was asking for required a 24 hour 3500 degree "Burn in" for curing after installation. The refractory supplier suggested the refractory they had just installed at starbase. This stuff is great, no burn in and much better at withstanding high and low temperatures.
In Peppa Pig her dad (Daddy Pig) is an internationally renowned concrete expert. He tests samples by tapping them and listening to the ringing - easier to carry than a hydraulic press!
Didn't know I'd get to learn Peppa pig lore in the comments
pls tell me that's a joke... you're really tempting me to watch Peppa Pig right now 😂
Daddy pig loves being dug out of concrete. Everyone loves being dug out of concrete.
But he can't knock a nail in the wall to hang a picture, without making a huge hole in the wall!
Didn't Daddy Pig once forget to return a book about concrete to the library for 10 years?
Yes: ruclips.net/video/z6WtwWqgt3I/видео.html
I really expected that this would focus on the vibrations of a launch. I didn't expect heat as a core issue. Thanks.
Those oven-baked concrete burritos must be the next Hello Fresh meal 😉
I've made gravy with similar properties!
They are the concrete pills my parent want me to take so that I harden up
Spent to long in the microwave
I’ve been down to Boca Chica ,Texas. It is incredible the amount of construction they have done in such a short time.
Did aliens help them? (This is a joke)
@@AaronShenghao The term is undocumented workers.
Bahahahaha
👽we are here to help you build better concrete slabs👽
@@williamconklin161 😆
Another key thing to know don't weld something on a concrete floor because the heat makes the air pockets in the concrete make little pieces fly at you. My grandfather was told that by a guy who experienced.
Best spalling simulator for a rocket, minus the extreme thrust: molten metals from a refractory of course. =) Why I always work over a dirt/clay surface: let a new driveway absorb enough rain and spill a few drops from, say, molten brass or iron or your crucible cracks at an inopportune time, now you've got molten metal at 2400* to deal with ALONG with exploding concrete to dodge around your feet and legs!
At least the exploding concrete won't send the molten metal splashing around even more... Oh, wait.
Concrete: I'm made of "Fire resistant material".
Rocket exhaust: "Oh, *I'm* not fire..."
Tremendously relevant video after Starships test flight today.
I am a semi truck driver and I've noticed the concrete at semi truck gas stations (fuel stations) always have crushed concrete from all the heavy trucks running over the same exact spot. Wish I could post a picture. but its two noticeable dips in the concrete that the tires roll over. Also this video makes me think of the concrete on the interstate. Another informative video, thanks!
Oh man, I love your content. You explain everything in such a great manner. Well done!. ALSO- PLEASE DO MORE CONTENT ON SPACEX! I am crazy about this endeavour and there is so much to talk about. Take care!
Not as strong as kerbal launch pads, I can put 50 mammoth engines on those bad boys and they won’t break
Oh sure, they may _seem_ indestructible, but fire a *single* Oscar-B fuel tank fast enough at it and it crumbles like a dry cookie
@@pranavghantasala6808 so true
@A G N E Z_________ SHOCKING!! YOU WILL NEVER SEE AVOCADOES THE SAME WAY AGAIN!!1! ruclips.net/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/видео.html
my grandfather was an engineer for NASA 23 years he was the supervisor when they built the flame bucks,they used red brick and water to help with cooling and sound suppression
"Jet Fuel can't melt steel beams!"
But it can seriously degrade your concrete's structural capacity.
And even then, steel has lower fire resistance than concrete
Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, but it can heat steel beams enough so that they weaken and bend.
@@francismallard5892 As Trenton Tye from Purgatory Iron Works said back in the day.
-Honey, what's for dinner?
-Baked concrete
After every launch the pad has to be relined. Patching it is a recipe for disaster. I think the "patch" idea is similar to patching a tire. Yeah, it might last, but it might not. Thanks for the video. 👍
Well, it's better than nothing
Are you suggesting re-cementing after every launch?
@@NoNameAtAll2 I knew an employee of the company that did the pads for the shuttle program. They had to replace the lining after every launch. It wasn't to expensive, but it never failed to hold up.
@@d.t.4523 Most of the space shuttle's thrust came from solid fueled SRBs though, which Grady talked about. The exhaust is filled with white hot solid particulates, so it also acts like an insanely powerful sandblaster. Rockets that are only using liquid fueled engines aren't that hard on their launch pads.
In the scheme of things pouring a new layer of concrete shouldn't be a big thing- if you planed for it.
@@CHMichael If you plan to launch 3 times a day it can become a little bit of a problem though.
Learned the hard way in scouting that you don’t want to build a fire on concrete. In cub scouts the adults weren’t monitoring us enough, and we built a fire. It wasn’t until the fire started popping and exploding at us did they notice what we had done. Good times.
Thank you Grady for dropping another high quality content for us curious minds.
I remember the SN8 Static fire. I originally thought it was an explosive engine failure. Interesting to know it was actually the pad!
When you use a torch like you did you need to back up the tip around an inch to a inch and a half more than you had it to maximize the flame heats sweet spot. Just a tip from a plumber.
Your comment on required landing / launch infrastructure is very thought provoking. It'll be interesting to see the solutions put forth!
my favorite part of these videos is the goofy clips at the end of you cooking with your family lol
Ok, but grammar though?
My favourite solution to the landing on other planets problem is something Masten Aerospace has been testing recently. Essentially, they inject alumina ceramic into the exhaust of the rocket, where it is melted, accelerated out of the nozzle and deposited into the ground beneath. This lets the spacecraft build its own solid landing pad as its landing.
This raises the question: how DOES SpaceX intend to land Starship on Mars and take off again with only loose regolith below? If chunks of a landing pad can be destructive at launch then why wouldn't chunks of blasted regolith also be destructive to landing or relaunch?
SpaceX has shielded the wiring since then.
Also mars has more gravity and a atmosphere, so its better than moon landings
@@loganwalker8537 I'm not sure how that helps. It helps prevent the "debris blasted out at escape velocity" problem that the moon has but it doesn't help with the "on earth we need to build launch and landing pads out of specialized concrete or else our ship gets damaged on launch or landing" problem.
@@zarfmouse what i mean is, the moondust is incredibly sharp because the moon has no atmosphere, meaning no wind, no wind means no erosion on the dirt or moon dust, mars has all this though so itll be like landing in the desert
Which doesnt help but its better than tiny sharp needles flying out atescape velocity
@@wadewilson6628 you do know that you dont need much fuel once you escape the gravity of the planet right?
You simply float through space at what ever distance you stopped using the engine thrust after escaping the planet
Grady, you may not have realized it, but the large elongated black strangely shaped object on the underside of the perseverance rover is actually a thin carbon fiber and honeycomb debris shield which was made specifically to protect the fragile mars helicopter during the skycrane maneuver. Especially relevant to the discussion, where the rubble and ejecta during landing from plumes specifically influenced design decisions; in this case we needed several new parts as well as dedicated inserts on the bellypan to be able to attach to. Mass and space on a mars rover is really important, so it's clear that this was a substantial concern.
I was (in a small way) involved with the stress analysis and design development of those components at one point, on the mars helicopter deployment system (MHDS).
Concrete is important to so many industries for so many different reasons! Great video.
"Why SpaceX cares" is a better title than what you had before, but I would have watched this eventually anyway. :)
what was the original title?
@@itemushmush "What are launch pads made of?"
"That's one of the reasons we use [concrete] in so much of our buildings and infrastructure: it doesn't burn."
Chlorine Trifluoride molecules: "Allow us to introduce ourselves."
Well in that case nothing but god and/or a good pair of running shoes will save you.
How on earth do you make/store chlorine trifluoride? That sounds even more terrifying than O2F2 ...which would probably also set concrete on fire.
@@Hyrum_Graff Ask the electronic companies that use it for cleaning chemical vapor deposition chambers
@@Hyrum_Graff @Hyrum_Graff apparently it's storeable within certain metals if they are prepared correctly; if you're very careful apparently you can form a layer of fluorine-metal compounds atop the metal that stops them from reacting. Although of course if that gets worn off or damaged then you'll probably have a very, very bad day.
The joy on your face as you take those concrete samples out of the oven is perfect
As someone studying Civil Engineering, and with hopes of applying it in the Aerospace industry, this video is absolutely perfect!
Mind if i RANDOMLY recommend a cool Channel like Practical Engineering or Veritasium or Its ok to be smart?
I really enjoyed the off planet civil engineering. It would be great to learn about waste management or electricity generation/management in space and on other plants.
Elon Musk said in his interview with Everyday Astronaut that the launch pad was harder to build than the rockets and engines themselves
Elon's Personality worries me though...
...
@@slevinchannel7589 oh please....hes not as bad as the media portrays him.
Looks like the stratospheric blimp-launchpad or railgun satellite launchers were not that insane ideas after all. You can not destroy concrete if you don't have one.
@@pauljnellissery7096 He's also as competent and epic as HE wants to be portrayed, though?
?
@@pauljnellissery7096 Actual Essays about him portray him as very bad... because... you know... facts?
I was saying "they're going to regret not having a water tank", and I was right. SpaceX should hire me as an engineer.
Speaking of surviving high heat, apparently the motor in the Sprint missile had zirconium staples in the propellant to conduct heat into the unburnt layer so it wouldn't explode from the thermal shock.
I had never thought about ejecta putting spacecraft at risk. Very good point.
I’ve had my fill of refractory cement products in the casting unit of a steel mill. Had to spray and hand finish the inside of tundish boxes. That’s the box that the steel coming out of the ladle goes into before it goes into the mold area. That way when one ladle runs dry you can swap them out without stopping. I don’t know what was in that mix that we used, but that stuff stunk sooo bad!
So damn true! The calderys dryram we use smells so goddamn bad
the PracticalEngineering Channel has become my new favorite channel, these videos are great.
Practical Engineering talking about SpaceX is kinda the best thing that's gonna happen to me this week.
This is also one of reason why there are water towers near launch pads and dump water onto the pad. For one it absorbs the sound, the other is cool down everything on,under and around the pads.
Also, China landed a quite large probe with a rover on Mars going all the way down using reentry rockets. Satellite image shown the blast area in the ground is similar to Curiosity rover’s. So it isn’t that big of an issue on Mars. (Technically it is the latest rover/probe landed on Mars, after NASA’s)
Curiosity's landing affected the ground much less than the Zhurong's did.
The Zhurong lander made a small crater under itself, which can be seen here. ruclips.net/video/aSSs6FfBlgY/видео.html
1:12 is an oddly satisfying transition! Bravo!
Thanks for the metric
I normally skip sponsor sections in videos, but I always watch yours because your family is just so cute! Thank you, Grady, for making such wonderful educational, entertaining, and heart warming videos!
💖 -Ava
That pesky Anhydrite, cement, always adds strength and unit weight to our mix designs. Refractories have always been used in smoke stacks, allowing for HIGH temperatures with out spall, delaminates, or failure. For as dumb as concrete is it sure has some complexities. Cheers to: SCIENCE!
Cad welding grounding rods over fresh concrete was my first intro to high temperature concrete reactions
I feel like Grady should adopt a riff on Ivan Miranda's "Spacers!!!": "Coupons!!!" (or "Samples!!!", but that's less fun)
I can just imagine his wifes reaction when he is putting concrete cylinders into the oven haha
It's probably preferable to a transmission in the bathtub.
Cookies!
She probably loved it as much as he did.
This video might be worth revisiting, as the launchpad for starship suffered some severe damage when it launched.
"I'm Grady, and this is Practical Engineering."
Is it tho? This channel went from Post 10 to Wernher von Braun pretty quick!
Ignore my shitpost though; this channel is top-tier.
I thought you were going to the say, "or is it?"
like a good ol' V sauce video.
Great video! On a side note this all highlights one big reason why anyone doing backyard metal castings should *not* pour on their driveway in case of spills.
Best-case scenario with a spill is you just damage your driveway and have to redo or resurface it sooner than you should. Worst-case is the conditions are right for spalling.
Do you remember that scene in James Bonds Moonraker when they are traped in the rocket pads exhaust room?
I saw it as a kid and had nightmares for weeks beeing trapped there myself. So thanks for bringing that up I guess 😉
I do! And that table that folded flat into the ground was amazing as a kid! And something else to think about................Doesn't Elon look a little like a younger version of Drax?
Mind if i RANDOMLY recommend a cool Channel like Practical Engineering or Veritasium or Its ok to be smart?
Years ago when faced with a problem like this, the answer was asbestos. Refractory bricks line the inside of burners in oil refineries.
Lunar regolith is very coarse stuff, I bet it could make some pretty amazing "sand" for a concrete mix. Of course getting the cement there would be problematic due to the as mentioned weight issues.
I love your new pattern of basics videos (water hammer or concrete) and failure videos (Oroville dam) and you do a great job at being sensitive when there was loss of life.
Civil engineering husband “Honey can I use the oven I wanna bake my concrete?”
Wife “whaaaat”
I would never allow that in my oven! And I am a man! hahahaha! My food does not need to be exposed to baking concrete of any kind!
We made a slab for pressure washing with store bought concrete, which broke easily.
In a few days it went from a smooth surface to a very rough surface.
Next time we had a truck come with proper concrete, which is still like new a few years later.
Hilarious timing RUclips!
You make the complex understandable. Thanks for all the great content.
i know that adding 0.1% graphene by wheight can increase concrete strength by up to 30%, but i wonder what effect adding it has on heat resistance.
Your cooking ads at the end of these help me keep faith in humanity. Thanks for that.
This was super interesting, something i have never thought about a whole lot.
I encounter the same issues with Mullite Furnaces and Combustion Tubes. Though in the Furnace Blocks, surface cracks are evident and they don’t break until the cracks start to crumble large chunks away. The main problem is the lack of compressive and tensile strength, so you have to be very delicate.
You should get a good look at how the Space Shuttles pad was done back in 1983......
We didn't have all mixes we do today. There was a 30ft radius at center of all three engines that was 8in deep.
When the rest of the flame bucket was done we went back to pour the 8in recess.....
It's the only time I've done
(Vacuum process concreat).
Form mounted vibrators, vacuums hoses 2ft on center. It was pretty trick for the 80s.....
I only wish I knew then what I know now I would have paid more attention to things like mix design. Let's face it I was a 19 year old apprentice an just kept my head down an mouth shut......
Still got to do an see things that only a handful of men ever will GOOD TIMES
That's amazing!
This channel is better than anything on mainstream TV.
really fascinating video topic this time Grady!!!
Hey Brady! Ready mix concrete provider here. Just curious: was the concrete air entrained or simply entrapped air in your test samples? Would the difference in air content make a difference in the durability based on heat like it does with freeze/thaw cycles?
I'm no expert, just certified and paid to inspect but to my understanding more air content (to a certain point, too much is also a big issue) the more resistant concrete is to freeze/thaw of normal temp fluctuations. More air means more room for that expansion and shrinkage without causing cracks, where concrete with less air has less room to work with.
For concrete under extreme heat like this video I would have no clue.
@@aberrance6706 that is more air that will expand and contract with temperature changes
I love this channel! thanks, Grady!
I will add 1 thing to this. Couple with all of what you discussed, rocket engines create sonic waves of sound that can easily cause vibration problems. Sound booms or sonic booms can happen just before the rocket lifts off, hence the water for sound suppression. This as well is a huge factor in possibly why and inclusive of future designs to prevent concrete launch pad failures.
"And in *most* cases" the landing isn't precise?!? SpaceX has landed 90 boosters successfully, against a handful of losses, half of which were in the experimental stage. The old crashes look great on the screen, but convey a far from accurate sense of the landing success rate for the last 4-5 years. And note that most landings are on a drone ship, a target moving in 3 dimensions - the deck is moving vertically with the waves several meters. Precision is not the problem.
The SpaceX Mechazilla grabbing system obviously protects the launch pad, something I totally missed. Your explanation of the SN8 explosion and description of the special recipes for concrete used in pads was excellent. A major reason I love watching your episodes -- expanding my horizons. Over the years, I've noted the many types of concrete used on freeways, sometimes with poor effect, especially one section which was quick-drying and made for an awful surface when vehicles drove over it. Thanks so much for taking us into your 'laboratory' and the highly instructive demo. Look forward to your next video!!
Grady much life and success. You are criminally underrated.
Great video, could a carpet made from heat resistant fibres be used?
A textile product might be light enough and prevent the regolith from being eroded from beneath the rocket.
No.
The Gases get thrown out at about 5km/s way to fast for something like that.
It is essentially a directed explosion.
The testing difference is also because concrete cures not by drying but thru a chemical reaction that actually counts on a proper moisture level over a long period which is why you see some pours covered by plastic to maintain moisture levels. Heating it early in the curing process (particularly under 28 days) removes some of that water which inherently weakens it, not to mention the damage caused by steam generation at an expansion of 144 times compared to water and the heating of the agragetes...
This doesn't really tell us what is different in lauchpads, just that they're concrete + fibres?
I mean...as long as you ignore the variety of engineering structures employed in launch pads to help maintain the structure, like flame diversion grooves...
and lots of water.
@@wobblysauce lots of water will produce lots of steam and lots of stress. You need porous fireclay type cement (and bricks) that can allow steam to escape rapidly.