CT Imaging the Brazed Tubing of Saturn V J-2 engine Thrust Chamber
Per Wikipedia the J-2, commonly known as Rocketdyne J-2, was a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine used on NASA’s Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles.
The J-2’s thrust chamber assembly served as a mount for all engine components, and was composed of the thrust chamber body, injector and dome assembly, gimbal bearing assembly, and augmented spark igniter. The bell-shaped chamber was regeneratively cooled by the cryogenic fuel flowing through these tubes. The brazed tubes are aligned then melted together to form the chamber and bell which was tricky, expensive to manufacture, and prone to defective end results.
The above chamber section was CT scanned (thousands of 2D x-rays about a 360 degree axis) at 225kv. The x-ray dataset was then processed into a 3D file, called a volume, where we scroll through and inspect the sample digitally. If only the engineers responsible for putting astronauts on the moon had the ability to inspect mission critical welds and joints in this way! Below we are able to characterize porosity, penetration percentage, wall thickness, and more.
