Load-Bearing Capacity of Elements of Composite Shell Structures in Rocket and Space Engineering Made of Composite Materials

The importance and necessity of investigating the influence of a wide range of factors on behavior of composite materials and their real possibilities for operation conditions of rocket-space engineering structure elements are justified. Specifics of material structure and composition, technological processes of their production and design of complex elements, severe conditions of pre-operational tests, direct pre-flight preparation, and effect of complex thermal force factors in the course of controlled flights mean the necessity of experimental studies of the effects of such factors on current and residual physical-mechanical characteristics. For such tasks, the program development results, equipment, and methods of experimental studies of the effect of factors with different character on the integrity of real structures made of polymer composites for different loading modes and types of the stress state are presented. The object of the study is a shell model of a solid fuel rocket engine body made of polymer composite material. Analysis of test results of model shells made of IMS-65 E23 24K+Huntsman unidirectional carbon plastic made by annular winding (90°) under combined loading made it possible to determine the influence of design and technological factors on mechanical properties of these shells and their limit state. New data have been obtained concerning the behavior of such material under the complex action of force loading (compression–tension) and internal pressure (up to 10 MPa), taking anisotropy into account.