Manufacturing Ablative Nozzles and Nose Cones

A new process for the fabrication of Thermal Shields consisting of a continuous layup fabrication process is presented. For this application a relatively new clan of materials called cermet ablatives is discussed briefly.

The advent of large booster nozzles, while utilizing much of the current ablative processing techniques derived from smaller nozzles, created a series of joinery problems between metallics and non-metallics because of the size factor alone. Methods of overcoming these joinery problems also are discussed in detail.