Insights into the Behavior of Potential Structural Failures Originating from Localized High Stress Regions in Configurations Relevant to Solid Rocket Motor Nozzles

Abstract: During the structural certification effort for the Space Launch System solid rocket booster nozzle, it was identified that no consistent method for addressing local negative margins of safety in non-metallic materials had been developed. Relevant areas included bond-line terminations and geometric features in the composite nozzle liners. In order to gain understanding, analog test specimens were designed that very closely mimic the conditions in the actual full scale hardware. Different locat…