Fuel tank rules of thumb

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Roger Stokes - 10 Oct 2003 05:37 GMT

Does anyone have formulae or rules of thumb for the mass of a fuel tank to
hold a certain weight or volume of fuel such as LH2, LOX, or Kerosene - eg
if I said 75 tonnes of LH2 at 3g what would the tank weigh?

thanks...
Roger

Reply to this Message

David Shannon - 27 Oct 2003 07:12 GMT

> Does anyone have formulae or rules of thumb for the mass of a fuel tank to
> hold a certain weight or volume of fuel such as LH2, LOX, or Kerosene - eg
> if I said 75 tonnes of LH2 at 3g what would the tank weigh?

Mass /kg = a x V^b

LOx LH2 JP4

a 27.0 32.3 30.5

b 0.843 0.794 0.824

found at

S. S. Pietrobon,... nsto.pdf (156,748 bytes), 49th Int. Astronautical
Congress, IAF-98-V.3.07, Melbourne, Australia, Sep.-Oct. 1998.
IAF98pap.pdf (123,896 bytes)

http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/pub/nsto.pdf

quoting NASA TM X-3554

Reply to this Message

Len - 27 Oct 2003 23:10 GMT

> > Does anyone have formulae or rules of thumb for the mass of a fuel tank to
> > hold a certain weight or volume of fuel such as LH2, LOX, or Kerosene - eg
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> quoting NASA TM X-3554

Thanks for the post and intersting reference.

A lot depends upon insulation concept, tank shape, etc.,
of course, but, IMO, the referenced formual seems to be
optimistic for mass of LOX tanks and pessimistic for the
mass of LH2 tanks.

BTW, V refers to the volume i kL or m^2.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
len@tour2space.com ( http://www.tour2space.com )

Reply to this Message

Space Forum / Space Flight / October 2003

Fuel tank rules of thumb