Re: N-1 "Stabilization Screens" (Wuz: Re: shuttle LOX line vs Saturn V LOX lines)

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:54:10 GMT, henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

In article <ejlh03t0ocr13tc14n2gu2t0ubkpokk9o5@xxxxxxx>,
OM <om@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/realspace/rsm088.html
...Just exactly *how* did those "stabilization screens" work,
aerodynamically speaking? They sort of go against what we'd expect to
find on a rocket - read: fins...

Think of a bunch of long narrow fins in parallel. Now cross them with
more long narrow fins at right angles to the first batch. This gives you
something that looks like a screen at first glance, but is actually a
whole lot of fin area in a compact package. My dim recollection is that
there's been a bit of use of such "grid fins" (there is some other
buzzword for them but it escapes me at the moment) for tube-launched
tactical missiles, where fin stowage is always a headache. If I recall
correctly, their main virtue is compactness, and their main vice is
relatively high drag.

....That's what I thought as well WRT drag effects. Pat's links
provided the views I'd never seen before, and to be honest I actually
thought they were some sort of flat plates and/or plates with holes
drilled through them. My take on the purpose wasn't so much as, say,
fins on an S-IC stage, but something that was slightly angled so as to
put a slow, mechanical stabilizing spin on the entire stack.

Heh, I wonder if the NARCON guys have ever experimented with replacing
their fins with the "finger guards" from small desktop fans :-)

OM
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