Fixing Planetoid Hulls

[Piper]

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Well, guess a "practical" example would be useful.
Could somebody provide a asteroid ship design (perhaps 400 Dton range) with the volumes of the main components ?

M-drive 1: 8 tons
J-drive 1: 8 tons
power 2: 24 tons
fuel:48 tons
bridge: 20 tons
computer: 1 ton
turrets: 4 tons
15 staterooms: 60 tons
20 low berths: 10 tons
cargo: 137 tons
total: 320 tons (80 tons waste for the asteroid)

What's the best "easy math" model of an asteroid; a sphere or a rectangular cube?

 

[Piper]

Slightly off-topic but mentioned earlier in this thread:
Malenfant; would it be possible to use the Roche limit of a planet as some sort of giant rock crusher?
If so, any ideas on how quickly breakup would occur?

 

[TheEngineer]

Hm, ok some principles

Stress to a structure occurs, if different parts of the structure are affected by different forces.

If every part feels the same force in the same direction there no stress at all (just like freefall in vaccuum or IMTU movement by a reactionless maneuver drive).

A pretty problem for dispersed structures are perhaps rotational, bending and shearing moments.
In mechanics a moment usually is based upon a force and a distance to an attachment point, e.g. M=r x F
A structure with many long and thin elements is sensible to different forces at different part, because r is larger, causing larger moments.

E.g. the thin bone structure could easily cope with forces along its lenght, but is more sensible to diverging forces directing sidewards.

But, those are really just very general statements ...

For Traveller IMHO "just in space" structures could be pretty dispersed

regards,

TE

 

[TheEngineer]

Originally posted by Piper:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Well, guess a "practical" example would be useful.
Could somebody provide a asteroid ship design (perhaps 400 Dton range) with the volumes of the main components ?

M-drive 1: 8 tons
J-drive 1: 8 tons
power 2: 24 tons
fuel:48 tons
bridge: 20 tons
computer: 1 ton
turrets: 4 tons
15 staterooms: 60 tons
20 low berths: 10 tons
cargo: 137 tons
total: 320 tons (80 tons waste for the asteroid)

What's the best "easy math" model of an asteroid; a sphere or a rectangular cube? </font>[/QUOTE]Hu, a pretty fast one

Thanx !
I will do the following.
Using this excel ship layout sheet I will form a somehow spherical irregular body and then try to store the components inside...resulting in a rough deckplan set.
Lets see...

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by ravs:
Thanks TE,

I was thinking more about the principles involved rather than anything specific (I just made up the structure on the spur of the moment). I was really wondering what criteria one would have to take into account to ascertain what the limits of a moving dispersed structure would be.

Ravs

For some practical ideas, look at your local water towers and radio masts. Both are massive fragile structures with minimal support to resist 1G vertical plus lateral wind and seismic loads. Thin trusses and wires support the structures.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Piper:
Slightly off-topic but mentioned earlier in this thread:
Malenfant; would it be possible to use the Roche limit of a planet as some sort of giant rock crusher?
If so, any ideas on how quickly breakup would occur?

Doesn't really work like that. Look at what happened to Shoemaker-Levy 9 in the 90s - the comet approached Jupiter, got within the roche limit, and broke up into lots of fragments that were still pretty hefty. You could maybe use it to split apart rubble pile asteroids into their component parts, but it's not going to grind them to powder (or even to pebbles).

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Piper:
Slightly off-topic but mentioned earlier in this thread:
Malenfant; would it be possible to use the Roche limit of a planet as some sort of giant rock crusher?

Only on objects so big they are primarily held together by gravitational forces, which are pretty much by definition too big to use for spaceships. Breaking a 100 km asteroid into 1 km chunks may have some uses, but it's not exactly a rock crusher.