Armadillo Aerospace News: Hydrotest, Big vehicle work, Engine work

We received a new 100 gallon tank from Structural last week to do another hydrotest on. The previous tank we tested failed at 600 psi, but it had a clear and obvious weak point in the lightweight and incomplete cast aluminum winding flange on the bottom of the tank. The new tank has proper flanges on both sides, and we bolted our own milled aluminum flanges to the ends.
Neil borrowed a real hydrotest machine from his work for this test. We had to change some things on it, because it was set up with a 20,000 psi gauge. Neil said this was their low pressure one! The machine runs on shop air, and it took a painfully long time to bring the pressure up. Neil commented on how different hydrotesting a fiberglass tank was from the steel vessels they normally work with – the steel vessels have so little stretch that they come up to pressure very rapidly.
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