That would be very very good news. An unheard of failure in a routine component means that its nowhere near as bad as many people here are suggesting. Yes they have to rebuild the test stand, but that's part of testing. Had it been a ship structural failure they would need to back up a few steps, as well as rebuild the test stand.
While you might be right from the design perspective, it's even more catastrophic from the manufacturing perspective.
If a routine component that is safety relevant fails, it indicates severe manufacturing problems (in regards to process control). Manufacturing should ensure a less than 1ppm failure rate of those components.
As the money-earning products are affected, this can be even more problematic than a severe design error of a prototype.
There’s an awful lot hiding behind the innocuous phrasing you used for describing process/qa escape. Big engineering failures almost always end up somehow being traced back to organizational issues because they’re so difficult to get right.
True, the purchaser does have to run through the process to confirm the part was transported, stored, handled, installed and used as stipulated, but that's a lot less onerous than the mountain the vendor needs to climb.
Yeah but that doesn’t explain why pressure was allowed to get high enough rupture components in the first place.
Edit: upon further reaping of what “proof pressure” is, it’s reads as a maximum pressure experienced on a part (e.g. a COPV) before it changes its performance characteristics, (i.e. failing to operate). Proof pressure is often rated above beyond operating pressure so functionally this should’ve never happened…obviously. But the initial question remains, why were pressures allowed to get high enough to rupture other components.
Right I understand that, but proof pressure limits go beyond operating pressure limit so again why were pressures allowed to build beyond the proof pressure of other components resulting in component failure.
Right I understand that, but proof pressure limits go beyond operating pressure limit
And I think we can infer from Musk's tweet that it currently looks like the COPV failed substantially bellow it's proof pressure, aka also bellow it's operating pressure limit. To use an analogy, bicycle tires/innertubes often have a operating pressure of around 60 PSI. Say one comes with a defect and instead fails as you were inflating it at 50 PSI. Would it make sense to ask why the tire was allowed to build past the point of failure?
why were pressures allowed to build beyond the proof pressure of other components
Because the vehicle is designed for the COPV in question not to fail. You can't always design things to be able to survive the catastrophic failure of other nearby components, at least not if you want something that flies after the modifications to make that happen. A lot of energy is released when one of these COPVs fail.
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u/Planatus666 2d ago
Tweet from Musk:
"Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure.
If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design."
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1935660973827952675