Fatigue induced cracking in aluminum LN-2 shroud of 39 foot vacuum chamber

Fourteen years after completion of Ford's 39-foot space simulation chamber, leaks began to appear in its LN2 shroud. Although the shroud had been tight since its acceptance, cracks appeared in 1983 in some of the field welds of the one inch tubes which interconnect the LN2 panels. The resulting leaks were large enough to prevent pump down to high vacuum and could be heard easily when the chamber was at ambient conditions. New cracks appeared during each thermal cycle making it impossible to utilize the chamber for thermal vacuum testing. The analysis presented here implies that many, if not all, of the aluminum LN2 shrouds now in use may be in various stages of fatigue failure. The probability is high that fatigue cracks are working through the aluminum tubing in heat-affected zones of some field welds. The cracks may not be apparent yet, but after the shroud has experienced a certain number of thermal cycles these cracks will work through the material and become serious leaks. Fortunately, appropriate planning, analysis, and checking can, with a relatively small expenditure of money, help to avoid large and unexpected shroud failures and keep the chamber operational as long as it is needed.