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From the HYPERSIZER website:
http://hypersizer.com/industry/projects/NASA-Ares-V-Shroud.php
Anonymous author writes:
"Design Results
(a) Increasing confidence in the technology has led to consideration of composites for manned space flight, including the former Ares V launch vehicle.
(b) Optimization software permits designers to choose from thousands of material types to build and test virtual laminates in search of the best design.
(c) Stiffened, uncored panels could present the best option because their structural performance can be highly tailored for the lightest weight.
The former Constellation mission replaced the aging Space Shuttle program. Notably, the program marked the first time that composites were considered for manned mission hardware.
NASA designed and built a full-scale Composite Crew Module (CCM) in parallel with the mostly metallic Orion crew exploration capsule that was to fly as part of Constellation. In addition, the payload shroud, interstage and intertank structures of the Ares V heavy-lift launch vehicle, also part of the Constellation concept, were conceptually designed in composites.
The Ares V is a three-stage rocket: Like the Space Shuttle, it was designed to use a pair of solid-fuel first-stage rocket boosters that burn simultaneously with the liquid-fuel second (core) stage. The upper stage, dubbed the Earth Departure Stage (EDS), is powered by a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine. At 116m/380 ft long and 10m/33 ft in diameter, Ares V would be the world’s largest launch vehicle. It would also be the most powerful, able to lift 188,000 kg/415,000 lb into low earth orbit, or 71,000 kg/157,000 lb to the Moon.
Design of the Ares V components were facilitated by Collier Research, using its HyperSizer software. First developed in the early 1990s at NASA’s Langley Research Center (Hampton, Virginia), HyperSizer does not perform finite element analysis (FEA) and is not a computer-aided design (CAD) program, stresses Craig Collier of Collier Research Corporation (Hampton, Virginia). “It’s a tool for composite designers that provides automated structural analysis, material selection and design optimization.” The software is designed to help the user select the best composite materials for an application and determine margins of safety, for the lightest possible structure. Collier’s company was part of a NASA team that aimed to determine the optimum structural concepts for the largest composite component on Ares V, the 33-ft/10m-diameter and nearly 72-ft/22m-long payload shroud that surrounded the lunar landing hardware.
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