Ordtech
Aircraft Fuel Tanks External Jettisonable
Ordtech manufactures external jettisonable fuel tanks for F-16, Mirage, F-4 aircraft. Conventional design (aluminium) but also composite tanks are manufactured for centerline and underwing carriage.
Design Parameters: Loads on external aircraft tanks arise from three main sources:
Pressurization, Aerodynamic Loads, Inertial Loads. Specially developed computer modelling
tools were developed to determine these loads for any pylon mounted strore, underwing
or centerline and for a variety of aircraft (F-16, Mirage, F-4) according to MIL-A-8591G.
Operating Environment:
Maximum Altitude 30000 ft
Maximum Velocity 630 KTAS (M 0.95)
Load Factor + 6.5 g to -2.5 g
Test Pressure leakage 2 bar
Test Pressure no failure 3.5 bar
Fuel Transfer Pressure 0.8 bar
Composite Fuel Tanks
Material: Conventional tanks are manufactured from aluminium alloy which presents
certain disadvantages: high cost, corrosion, catastrophic failure upon impact, fatigue
low resistance. To overcome these disadvantages another materiel was selected and
successfully used: Prepregnated epoxy reinforced with carbon fibre enables lower
tooling costs, complex shapes and rapid repair in case of damage. Mechanical properties
include high specific stiffness and strength and high resistance to fatigue.
Lightning protection: The effects of lightning strike are reduced by incorporating
a layer of aluminium mesh / glass fibre. This also provides electromagnetic shielding.