Abh space architecture

Abh Space architecture is the theory and practice of designing and building inhabited environments in outer space specific to the Abh. The architectural approach to spacecraft design addresses the total built environment.

Spaceship

Ship layout

Abh ships place and build their water tanks into the ship's hull to serve as cosmic radiation protection and heatsink for excess heat. Water surge-, excess-, in-use tanks are within the ship for ease of repair and maintenance while allowing keeping the hull tanks full at all times. The tanks are mounted on vibration isolation and damping systems to prevent or reduce exchange of acoustic vibration. The tanks are pressurized and employ various self-sealing technologies and are covered by various layers of insulation. The hull walls have liquid insulation and elastomer, barriers and membranes.

Civilian ships use large area covering tanks. At the very least, the tanks provide 50% Earth rated protection is the standard. Large civilian ships can provide at least 90% or more protection.

Military ships employ circulating water pipe tanks which allow better control of the ship's hull temperature and improve heatsink capacity. This design eliminates slosh which can impede ship control, hence, weapon's firing accuracy and sensor accuracy. Unlike civilian counter parts they are usually high pressure tanks rated at least for 50 bars. Further, they are embedded inside their own pressure safety champers instead of directly mounted to the hull. Their damage tolerance includes fail-safe measures such as points of failure to reduce damage and ease of repair. Their safe-life design includes extra for minimum time needed to reach the next station or base at sublight (1 year). Small military ships, due to the smaller tanks and arrangement, have less radiation protection from the tanks than civilian ships. However, this is countered by their military armoring systems.

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  Abh civilian ship cross section

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  Abh military ship cross section

• 1: external protection layer : armor, heatshield, interstellar meteoroid and debris shielding etc.
• 2: semi-pressure hullplating (external): isogrid base-plate; simple self-sealing/self-repair carbon layer; multifunctional honeycomb energy absorbing plate
• 3: bulkhead frame structure
• 4: high pressure circulation self-sealing water tank pipe / semi-deflateable self-sealing pressurized water tank; crawl able for inspection
• 5: primary pressure hull (double hull)
• 6: secondary pressure hull: final safety zone
• 7: bulkhead frame structure
• 8: deck plating & structure
• 9: (triple/quad redundant) utility core shaft

Hull design

Main article: Mechanical stresses on ships

See also: Ship motions

Ships moving and accelerating in space experience all sorts of acceleration forces in all possible direction and from all possible direction. Generally, civilian ships are limited to no more than 6 standard gravities (g) of forward acceleration and 4 g in all other direction. Very large transport ships are limited to mere 4 g and 3 g respectively. Abh military ships are limited to 5 g. However, using their gravity generator the ships can actually go up to 21.225 g as seen with the Caubh-Class. The safety margin is, frankly, less than the generous designed number of +50% would suggest and can be easily surpassed in surges and in fractions of seconds. Despite technological advances it is still necessary to select and mix material used within the hull. The alloy Al₂₀Li₂₀Mg₁₀Sc₂₀Ti₃₀ which is as strong as titanium, light as aluminum, and hard as ceramic, could be used on the outer section to lessen the load. The alloy stronger and heavier alloy Al₂₀Be₂₀Fe₁₀Si₁₅Ti₃₅ could be used on the internal section to keep the ship together.

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  reconstructed hull section based on anime Roil-Class

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  how it should have been

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  slight improvement with fancy bulkhead structure

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  optimized space and bulkhead structure

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  configuration of a large civilian hull

• 1: high pressure circulation self-sealing water tank pipe / semi-deflateable self-sealing pressurized water tank; crawl able for inspection
• 2: vibroacoustic and kinetic grahene damping sponge for holding leaked liquid for recovering
• 3: insulation and elastomer, barriers and membranes
• 4: protective pressure-chamber for external and internal blast, with removable cover
• 5: vibration isolation and damping system
• 6: bulkhead frame structure
• 7: primary pressure hull plating; external multi-layer insulation blanket; self-sealing layer & coating
• 8: bulkhead structures: stringers, girders, longitudinals,
• 9: secondary pressure hull plating (double hull); internal multi-layer insulation blanket; self-sealing layer, anti-spall layer
• 10: semi-pressure hullplating (external): isogrid base-plate; simple self-sealing/self-repair carbon layer; multifunctional honeycomb energy absorbing plate
• 11: external protection layer : armor, heatshield, interstellar meteoroid and debris shielding etc.
• 12: simple plating with liquid barrier and membrane
• 13: inspection, crawl space

Propulsion

Main article: Spaceship propulsion

Life support

Space is a hazardous environment which requires enormous effort to keep the crew alive and healthy. As such spaceborn habitation relies heavily on complex and redundant life support systems.

• Primary life support relies purely on bio-technology to recycle waste and to sustain the crew in all matters.
• Secondary life support is almost exclusively for emergencies and mostly relies on chemical technologies. Only small planetary ships, boats and shuttles would have them as primary system.
• Tertiary life support is almost exclusively for emergencies and mostly relies on reserve tanks or storage. Exceptions being provision which is always required as starting input into the ship's ecological system.

Supplies

All ship are required to have supplies such as fuel, propellant, provision, and spare parts. Despite advancement in space travel technologies it only reduces travel time marginally by a few factors. As such ship still have to carry a large amount of supplies. Depending on ship type and size travel to the next planet can take as long as 3-6 months or more in larger sized star systems. Time requirements are always calculated as active time. This means unused time like docked or downtime does not count. Fuel, propellant, and provision are indispensable and considered used in full burn at all times. Travel time and consumption (fuel,propellant) is always for at cruise acceleration.

Commercial ships like cargo ships or passenger ships must have enough supplies to reach their destination plus a diversion to an alternate destination(usually a Lagrange point) plus another 10% or 20 days which ever is more.

Military ships follow the same requirements as commercial ships except they are required to do round trips and are also required to have a loiter time over target of 50% of travel time. The total ends up being 3x that of commercial ships. Needless to say military naval architects have to be creative to go about it. Which is why military transports are always traveling around and resupply ships daily.

Evacuation

See also: Emergency escape pod

Shielding

Main article: Shields

See also: Space environment

Physical Shielding

As Abh ships are rated 4 on the Spaceflight capability scale they require very good protection for the interstellar and plane space environments Unarmored ships are required to have a probability of no penetration (PNP) for the outer hull of 0.9999 for 365 days against meteoroids and debris of 2 cm, 12 g traveling at 70 km/s.