Re:Musk explains why SpaceX prefers clusters of small engines
by Retric on Thursday February 08, 2018 @03:06PM
(#16335147)
It's not quite linear. Pressure vessels like air tanks or rocket engines wall thickness scale approximately linearly with radius. But, that's not the only stress on rocket engines which need to deal with thermal expansion etc.
Re:Musk explains why SpaceX prefers clusters of small engines
by aurizon on Thursday February 08, 2018 @08:59PM
(#16337302)
The walls need to get thicker indeed, and that extra thickness gradually adds to the weight of the engine faster than adding extra small engines for the same thrust = less and less payload
The walls get linearly thicker, and your intuition about why the walls need to get thicker is incorrect.