I'm a bit confused as to how a full rocket can be reused without gradually increasing the risk of failure after every subsequent launch... are there methods to reduce the effects of crack growth or remove micro-cracks after the material has been used? Does every component get checked and critical equipment replaced leaving the metals which "look" good to be reused?
If I knew, I would me much richer than now :) These are details which are strogly protected secrets of the manufacturer. Sometimes after decades some part of the truth is published.
The more I look into this the more interesting it becomes, they may have some novel method of detecting micro cracks inside of the metal structures and have an accurate statistical model to estimate how long each component will last. A different interesting theory I have is that they may be prepared for single rockets occasionally failing (like the middle rocket of the falcon heavy), while still being able to recover 2/3's of the rocket in good enough condition. I'm not sure if this is economical though...
I think it is a very careful calculation of how much more the parts of the rocket cost versus the number of times that part can be reused. And this will be very carefully protected SpaceX IP. I do know that in military vehicles the art of calculating the stress to fail is very precisely worked out so that a part that works fine at say 105% rated full load will fail at 106% (otherwise it's overdesigned and too heavy). I guess SpaceX must be just as good at this.
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