Hybrid Rocket Engine Development

When I joined the Eclipse Rocket Club, the team had launched some solid rockets for competitions, but the team wanted to develop a hybrid rocket engine as a passion project.

The first cut at the hybrid rocket engine, shown to the right, is designed to be a 50 lb thrust engine with maximum burn time of 10 seconds. The solid HTPB fuel grain is ignited in the combustion chamber. The injector plate injects liquid nitrous oxide into the combustion chamber .

We built a test stand to iterate quickly on the development of the fuel grain composition, injector plate design, nozzle design, and thrust vector control. We thought that the test stand phase of the rocket design would be brief; however we quickly realized how sensitive rocket performance is to small geometry and chemistry changes. During my time on the team, we never got past the test stand stage.

My Role

I researched and CADed the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th injector plate iteration, with help from 2 other team members. I performed analysis with Solidworks on the injector plate, mating parts, and full assembly to check the injector plate sizing. I also helped design and construct the injector plate test bed that determined coefficient of drag of each injector plate iteration.

Additionally, I helped out, where needed, to get the test stand up and running. This included fabricating components in the machine shop using a lathe, CNC, and plasma cutter; CADing components and making drawings; and supporting test setup and execution.