Engineering Commons^™

Aerothermodynamic Analysis Of A Linear Aerospike Fueled With Liquid Methane Using Cfd, Aidan Rowell

Honors College Theses

Renewed interest in manned spaceflight, mostly spurred by the advancement of commercial spacecraft, has led to growing interest in improving the efficiency of rocket engines. Aerospike nozzles have the potential to provide this boost in efficiency to spacecraft and thus lower costs and increase payload capacity. This type of nozzle is what is known as altitude adjusting and can significantly increase efficiency. When paired with propellants such as methane/oxygen, which can be manufactured in-situ on some planetary bodies and has a higher density than traditional propellants like liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen, even more efficiency gain can be achieved. To understand the …