Engineering Commons^™

Additively-Manufactured Hybrid Rocket Consumable Structure For Cubesat Propulsion, Britany L. Chamberlain

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Three-dimensional, additive printing has emerged as an exciting new technology for the design and manufacture of small spacecraft systems. Using 3-D printed thermoplastic materials, hybrid rocket fuel grains can be printed with nearly any cross-sectional shape, and embedded cavities are easily achieved. Applying this technology to print fuel materials directly into a CubeSat frame results in an efficient, cost-effective alternative to existing CubeSat propulsion systems. Different 3-D printed materials and geometries were evaluated for their performance as propellants and as structural elements. Prototype "thrust columns" with embedded fuel ports were printed from a combination of acrylonitrile utadiene styrene (ABS) and …

Micro-Nozzle Simulation And Test For An Electrothermal Plasma Thruster, Tyler J. Croteau

Master's Theses

With an increased demand in Cube Satellite (CubeSat) development for low cost science and exploration missions, a push for the development of micro-propulsion technology has emerged, which seeks to increase CubeSat capabilities for novel mission concepts. One type of micro-propulsion system currently under development, known as Pocket Rocket, is an electrothermal plasma micro-thruster.

Pocket Rocket uses a capacitively coupled plasma, generated by radio-frequency, in order to provide neutral gas heating via ion-neutral collisions within a gas discharge tube. When compared to a cold-gas thruster of similar size, this gas heating mechanism allows Pocket Rocket to increase the exit thermal velocity …

Thermal Modelling And Validation Of Heat Profiles In An Rf Plasma Micro-Thruster, Alec Sean Henken

Master's Theses

The need and demand for propulsion devices on nanosatellites has grown over the last decade due to interest in expanding nanosatellite mission abilities, such as attitude control, station-keeping, and collision avoidance. One potential micro-propulsion device suitable for nanosatellites is an electrothermal plasma thruster called Pocket Rocket. Pocket Rocket is a low-power, low-cost propulsion platform specifically designed for use in nanosatellites such as CubeSats. Due to difficulties associated with integrating propulsion devices onto spacecraft such as volume constraints and heat dissipation limitations, a characterization of the heat generation and heat transfer properties of Pocket Rocket is necessary. Several heat-transfer models of …

Additive Manufacturing Of High Solids Loading Hybrid Rocket Fuel Grains, Stephen P. Johnson

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Hybrid rocket motors offer many of the benefits of both liquid and solid rocket systems. Like liquid engines, hybrid rocket motors are able to be throttled, can be stopped and restarted, and are safer than solid rocket motors since the fuel and oxidizer are in different physical states. Hybrid rocket motors are similar to solid motors in that they are relatively simple and have a high density-specific impulse. One of the major drawbacks of hybrid rocket motors is a slower burning rate than solid rocket motors. Complex port geometries provide greater burning surface area to compensate for lower burning rates …

Development Of A Cfd Model Of The Catalytic Combustion Of A Microtube Multi-Mode Propulsion System, Andrew Paul Taylor

Masters Theses

"This thesis presents the process and results of the development of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model in ANSYS Fluent 18.1 on the catalytic decomposition of a novel liquid monopropellant in a microtube in order to gain deeper insights than what is available through the experimental data. The CFD model was created using the Euler- Euler Multiphase model in conjunction with the Heterogeneous Reaction submodel. Such a choice of modeling setting was backed up by theory and benchmark computations on multiphase and compressible flow, shown in Section 3 and Appendix A. It was found that the previously determined one-step reaction …

The Design Of A Rocket Propulsion Labview Data Acquisition And Control System, Dylan Allan Ott

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

When designing a rocket engine, both the propulsion system and propellant choice(s) are an important deciding factor. Desired rocket engine behavior, specific impulse, and levels of thrust are all different between the various propulsion systems. A bi-propellant cryogenic liquid 5lbf, 500lbf, and 2000lbf rocket engine was designed and manufactured by UTEP. The 5lbf rocket engine is a Reaction Control Engine and the 500lbf and 2000lbf rocket engine is a throttleable Main Engine. To provide a reliable and safe data acquisition and control system for this experiment, a Real-Time control platform was needed. A compact DAQ system was purchased and configured …