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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Additive Manufacturing Of High Solids Loading Hybrid Rocket Fuel Grains, Stephen P. Johnson, Michael Baier, Ibrahim E. Gunduz, Steven F. Son Aug 2017

Additive Manufacturing Of High Solids Loading Hybrid Rocket Fuel Grains, Stephen P. Johnson, Michael Baier, Ibrahim E. Gunduz, Steven F. Son

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

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 …


Assessment Of Critical Technologies For Gas Turbine Engines Using Numerical Tools, Vinicius Pessoa Mapelli, Guillermo Paniagua, Jorge Sousa Aug 2015

Assessment Of Critical Technologies For Gas Turbine Engines Using Numerical Tools, Vinicius Pessoa Mapelli, Guillermo Paniagua, Jorge Sousa

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In 2014 gas turbine engine has reached a market value of 82.5 billion dollars, of which 59.5% are related to aircraft propulsion. The continuous market expansion attracts more and more the interest of researchers and industries towards the development of accurate numerical techniques to model thermodynamically the entire engine. This practice allows a performance and optimization analysis before the actual experimental testing, reducing the time and required investment in the design of a new engine. In this paper, a recently developed open source numerical tool named “Toolbox for the Modeling and Analysis of Thermodynamic Systems” (T-MATS) is used to assess …


Altered Combustion Characteristics Of Aluminum Fuels Through Low-Level Fluoropolymer Inclusions With And Without In Situ Nanoaluminum., Courtney K. Murphy, Brandon Terry, Steven F. Son Aug 2015

Altered Combustion Characteristics Of Aluminum Fuels Through Low-Level Fluoropolymer Inclusions With And Without In Situ Nanoaluminum., Courtney K. Murphy, Brandon Terry, Steven F. Son

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Aluminum inclusions have been widely used to increase the specific impulse of solid rocket propellant. However, issues arise with the addition of aluminum in the form of agglomeration, which can cause kinetic and thermal losses (i.e., two-phase flow losses) through the nozzle, which can reduce motor performance by as much as 10%. Reduction of agglomerate size may reduce the effect of two-phase flow losses. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE or TeflonTM) inclusions into aluminum via mechanical activation (MA, milling) have been shown to produce a smaller coarse agglomerate size due to microexplosion of the composite particles at the propellant surface. Perflouroalkoxy …


High Pressure Combustion And Supersonic Jet Ignition For H2/Air, Michael G. Woodworth, Sayan Biswas, Li Qiao Aug 2015

High Pressure Combustion And Supersonic Jet Ignition For H2/Air, Michael G. Woodworth, Sayan Biswas, Li Qiao

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

There are many incentives to increase the fuel efficiency of combustion processes. This paper looks at two available options to achieve this goal. The former aims to develop an experimental method that can analyze combustion at extremely high pressures to improve the understanding of high pressure H2/air combustion. Experimental data has been lacking a suitable combustion diagnostic to visualize high pressure combustion processes, making it difficult to improve the process. Improvement of x-ray diffraction tomography in a windowless combustor makes it possible to see flame propagation at high pressure. The procedure and chamber are still in the design phase, yet …


Advanced Visualization Techniques Of Hot-Jet Combustion Of Lean And Ultra-Lean Substances, Timothy I. Machin, Li Qiao Oct 2013

Advanced Visualization Techniques Of Hot-Jet Combustion Of Lean And Ultra-Lean Substances, Timothy I. Machin, Li Qiao

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Research has been conducted on ignition of natural gas as a potential replacement for fossil fuels. A reason natural gas is not widely used and adapted is because of the harmful emissions created when combusted in rich mixtures, but if the gas can be burned at a lean or ultra-lean equivalence ratio, these emissions can be reduced or even eliminated. One method of burning lean and ultra-lean substances is by use of hot-jet ignition. This method ignites the substance near its combustion temperature, reducing the harmful emissions. This method is not yet fully understood, and so research must be done …