Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Analysis Modeling And Optimization Of A Smart Sulky, Nicholas C. Noble

Honors College

For several hundred years, the Standardbred harness racing industry has remained relatively unchanged. The sulkies pulled by the horses have seen only minor changes. New construction techniques and lighter materials have allowed sulkies to become lighter and generally faster. However, there is currently no sulky that uses a modern control system to adapt to changing racetracks, horses, and drivers. A Smart Sulky would be able to accomplish these things. The Smart Sulky would be capable of measuring changes in the movements of the horse and compensate for rotational movement and vibration, which the horse transfers to a conventional sulky. The …

Development Of Oxidizer Flow Control For Use In Hybrid Rocket Motors Of The Scientific Sounding Rocket Scale, Luke Saindon

Honors College

To successfully build a rocket engine with variable thrust you must devise a reliable and robust oxidizer flow control system. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the goal of building a variable thrust (throttled) hybrid rocket engine, which could eventually be used to power scientific sounding rockets. A variable thrust hybrid engine would increase reusability, flexibility, and capability of almost any small rocket.

Specifically, this thesis work regards the development of the closed loop oxidizer flow control system. To do this, a small test rig was built in the lab that consists of all the components in …