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- Title
- DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF A FULL-FEATURED LABSCALE HYBRID ROCKET ENGINE.
- Creator
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Platt, Kyle, Petersen, Eric, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The design, development, integration and testing of a full-featured, Lab-Scale Hybrid Rocket Engine was not only envisioned to be the chosen method of putting student payloads into space, but to be an invaluable teaching resource. The subject of the present thesis is the analysis, design, development, integration and demonstration of a lab-scale hybrid rocket motor. The overarching goal of this project was to establish a working developmental lab model from which further research can be...
Show moreThe design, development, integration and testing of a full-featured, Lab-Scale Hybrid Rocket Engine was not only envisioned to be the chosen method of putting student payloads into space, but to be an invaluable teaching resource. The subject of the present thesis is the analysis, design, development, integration and demonstration of a lab-scale hybrid rocket motor. The overarching goal of this project was to establish a working developmental lab model from which further research can be accomplished. The lab model was specifically designed to use a fuel source that could be studied in normal laboratory conditions. As such, the rocket engine was designed to use Hydroxyl Terminated Polybutadiene as the fuel and Liquid Nitrous Oxide as the oxidizer. Developing the rocket engine required the usage of several electronics modules and a software package. The custom-designed electronics modules were a Signal Conditioning & Data Amplification Interface and a Data Acquisition Network. The software package was coded in Visual Basic (VB). A MathCAD regression rate computer model was designed and written to geometrically constrain the engine design. Further, the computer model allowed for the "what-if" situations to be evaluated. Using ProPep, solutions to the Equilibrium Thermodynamics Equations for the fuel and oxidizer mixture were obtained. The resultants were used as initial input to the computer model for predicting the lab-scale rocket's Chamber Pressure, Chamber Temperature, Ratio of Specific Heats and Molecular Weight. Details on the model, the rocket hardware, and the successful test firing are provided.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0000972, ucf:46714
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000972
- Title
- A Multi-Species Single-LED Hazardous Gas Sensor for Commercial Space Applications.
- Creator
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Parupalli, Akshita, Vasu Sumathi, Subith, Ahmed, Kareem, Chow, Louis, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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In the interest of furthering both commercial and government-funded opportunities for deep space exploration, the safety of life and equipment onboard must be absolutely certain. In this regard, the presence of any hazardous gases or combustion events onboard space vehicles must be quickly characterized and detected. Several hazardous gases of interest have absorption features in the mid-infrared range and can be detected with an infrared light source, via the principles of absorption...
Show moreIn the interest of furthering both commercial and government-funded opportunities for deep space exploration, the safety of life and equipment onboard must be absolutely certain. In this regard, the presence of any hazardous gases or combustion events onboard space vehicles must be quickly characterized and detected. Several hazardous gases of interest have absorption features in the mid-infrared range and can be detected with an infrared light source, via the principles of absorption spectroscopy. A non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) sensor that follows these principles has been developed to utilize light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for gas detection and quantification. LEDs contain a particular advantage in this situation because they have low power requirements, are robust and easily adaptable, and they are cheaper than existing laser-based systems. The design has successfully performed several laboratory, environmental chamber, and high-altitude balloon flight tests. The main purpose of these various tests was to place the sensor in challenging environments, examine the effects on sensor performance, and adjust accordingly.The current sensor design utilizes a single 4.2?m LED and a rotating diffraction grating to detect both carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) within a single scan. These measurements were further validated using two distributed feedback quantum cascade lasers (QCL) centered at 4.25?m and 4.58?m. The sensor collected data on a wavelength range of 4117nm to 4592nm. Mixtures containing the concentrations of the two species of interest varying from 0.2% to 0.8% were analyzed. The integrated absorbance data was calculated for each species and compared with theoretical predictions. The results show that the data follows the expected behavior and correlates better at lower concentrations. Subsequent work on this sensor will focus on increasing the quantity of identifiable gases and on further testing in hazardous environments.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007898, ucf:52752
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007898
