Being showcased this week is the Design team of the Rocket Engine Development (RED) senior design project at UCI. While others are having fun on Friday nights, these great students meet up and spend the rest of the night talking about the wonders of rocket engine design.

This quarter, the goal of RED is to create and finalize the design of a hybrid rocket engine, including propellant selection and methodology to cool the engine. The rocket engine must be able to produce 1000 pounds of thrust and be able to have a burn time of 30 seconds. It is easier said than done. There is plenty to learn from propellant properties, nozzle contouring, and cooling methods. In order to do an exceptional job, we are turning to the wonderful world of engineering databases and research.

Currently, the Design team is spending plenty of time running through calculations to determine the necessary parameters including area ratios of the nozzle, pressure inside the chamber, and necessary exit velocity to achieve the desired thrust.

Also, the Design team is researching the different types of nozzles that we can use for the rocket engine. We know that we need a nozzle of the converging-diverging type in order to achieve a supersonic exit velocity. In the following week, the team will decide on how to contour the diverging section; will we use a conical or bell-shaped section? Stay tuned to find out!