Date of Award:

5-2013

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Stephen A. Whitmore

Committee

Stephen A. Whitmore

Committee

David K. Geller

Committee

R. Rees Fullmer

Abstract

Hybrid motors that employ non-toxic, non-explosive components with a liquid oxidizer and a solid hydrocarbon fuel grain have inherently safe operating characteristics. The oxidizer is blown though the solid fuel where it is combusted through a nozzle to produce thrust. This research investigated the combination of Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene impregnated with paraffin wax as the solid fuel component burned with nitrous oxide. The paraffin provides an enhanced regression rate over ABS; however, it lacks structural integrity and combustion efficiency. Multiple fuel grains with various ABS-to-Paraffin mass ratios were fabricated and burned with nitrous oxide. Analytical predictions for end-to-end motor performance and fuel regression are compared against static test results. In support of these analytical comparisons, a novel method for propagating the fuel port burn surface was developed. In this modeling approach the fuel cross section grid is modeled as an image with white pixels representing the fuel and black pixels representing empty or burned grid cells.

Checksum

3c53b993c5586c593098fdb9a1d3918a

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on February 15, 2013.

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .