[AR] {AR} Sugar Rocket State of the Art
- From: Rick Maschek <rickmaschek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 19:51:01 -0700
Hi Ray,
We were having issues with sugar propellant being 'brittle' and the grains
cracking leading to higher than planned Kn and CATO.
Last year I did some testing with additives to increase the tensile strength of
the grains. 0.5% carbon fibers showed the best results with an almost doubling
of the tensile strength, most of the others showed little or no increase. The
problem with using the CF was uniformly mixing it into the propellant. I got
that idea from the experiments with Pykrete during WWII Pykrete - Aircraft
Carriers made of Wood & Ice
Pykrete - Aircraft Carriers made of Wood & Ice
Pykrete is a real substance made from wood chips and ice with strange and
fantastical properties that were actually considered for use in building Royal
Navy aircra...
View on guernseydonkey.com Preview by Yahoo
To solve the issue with tension, several ideas were suggested, from
pre-splitting the Bates grain to eliminate tensional expansion of the core (I
have not yet tried that) to exterior burning of the coreless soild propellant
grain (similar to the Qassam rockets) but instead of a highly regressive burn,
we have inhibited two sides burning only on opposite 90 degree quadrants. That
posed thermal issues with the motor case, we have numerous short burn
successful firings but have had mixed results with 4 grain motors and longer.
Since the mach diamond Nevada test, we've had 4 more successes with this design
and one CATO using a new experimental propellant inhibitor (we'll not try that
one again).
Mach diamonds in 4 grain DD 89mm Sugar Shot to Space motor test
Mach diamonds in 4 grain DD 89mm Sugar Shot to Space...
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There are other things we are doing too that would take a long time to write
here.
I believe we have built the largest grains, the motor casing was 6.5" and each
grain weighed in at 15 pounds. Or newest cases are 175mm (7") though we have
not yet fired the motor. We do have the record for the world's largest sugar
motor (160 pounds of propellant) but it CATOed. Here is a video of one of our
shorter big motors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykLyrmrDKg8&list=UUgE9yxooDx1UwelAT7Xu7gQ
Last month we had a successful firing of our sustainer motor for our small
scale 2-stage rocket and California State Polytechnic University will be using
it as their main motor this month or next for avionic testing.
Our largest motor was somewhere around 145,000 Nsec. I believe the DELFT DARE
project rocket is somewhere in the neighborhood of 165,000 Nsec. They tried to
launch earlier this month to 50km but had problems with a valve freezing up
(they were using 80% sugar, 10% aluminum and 10% paraffin) with nitrous oxide
as their oxidizer. It was a hybrid and we communicated back and forth trying to
solve problems they were having with their solid fuel grains last year; since
the fuel is mostly sugar, I consider it a sugar powered rocket. I was hoping
for some friendly competition with them and was sorry to hear of their valve
problem.
Our highest altitude was with our MiniSShot II, somewhere around 18,000' the
nose cone with avionics snapped off going nearly mach 2 and freefell to the
ground (avionics still transmiting even after impact with the ground) with the
motor still buring with the rest of the rocket continuing. We have not yet
recovered that portion but without the nosecone we probably didn't reach our
goal of 50,000'.
The current record is just over 42,000' if I remember correctly. I have emailed
with the person and can get the exact number if you need it.
We also have a new member on SS2S that has done some different things with his
propellant that we are going to be testing.
There are lots of stories flying around about sugar but you need to carefully
scrutinize some of those sources.
Rick
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 07:33:48 -0700
From: "Ray Rocket" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender
"ar0cketman@xxxxxxxxx" for DMARC)
Subject: [AR]
Sugar Rocket State of the Art?
Hey all,
I took some time off post 9/11 and am just starting to dip my toes back into
rocketry.
When I last made motors, I was exploring sugar.
Have there been any significant advances in the field during my hiatus?
What is the current state of art with sugar?
Largest diameter sugar motor?
Highest total impulse?
Does anybody know the current sugar altitude record?
Have there been any interesting/notable advances in the art?
Ad Astra,
Ray
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