Over the last year, the Terrapin Rocket Team has done research on previous efforts by Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Texas A&M to build large hybrid rockets. As a first course of action, the Team needs additional experience and confidence to ensure that these competition goals can be met safely and effectively. Small scale tests can be conducted at lower risk and lower cost, to supply the requisite skills to commit to larger projects. The Team has settled on designing a rocket motor that can produce 500 newtons of thrust using Paraffin and N2O as hybrid propellants. Tests of the motor can then be used to verify our design and building methods based on the final products ability to meet the intended thrust and impulse requirements. Adjustments and additional tests can then be used to refine calculations and techniques and pave the way for the construction of full-scale motors.
As an additional effort, the America Cup Competition Team is also working to automate and streamline the design process for future builds using MATLAB. The intention is to integrate all the necessary calculations and constants into a MATLAB script, that can then create design parameters for a hybrid rocket motor based on mission parameters. Successful verification of this script will dramatically improve the development time of future projects using Hybrid rockets and builds confidence in the team's capabilities to apply this method as a supplement to other potential motor configurations.
Siemens NX Render of Test Stand Assembly