Project Team
Students
Logan Saunders
Mechanical Engineering
Penn State Harrisburg
Faculty Mentors
Dr. Brian Maicke
Penn State Harrisburg
Mechanical Engineering
Dr. David Lyons
Penn State University Park
Applied Research Laboratory
Project
https://sites.psu.edu/mcreu/files/formidable/2/2024-07-22/Logan-Saunders-MC-REU-Poster-1.pdf
Project Video
Project Abstract
Hybrid rocket engines (HREs) have the potential to offer advantages such as lower costs and less safety risks. Due to having a low performance because of low regression rates, HREs are currently not powerful enough for most spaceflight applications. Solid paraffin wax fuel is often researched due to it having high regression rates. One way to improve the regression rate is by improving droplet entrainment, which is the process of liquid paraffin droplets mixing with the oxidizer. This research project looks at how to improve droplet entrainment by changing the port geometry inside the solid fuel section of the engine. Converge CFD simulations with different port geometries were ran. The rate at which the largest connected volume of liquid paraffin decreased was found for each simulation, and was compared with the rest of the simulations. We found that tapering the fuel port inward at 20 degrees offered the best entrainment rate. We also found that higher frequency sinusoidal surfaces are better than lower frequency ones.
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