Development of Solid Propellant Motor for Low Altitude Model Rockets

Abstract

This paper describes the design, analysis, and testing of a solid propellant rocket motor designed to propel a model rocket to an apogee of 50 meters. The motor and the propulsion system had to be integrated into an airframe with a small payload thus had to provide enough thrust to reach the desired altitude yet remain compact and lightweight. All this had to be done with the constraint of only using locally sourced materials. OpenMotor software was used in simulating the motor performance of the motor. ANSYS Fluent was used to analyze the flow within the motor chamber and nozzle. Data from static tests are presented in this paper for the different motor designs and fuels tested. Sugar was used as fuel in the rocket motor with variations being made on the sugar types: Sucrose and Dextrose. The oxidizer used was Potassium nitrate. The paper presents a comparison of the different fuels used as well as the methods used in the preparation. The selected motor was able to produce an average thrust of 35 Newtons with a peak thrust of 48 Newtons which was able to propel the rocket to an apogee of 34 meters. Keywords—Solid propellant, static fire test, thrust curve