MECH-A Sunday - Model Rocket

 

Hello Students Community,

This MECH-A Sunday I'll show you several knowledges and an example of design about creating a model rocket.

This post will contain Model Rocket Design / Visualization / Technical Drawings / Composite Materials Properties / Nose Cone Types / Explode Animation / CAD Files

 

Demonstration of Model Rocket

 

The Assembly System That Keeps Both The Ailerons and The Engine Stable

 

Lithuim-ion Battery Demonstration

 

Why Lithuim-ion battery? Compared to other commercial rechargeable batteries, Li-ion batteries have higher energy efficiency, higher energy density and a longer cycle life.

 

Aerotech M1850 Rocket Engine

 

Representative Motherboard of The Rocket 

 

The Types of Composite Materials for Rockets / Avionics Body Image

 

Most commonly Used Composite Materials in Model Rockets

Carbon Fibers have high-temperature tolerance, high tensile strength and high strength to weight ratio, however they are relatively expensive compared to other composite materials, such as glass fibers, and you can not use carbon fiber for avionics body because they prevent connection of remote control system of electronic systems because they form a Faraday cage.

Glass Fibers: The most important feature of fiberglass compared to other composite materials is that it can be used in avionics bodies since it does not form a Faraday cage.

And you can use Aluminium instead of carbon fiber, Even though aluminum is heavier than carbon fiber, it is much cheaper than carbon fiber. You can not use aluminum in the avionics body for the same reason that carbon fiber can be used.

 

Explode Animation

Some information about the rendering of this animation

Rendering Software: SOLIDWORKS Visualize 

Video Quality: 3840 x 2160 (4K)

Video Duration: 49 seconds

Elapsed Time with Other Renders: Nearly 16 hours

Pass Count: 300

 

Technical Drawing of Rocket Assembly

 

Technical Drawing of Nose Cone

 

You can choose different types of nose cone shapes. Every shape has different features, some of them is good at subsonic velocity and some of them are good at supersonic velocity.

 

The Types of Nose Cone Shapes:

  1. Conic
  2. Ogive
  3. Parabolic
  4. Elliptical
  5. Power series
  6. Haack series
  7. Von Kármán

 

 

   I chose Von Kármán Series because the model rocket which I created was designed for lower attitudes and to fly at a velocity below the velocity of sound. Von Kármán shape has the greatest flight performance at 0.8 - 1.2 Mach as well. Mach number is basically the ratio of flow velocity to the local speed of sound, which means if the mach number of the rocket is lower than 1, it means the rocket is flying at below the speed of sound. Otherwise, the rocket either flying at the speed of sound or flying above the speed of sound.

 

The Equation of Von Kármán Shape Curve

CAD File

Edu