Learning Forum

[RatedPG]

Hello,

I am a student that is doing a competition for Friends of Amateur Rocket. Before we do any critical experimental tests I want to simulate the thermodynamic effects that the rocket will be going through. I am coming on here to ask the question of how tackle this situation as we are dealing with a solid propellant that would be burning. Ideally the propellant would be burning in a non linear fashion so some areas of the interior would experience more heat than the other. I could make an assumption that all the propellant turns into gas and do it that way, but I am still unsure how to setup the simulation inside the chamber of the rocket. I will link the properties of the propellant that we are using to see if it can help with finding a solution to this problem. It is important for my team to get accurate thermal results as we will then run a structural analysis to make sure the rocket does not experience any critical weakness due to increase heat.

Propellant Data: https://d11fdyfhxcs9cr.cloudfront.net/templates/170652/myimages/rcs_8225w_propellant_data.pdf

[peteroznewman]

I suggest you post this question in the Fluids category. The ANSYS software called Fluent has the ability to compute a chemical reaction such as burning that turns a solid into a gas, creating heat and pressure. The temperature and pressure results computed in the Fluent model of the rocket body and chamber can be transferred to a Structural model to compute stress in the rocket body.

[RatedPG]

The pressure distribution over time for the fuel was acquired using another program, the same program only gives max temperature unfortunately. I would be inclined to use Fluent, but there are hardly any useful chemical properties that the manufacture of the propellant grain gives to use in cfd software.