In theory at least. IIRC that point was made on what was quite a good episode
of Everyday Astronaut on Aerospikes. There’s still the mass issue, but there is
potential there.
Troy
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Rocket Pavitra
Sent: Friday, 10 February 2023 4:03 PM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: I took up a crazy challenge!
Expander Cycle rocket engines actually tackle problems of both the expander
Cycle and the aerospike nozzle.
Expanders suffer from a limit to how much thrust they can produce because of
the square cube law with the walls of the nozzle. ~300kN
Aerospikes suffer from overheating of the nozzle, especially the throat.
So an expander Cycle aerospike can potentially use all of that heat to drive
turbooumps.
This way our thrust limit is higher and our nozzle stays cool.
On Thu, 9 Feb, 2023, 11:27 pm Matthew JL, <prmattjl@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:prmattjl@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
I do not think an aerospike has the kind of surface area needed to run an
expander cycle off of - the actual engineering aside.
On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 3:53 AM Rocket Pavitra <pavitrapatel.astro@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:pavitrapatel.astro@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
Hey I'm Pavitra and as my college project I've taken up a crazy title.
'Expander cycle Aerospike Rocket engine'
You read that right and in hindsight I should probably shouldn't have attempted
something so crazy but at the time I though sure it's probably unfeasable for
me, an undergrad student, to attempt something like this but if I try really
hard I could end up learning a lot of stuff at least if not make a successful
project.
I've never worked on any liquid propellant rocket engine before so I need your
help with this.
I wanted to know what are all the simulation/computational softwares that I
need to carry out the necessary designing/calculations to make a basic first
design. I probably won't be making any hardware for this project,
because...well, funding.
But I'll be submitting the project as a design/simulation.
I already know that I'll need some form of computational fluid dynamics and
heat transfer simulations so I've added Matlab and Ansys to the list. I also
know I'll need the Rocket propulsion analysis software.
What other softwares will I need/will help me prepare a design?