On Sat, 11 Jan 2003 00:12:12 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>With all due respect, people such as yourself and your 'teacher' are the
>reason that we don't give out advice on making peroxide rocket engines.
>It is *extremely* dangerous, and may well get yourself and others
>killed in the attempt.
Trying to build a peroxide rocket on the cheap or quick can be quite
dangerous. Such a thing can be done safely and legally - but it won't
be cheap or fast. There are a number of issues to be considered.
Engine legal status: is it legal for a minor to build and possess a
rocket engine in your state?
Peroxide availability: will your teacher be able to get 80% peroxide?
If so, will it be stabilized with compounds that make it unusable as
rocket propellant?
Peroxide transportation: 80% peroxide is a hazardous material,
regulated by the U.S. DOT. Will your teacher be able to legally
transport it if he can get it?
Peroxide storage: 80% peroxide is a very strong corrosive oxidizer,
and will set wood and other loose organics on fire on contact. Hence,
fire marshals take a dim view of it, and you need a special permit
from your municipality (city, county, or fire district) to store it.
Does your teacher have such a permit? Can he get one?
Testing: can you legally test the engine? Where? Are there legal
requirements for rocket engine testing? What are they? Can you
satisfy them? (Example: in California, state law sets minimum
standards for blockhouses, bunkers, etc. for liquid fuel rocket
launches. Only one place, the Mojave Test Area, meets all state
requirements.)
>An intelligent and wise teacher would recommend
>you don't even think about doing this.
Not necessarily. Merely doing the research, as Matt is doing, can be
an education.
It may be prudent to scale back your project from building a peroxide
rocket to designing one. That's more than a semester project if you
do a detail design of a rocket that will actually fly. A couple years
ago, a high school student from Florida asked here about doing a
peroxide rocket, and when he found out everything that was involved,
he scaled back the project to design only.
>There are many books on rocketry, and I would recommend Sutton.
Sutton is the Bible for introductory rocket science. Hazel-Huang is
the follow up book. Sutton runs about $100, H-H about $200, and a
good university library - especially at a university with an aerospace
engineering department - should have both.
>If you want a safe introduction into rocketry, contact your local NAR or Tripoli
>chapter. Stay safe.
Excellent advice. I would add that building a peroxide rocket engine
isn't a high school shop/lab construction project; it's an aerospace
propulsion development project, working with pyrotechnics and
hazardous materials, both of which are regulated. While not trivial,
it is not difficult to do. What is difficult is doing it safely and
legally.
I don't want to discourage you; I think your ambition is great. I do
want to convey to you the difficulty of what you're contemplating. It
is a no-kidding development project, and needs to be treated as one
for it to be successful. The best approach: do it one step at a time,
with something visible to show for your efforts at each step along the
way. Step one, probably good for a chemistry term paper, would be to
learn the physics behind rockets and rocket engines. (Everyone knows
the balloon analogy, but what principles are involved {Bernoulli,
Boyle, Coanda, etc}? What are the relevant equations?) Step two,
design the engine; step three, design the rocket. Include things like
the propellant feed system, injector, catalyst pack, launch rail,
recovery system, etc. Generate a parts list, with prices and weights.
Estimate the rocket's performance. Such a project should, if nothing
else, get you an engineering scholarship. :-)
-R
--
"You haven't been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
-- Paul Crickmore
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