Overview

The goal of the Liquid Propulsion sub team is to continually learn more about bi-propellant liquid rocket engines, by designing, manufacturing, and testing our own engine. While the other sub teams on Rocket Team support a central rocketry project, Liquid Propulsion instead focuses on design of an independent engine.

Learning Curriculum

 The liquid prop team is developing an on-boarding curriculum to provide new and existing members with an introduction into various important concepts that are necessary to know on the team. These topics include basic engine design, incompressible flow fundamentals, combustion fundamentals, feed system design, and more advanced topics as well. Click the header above to explore the different learning resources.

Research

Through the design of engines, and recent research endeavors, the team has compiled various write-ups and findings relevant to our work. Past findings from previous projects can be found here, along with findings from the recent research initiative that the sub-team began in October 2020.

Project Pyralis

A N2O-Ethanol Aerospike. Project led by Matt Vernacchia, back when this was just the Propulsion Subteam. Actually reached hot fire. Destroyed the Building 31 Blast Chamber at the end of the program.

Project Viper

A methane-oxygen engine, program ran from Fall 2016 to Fall 2018. We spent a lot of money ($25k) but it petered out when Ethan went to FSAE. Rumor has it the ghost of the yellow test stand still lives in Edgerton. Pioneered the use of CNC manufacturing on Rocket Team.

Project Helios

In the Fall of 2018, the team began the "Helios" engine project. Helios is a pressure-fed bi-propellant liquid engine designed to produce ~350lbf, and is fed with diluted Ethanol & LOX by an accompanying test stand. Helios's two main goals are to:

1. Understand basic engine design principles by building a simple engine
2. Learn how to efficiently and safely test high-pressure engines by building a pressurized feed stand.

As of now, Helios has been successfully assembled, and is nearly ready for its hot fire test. To read more about Project Helios, click the link above.

New Engine Project

Since the Summer of 2020, the team has began designing it's next engine. This new engine will feature regenerative cooling, more intensive design & analysis, and will use the existing feed stand. To read more about the new engine project, click the link above.

Team leads