Sunday, January 11, 2009

Test Results: Ring Catalyst Fails.

The Ring catalyst failed to get good decomposition. I have video of lots of billowing steam as the partially decomposed peroxide falls on the concrete in the flame trench. I probably won;t post these as they aren’t very interesting.


We were out at FAR at the same time as the FloMetrics guys and their LR-101 rocket static test went well. 10 Second burns on both RP-1 and Biodiesel. These videos I will probably post when I get time to do so. The sound of a kerosene rocket is just different that than lox-alcohol, hybrids, solids, sugars, and mono props. They all have a different sound and the kerosene sound is very cool.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I didn't think the ring catalyst would do the job all by itself, but I still think it would get you to full decomposition as a second layer after your existing liquid injection. Even if they were inert rings, the extra turbulence and recirculation would help a lot, and being moderately active catalyst should make it great.

Solid catalysts are definitely not as wonderful in practice as they look in theory.

Thad Beier said...

My niece is one of the Flowmetrics engineers -- they seem to be having *way* too much fun with their rocket.