Keywords

Sounding Rocket, Aerodynamic Heating, Super Loki

Abstract

Due to renewed interest in the sub orbital rocket program of the Florida Space Authority and a surplus of Super Loki Sounding Rockets, an effort to improve the usefulness of this surplus is herein undertaken. Currently, the capacity of the payload compartment in the upper stage of the Super Loki system is very limited. A redesign of the upper stage will allow larger and more versatile payloads to be carried, assuming the appropriate design parameters are met. It has therefore been undertaken to create a design procedure that is comprehensive in scope in order to affect this redesign. This procedure includes five major components. These are the separation of the upper and lower stages, the stability of the vehicle, the altitude and velocity of the rocket, the mechanical loading and finally the aerodynamic heating. Semi-empirical methods were used whenever possible to allow comparison with experimental data. This procedure revealed that larger diameter upper stages might be used up to a reasonable maximum of four inches. The four-inch modification is found to be stable as were the smaller modifications considered. The altitude and velocity of the rocket were found via a simple Eulerian time stepping scheme resulting in an estimate of approximately 148,000ft for the four-inch dart. The mechanical loading analysis allowed for the material selection for the rocket components. Reinforced steel fins and carbon fiber tubing, for the payload section, are adequate to meet expected mechanical loads, those being, 16000psi for the fin section due to launcher forces, 22800psi for compressive plus torsion forces on the composite section and 18000psi for the ejection stresses. An ablative coating is considered necessary to counteract the 760ºF temperatures along the composite tube.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Chew, Larry

Degree

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering (M.S.A.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering

Degree Program

Aerospace Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000546

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000546

Language

English

Release Date

January 2015

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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