Report on Hybrid Rocket Cold Flow Experiments

Abstract

The discovery of paraffin based fuels has lead to renewed interest in hybrid rocket research. Experiments have shown that they burn 3-5 times faster than conventional hybrid fuels. High thrust level that would have required a multi-port design in the past can now be achieved with a single-port motor. While tests performed in Stanford and NASA Ames have demonstrated the paraffin hybrids to be a promising technology, one of the major challenges has been the relatively low efficiency. The c* efficiency has ranged between 80% and 90% in experiments conducted at the Ames Hybrid Combustion Facility (HCF). The test motor in these experiments had a 45 inch long fuel grain with the initial port diameter ranging between 3 and 5_inches. The c* efficiency is defined as the ratio of measured and theoretical characteristic velocities and is related to how completely the fuel and oxidizer are converted to combustion products. A low efficiency means that the reactants burn incompletely, and the reaction does not release the maximum possible amount of energy.