Team Archangel is the Research and Development division of SEDS BPHC.
Grains:
- When the solid propellant mass is cast, moulded and shaped into a specific geometrical configuration, the final product obtained is called a grain.
- Solid propellant we use is a mixture of Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) and Dextrose, together called KNDx.
Liner:
- It is a thin adhesive layer which lies between the solid propellant and the outer casing layer.
- It provides resistance to heat which develops inside the chamber.
Casing:
- The casing is the outermost layer of the rocket motor.
- It provides resistance to the chamber pressure.
Bulkhead:
- The topmost part of the rocket motor, the bulkhead, blocks off the air flowing through the rocket tube.
- It is fitted on the rocket tube using bolts and nuts.
Nozzle:
The lowermost part of the rocket tube, nozzle, is used to accelerate hot exhaust to produce thrust as described by Newton's Third Law of Motion.
Solid Rocket Motors:
- The team has built and fired E, F and K-class motors.
- For Kalypso (a K-class rocket motor), the team used a propellant made of KNO3 (Potassium Nitrate) and sugar and simulated characteristics such as the burn time of the motor before testing it out in the field.
- Now, we aim to not only improvise, design and test K class motors with the desired impulse of 2500N, but do the same for subsequent higher classes of motors.
- The thrust stand has been designed completely by us and uses aluminium profiles to provide a rigid framework for testing various solid rocket motors and hybrid rocket engines. Several iterations of FEA simulations and calculations were done to validate the design and ensure that the stand is safe for use.
Apart from building solid rocket motors, we have other ongoing projects in Archangel such as:
Thrust Vector Control:
- It is the ability of a rocket to maintain its trajectory in motion by manipulating the direction of thrust coming out of the exhaust of the engine.
- This maintenance is handled by special types of motors known as servo motors which in turn are controlled by controllers to acquire highest precision. Reinforcement learning is used for this purpose and will cancel all the hurdles that come in the way of the rocket when subjected to an uncertain environment, thus combating the disruption in its trajectory.
- The gimballed thrust then allows swivelling of the rocket from side to side.
HRE(Hybrid Rocket Engine):
- The Hybrid Rocket Engine (HRE) project at SEDS is a part of the next generation of rocket propulsion research at BITS.
- An HRE uses a liquid or a gaseous oxidizer along with a solid propellant. It is suitable for academic and research settings due to the relatively safer operation of hybrid engines in comparison to liquid rocket engines.
- The current HRE testbed is being designed for a maximum thrust of 1KN. This allows us to rapidly prototype and test different injection and feed systems. In the future, learnings from this project will be implemented in the design and manufacture of flight-ready HREs for our rockets.
- Currently, the team is designing the feed system that would deliver the oxidizer to the combustion chamber of the rocket engine. This project allows students to work with both solid and liquid components in a rocket engine, thereby imparting the necessary knowledge to develop more sophisticated systems in the future.