Main reason for which I crated the Vanguard technology was to be able to buy chemicals required in rocket engine development. This stuff can not be bought by individuals..
My first attempts involved potassium nitrate (KNO3) and sorbitol (an artificial sweetener). When designing a rocket engine one must take into account lots of parameters, most of these are provided on internet by more experienced rocketeers, and for some reason the end result can be quite different.
So an important part when developing the rocket engine is to actually measure the performance of the engine once it is built..
For solid propellant rocket engines the thrust is large and for a short period of time. the option to make a portable vertical test stand seemed more logical, since risk of tiling during test is minimum.
Fig1: solid propellant rocket engine on a vertical test stand
In this situation the rocket engine is placed on top of the load cell. load cell it’s a 1Tone model S shaped so that fixing bol is right under motor fixing. between the motor and the load cell it’s a small iron cylinder. There is placed the pressure sensor.
The electronic DAQ module to acquire and control the entire setup is a custom design.
After performing three tests with different level of fuel in the engine I had an idea on how the engine would behave during flight. Flight took place on 10 May 2014
A second type of motor was designed: liquid monopropellant . This is using 50% Hydrogen peroxide (industrial grade H2O2) . The H2O2 will suffer exothermic decomposition over an Potassium Permanganate catalyst resulting H2O , O2 and heat.. entire mix will have ~hundreds celsius degrees.
Fig2: Monopropellant rocket engine on an horizontal test stand
For this monopropellant engine I had to make an horizontal test stand since are some tubes and wires coming out from the back of the motor, but also because I can point the exhaust away from fuel holding bottles and avoid some unnecessary risks
Three tests have been conducted so far using electro pumps and the conclusion is that a redesign of the electro pump is required to increase pressure and flow to achieve lift-off in a potential future launching vector
Another experiment I am conducting involved hybrid rocket engines. This engine was designed and built by my friend Adrian Buţurache. It’s designed to use gas O2 and paraffin as fuel. I retrofired the test stand to fit the new engine and the new sensors
Fig 3: gas O2 + paraffin hybrid rocket engine
On 24 Dec 2019 the first test on the Hybrid Rocket Engine was performed. Despite annoying rain the test was flawless. Pressure and thrust were recorded and very nice shock diamonds showed in the video.
Fig 4: Pressure and Thrust curve, on a relative Y axis
Fig 5: Shock Diamonds in the exhaust
Full video on my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJzksg0wuj0
Andrei Hapenciuc 