1. STATIC TESTING OF HYBRID ROCKET ENGINE USING BIOMASS WASTE
- Author
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Mohamed Younes El Saghir Selim, Jeongmoo Huh, Musaed Badi, Saleh Mohammed, Mohamed Younes El Saghir Selim, Jeongmoo Huh, and Musaed Badi, Saleh Mohammed
- Abstract
This work investigates experimentally for the first time the performance of two solid biomass wastes as propellants for a Hybrid Rocket Motor based on the combustion and propulsion parameters such as combustion chamber pressure, thrust force, chamber temperature, combustion characteristics, and flame length generated. The main objective of this study is to examine the performance of the proposed biomass fuels (Date stone powder and Jojoba waste powder) in comparison with typical hydrocarbon fuels. To make an accurate comparison, Paraffin Wax-based propellant was used in this study as a reference fuel to compare with biomass performance using the same testing facility and with the same operating conditions. A lab-scale Hybrid Rocket Motor with gaseous oxygen as an oxidizer operated in three ranges of volume flow rates of 80, 110, and 130 lpm. A compression device is introduced to compress the solid biomass fuel grain with a circular port along with a hot surface ignitor to ignite the system. The results suggested the expected gap in performance between biomass and hydrocarbon propellants, where a noticeable difference in performance was observed in favour of the Paraffin Wax-based propellant. However, Date Stone fuel showed slightly better propulsion and combustion characteristics compared to Jojoba. Both biomass fuel propellants have been tested in Hybrid Rocket Engine for the first time paving the way for further developments in biomass propulsion studies to be a potential replacement for high pollutant and expensive hydrocarbon propellants
- Published
- 2022