Chemical Rockets : Performance Prediction and Internal Ballistics Design

The purpose of this book is to discuss, at the graduate level, the methods of performance prediction for chemical rocket propulsion. A pedagogical presentation of such methods has been unavailable thus far and this text, based upon lectures, fills this gap. The first part contains the energy-minimization to calculate the propellant-combustion composition and the subsequent computation of rocket performance. While incremental analysis is for high performance solid motors, equilibrium-pressure analysis is for low performance ones. Both are detailed in the book's second part for the prediction of ignition and tail-off transients, and equilibrium operation. Computer codes, adopting the incremental analysis along with erosive burning effect, are included. The material is encouraged to be used and presented at lectures. Senior undergraduate and graduate students in universities, as well as practicing engineers and scientists in rocket industries, form the readership.