[L3] Composite N5800 Flying Case, ~67kft MSL, M3.5

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Congrats again on a great outcome and a nice write-up.

I started playing around and testing the phenolic material and G11 material that I had. I torched them and then hit them with compressed air from a SCUBA bottle. I found that the G11 held up very well.
Don't let the SCUBA gas give you too much confidence. It will be at best sonic velocity due to being choked-flow somewhere along the way with your system of hosing the fin. Your Mach 3.5 is a much better test for the required conditions :cool:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choked_flow

Looking forward to what you build next...
 
would of?

Wow. Just wow. I've noticed you don't mind making fairly abrasive comments, but with someone sharing a build of this caliber so openly along with all the lessons learnt to get that picky is truly a low point. It doesn't come as a surprise that there are less and less quality posters around lately if that is the thanks they get.

Probably the only useful thing you could contribute to this thread; thank you for contributing. Learn something new everyday. Fixed. Cheers.

Irregardless (sorry, couldn't help it...) of how a very, very, very small pool of people find your writing I think it's clear the vast majority appreciate your candor and the time you've taken to show all aspects of this project. No where near this level myself, but I find the engineering solutions involved fascinating and the techniques used very creative. I especially like the ideas you mention if doing it again and hope you will get the opportunity to put them in to practice.
 
Congrats again on a great outcome and a nice write-up.


Don't let the SCUBA gas give you too much confidence. It will be at best sonic velocity due to being choked-flow somewhere along the way with your system of hosing the fin. Your Mach 3.5 is a much better test for the required conditions :cool:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choked_flow

Looking forward to what you build next...


Thank you! Yeah, what I did was akin to a caveman whacking something with a stick lol. However, my thought was that the level of exposure would only increase during a real flight and since the G11 held up better than the phenolic at a slower flow, it just might remain constant.

Nothing beats the real world. The G11 will be getting a test at M4+ soon enough. :wink:
 
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Thank you! Yeah, what I did was akin to a caveman whacking something with a stick lol. However, my thought was that the level of exposure would only increase during a real flight and since the G11 held up better than the phenolic at a slower flow, it just might remain constant.

Nothing beats the real world. The G11 will be getting a test at M4+ soon enough. :wink:

There are different grades of fiberglass. There is one with the FR4 designation that is flame retardant. There is also FR5, which is stable to 300 F.


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There are different grades of fiberglass. There is one with the FR4 designation that is flame retardant. There is also FR5, which is stable to 300 F.


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Yes, the Grade I used is 11, as in G11. That grade is not commonly used in amateur rocketry. You mostly see G-10 and/or G-10 FR4. There are also non-FR versions of FG btw.

G-11 is simliar to G-10 FR4 but has a higher operating temperature and retains 50% of its mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. The principal difference between NEMA Grades G-11 and FR-5 is that FR-5 is a fire retardant grade of G-11, as FR-4 is a fire retardant grade of G-10.
 
Yes, the Grade I used is 11, as in G11. That grade is not commonly used in amateur rocketry. You mostly see G-10 and/or G-10 FR4. There are also non-FR versions of FG btw.

G-11 is simliar to G-10 FR4 but has a higher operating temperature and retains 50% of its mechanical properties at elevated temperatures. The principal difference between NEMA Grades G-11 and FR-5 is that FR-5 is a fire retardant grade of G-11, as FR-4 is a fire retardant grade of G-10.

That’s good information. I’ve learned quite a bit from your project, thank you!


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Excellent! Remarkable you could get such high altitude from an N-class motor. By "composite" do you mean you made your own carbon composite casing for the motor?

Bob Clark
 
Excellent! Remarkable you could get such high altitude from an N-class motor. By "composite" do you mean you made your own carbon composite casing for the motor?

Bob Clark

Bob - did you look at any of the pictures in this thread, or read it at all??? No, he didn't make his own carbon case (which seems to be your fantasy/fetish). He used the stock CTI case and added composite components (fincan, fins, etc, all information in this thread).

Also, as a TL;DR for you, this wasn't optimized and he has a list of things he'd do different just a few posts back.

A5tr0 -

Amazing accomplishment - cheers mate!

Edward
 
Wow. Just wow. I've noticed you don't mind making fairly abrasive comments, but with someone sharing a build of this caliber so openly along with all the lessons learnt to get that picky is truly a low point. It doesn't come as a surprise that there are less and less quality posters around lately if that is the thanks they get.

Irregardless (sorry, couldn't help it...) of how a very, very, very small pool of people find your writing I think it's clear the vast majority appreciate your candor and the time you've taken to show all aspects of this project. No where near this level myself, but I find the engineering solutions involved fascinating and the techniques used very creative. I especially like the ideas you mention if doing it again and hope you will get the opportunity to put them in to practice.


Here, here!
 
Bob - did you look at any of the pictures in this thread, or read it at all??? No, he didn't make his own carbon case (which seems to be your fantasy/fetish). He used the stock CTI case and added composite components (fincan, fins, etc, all information in this thread).

Also, as a TL;DR for you, this wasn't optimized and he has a list of things he'd do different just a few posts back.

A5tr0 -

Amazing accomplishment - cheers mate!

Edward

We all agree on the amazing achievement!

He had earlier made a composite casing for his home-made propellant so it's not too much of a stretch to take "composite" to mean this was also a composite casing:

[Post Flight] 1 Weekend and 65,000Ns.
A5tr0 An0n
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Senior Member
27th March 2015, 12:32 AM #2
Composite Motor Case:
The case that held the propellant was made of FWFG and high heat capable epoxy. The forward closure was made from aluminum and the nozzle was made of graphite. Both the nozzle and closure were retained with pins epoxied in place instead of the usual screws. The case was 1422mm (56") Length, 130mm (5.125") OD, and 9.53mm (0.375") Wall Thickness. The reasoning for the case being so thick was not to withstand the pressure (which was high by hobby standards) but rather for heating issues. The thickness of the case combined the motor case and the liner all into one piece. The grains casting tubes would be bonded directly into the case, this has proved to work in a earlier 98mm (4") model so we stuck with the design. The aft portion of the case was turned down to allow the fin can to sit slight lower than case's OD to prevent air flow to get underneath the can itself.

Motor:
The motor was a AP based composite propellant consisting of four grains and containing approximately 15.4kg (34lb) of propellant. The propellant itself is the Honey Badger formula, originally created by Butalane. The motor was a BATES grain configuration and utilized stepped cores. The motor operated at higher than amateur standard pressures and produced a maximum thrust of 12,103N, with a total impulse of ~33,000Ns (63% O), and burned for 3.29s.
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...-1-Weekend-and-65-000Ns&p=1439464#post1439464


Bob Clark
 
We all agree on the amazing achievement!

He had earlier made a composite casing for his home-made propellant so it's not too much of a stretch to take "composite" to mean this was also a composite casing:

Bob Clark

True, but if you would have read this thread, and looked at the pictures, you would have seen that this was NOT the case. Additionally, this being an L3 certification attempt fliers have to use certified motors and hardware.

Edward
 
True, but if you would have read this thread, and looked at the pictures, you would have seen that this was NOT the case. Additionally, this being an L3 certification attempt fliers have to use certified motors and hardware.

Edward

Oops! I looked back through the thread and found I did comment on it back in September, 2017 and noted it used aluminum casing.

Bob Clark
 
Excellent! Remarkable you could get such high altitude from an N-class motor. By "composite" do you mean you made your own carbon composite casing for the motor?

Bob Clark

Bob, read the thread. It was a CTI case with composite fin can.


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I am very interested in your ablative coating, any chance of more information on your formula ?

I've gotten a few requests about the ablative so I'll just post it here. I used resin, phenolic, titanium dioxide, and milled glass.
 
Excellent! Remarkable you could get such high altitude from an N-class motor. By "composite" do you mean you made your own carbon composite casing for the motor?

Bob Clark
Bob, as others have said, I used a non-composite case. Per the rules of TRA, I can only use certified hardware and motors for a certification attempt. If this wasn't a certification attempt, then things would have been different. Thanks for the question.

As far as the altitude of a N motor; you can squeeze some more out of it. I would guess that the N5800 can probably gain another 10kft on maximum altitude in comparison to my obtained MSL. I think max AGL for the N5800 is less than 80kft.
 
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Thank you to everyone for the comments!

I will have the video and some other things that I will post to this thread shortly. Thanks for the interest.
 
Mat

This has truely been an amazing write up. Once more congrats and thank you for sharing.


Composite Addict
 
Wanting more info on Ablative coating,
Resin is this epoxy resin ?
Phenolic is this phenolic resin or ground material ?
What amounts of each or ratio ?
Thanks one amazing thread, build, and flight, Congratulations !!!
 
A5tr0 An0n, don't know how I missed this thread until now, but just read it from start to finish and WOW what an amazing job and flight! It is projects like these that truly inspire my rocket dreams, rocketeers on the high end of the community sharing their experience. Well done, well done!

So, with such an amazing L3, what's next?!?
 

The fin core layup templates. Tape it to the cloth and then I simply cut them out with 'special,' sissors.



CF cut. G11 surface prepped. LE/TE taped. BONDING.



Laying down cloth while wetting it out with 4461.



Just throw it in the bag. Pulled a good vacuum.



Close up on the bag under vacuum.



Straight outta the bag. Need to sand the root - a little over lap.



Sandy.



All done. Came out pretty nice.



Moving on to the FWCF can. Cutting it down to spec on my horizontal bandsaw.



Heres the fin alignment jig - all assembled. Credit goes to USC's RPL for the design.



Fins slide in and then so does the can. Fins can slide up and down in their respected slots.



Applied 4525 and slide fins down onto the tube. Let em cure.



Ass shot.



Fins tacked on. Starting to look like a rocket's fincan.



All measured, taped up, and ready for fillets. Laying down fillets with 4525.



Fillets done. Came out nice - will sand them smooth. 4525 is a slight nuisance to sand.




Moving on to T2T and ablative next next.

I am considering a similar build. Can I ask where you sourced your Phenolic plate from?
 
I don't think Astro has been around for a while. Mac Peeformance sells phenolic plate. You might want to also check out G11 or some of the other high temp and pressure molded fiberglass. McMaster is a good place for that.

At the end of Astro's thread (this one) he talks about what he would do differently. I blatantly stole some of those ideas and started a couple rockets.

This thread is a 54mm Mach 3.5ish project using those ideas. A more complete build thread will be started this week, as a matter of fact.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/cutting-carbon-fiber-with-a-cricut-vinyl-cutter.161091/
There was a 4" N-1560 project in the works but when Balls was cancelled this year it got put on hold.
 
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