What should my parachute diameter be?

[Anuk Rathnayake]

So I have a rocket weighing 2kg which will go 3000ft and I have a sheet of ripstop nylon about 100cm × 150cm so what should my diameter be or area that I should cut the nylon to achieve a reasonable decent rate?

 

[Voyager1]

So I have a rocket weighing 2kg which will go 3000ft and I have a sheet of ripstop nylon about 100cm × 150cm so what should my diameter be or area that I should cut the nylon to achieve a reasonable decent rate?

If you have OpenRocket, RockSim, or any other simulation software you can try using different chute diameters to achieve a descent rate of about 5-6 m/s. This will only provide a very rough estimate depending on the particular profile (flat, hemispherical, elliptical, etc) you chose and the resulting coefficient of drag the chute achieves.

Alternatively, here are a couple of chute calculators:

https://fruitychutes.com/help_for_parachutes/parachute-descent-rate-calculator
https://descentratecalculator.onlinetesting.net/

 

[Hobie1dog]

Do you have a large or small launch area to recover your rockets?

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Hmm. They'd be a nice tools, but I'm using Richard Nakka - style semi-elliptical chutes (homemade) on teensy LPR rockets, maybe 100-250 grams. Maybe I need to go to his page to recheck... I mean, who does this for a 15" parachute (not parasheet)? (nutty me!)

 

[Anuk Rathnayake]

If you have OpenRocket, RockSim, or any other simulation software you can try using different chute diameters to achieve a descent rate of about 5-6 m/s. This will only provide a very rough estimate depending on the particular profile (flat, hemispherical, etc) you chose and the resulting coefficient of drag the chute achieves.

Alternatively, here are a couple of chute calculators:

https://fruitychutes.com/help_for_parachutes/parachute-descent-rate-calculator
https://descentratecalculator.onlinetesting.net/

Thanks for the advice I will simulate different diameter parachutes in Openrocket. I pretty much need a parachute that will do the job.

 

[Anuk Rathnayake]

Do you have a large or small launch area to recover your rockets?

I have a 3000ft radius of clearance, so large.

 

[lakeroadster]

I have a 3000ft radius of clearance, so large.

A 42" dia chute will yield a 15.3 mph ground hit
.... 48" dia. is a 13.4 mph ground hit