The BYU Rocketry Capstone team designed, modelled, tested, and built a Level 2 High Power Hybrid Rocket Engine, and accompanying test stand capable of testing up to 4.0kN rocket engines. 

I was the Responsible Engineer(RE) for the Converging-Diverging Nozzle and for the Nitrous Oxide Injector plate.

For the injector plate I carried the part from craddle to grave. I owned the design, analysis, manufacturing, and testing of the injector plate to meet the engine design parameters. The injector plate needed to atomize the liquid nitrous oxide while injecting it into the combustion chamber at the required mass flow rates and pressures. A model was created to determine the injector geometry, and cold Flow testing was performed to validate the model.

For the nozzle I carried the part from craddle to grave; I owned the analysis, manufaturing, and testing of the nozzle to meet the mission parameters. Manufacturing limitations of phenolic nozzles in our lab spaces led to the use of a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf nozzle from Aerotech. Calculations were performed to determine necessary throat diameter, expansion ratio and nozzle dimensions needed to achieve meet thrust requirements and choke the flow in the nozzle throat.

Static fire footage and thrust and pressure data gathered from static fire tests confirmed that flow in the nozzle was choked at the throat and supersonic at the nozzle exit.