University of Utah URoc
About
About URoc
The Utah Rocket group (URoc) is an engineering project group composed of mechanical and electrical engineering students that believe Utah schools should do more to encourage the growth of the aerospace industry. Their goal is to design and build a rocket capable of reaching a height that meets or exceeds the legal limit of space. This would make the University of Utah the first university in U.S. history to achieve this goal.
Total Pageviews
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Mountain States Fence our newest sponsor
You can visit MS Fence at:
http://www.msfence.com/
In other news we had a scrubbed test launch last Saturday due to the weather, but other then that we are proceeding according to plan! Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Additional URoc/Tripoli Launch Pictures by Shon Reed
Saturday, January 15, 2011
January 2011 URoc/Tripoli Launch
The launch site past Eagle Mountain and Fairfield, before Rush Valley |
Joseph Green, Brandon Terry and Jed Marti (Tripoli Sponsor), and Mike and the video crew filming |
Setting the launch site up. We launched on a J 550 size rocket motor. |
Kelvin and Lydia Bailey all excited for launch |
Brandon Terry, Joseph Green, and Kelvin Bailey |
Bad News
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Left to Right: Dr Dan Adams, Dr Kuan Chen, Ryan Christensen, Brant Fletcher, Eric Carver, Justin Cote, Rachel Heiselmeyer, Brandon Terry, Victor Ruiz, Chase Nelson, Steve Newbold, Kelvin Bailey, Joseph Green, Danielle Hudson, Jacob Warner, and Jay Hansen |
Another picture of the team |
The team chatting with some of the professors. |
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Launch Tower Progress
The Launch tower team has been working very hard this semester to come up with a good design that will be able to withstand all the forces and safety constraints for our rocket launch. Here’s some details on their design as well as information about their prototype for this semester. Check it out!
Here is our current design for the launch tower. Right now the tower is 25 feet tall. We are planning to construct the tower out of one-inch steel pipe. We chose steel for its strength and for the ease of welding.
As you can see from the top view of the launch tower, there is a system of rails that support the tower and run in direct contact with the length of the rocket. We wanted to know how much force the rails are going to feel and how much force they could take.
The first test we performed was to find the coefficient of friction between the rails and the rocket. We used a simple force gauge to measure and then calculate the coefficient of friction. We found the coefficient of friction of be about .20.
Then we built a section of the launch tower and tested it in the load frame. The section of tower we built sustained about 425 pounds of force. So, if the rails supported the rocket with a 10-pound compressive force, it would translate to a 2-pound upward force on the rails. Or in other words the launch tower is not going to fail in this way.