I just wanted to post some more pictures from our presentations to the  school a couple weeks ago. Victor Ruiz took a couple pictures of the team after the event and here they are. Enjoy.

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.

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.

Uroc Rocket Team met with Lockheed Martin Advisor 12/1/2010

So last Wednesday we (the motor team) had a teleconference with Lockheed Martin and AeroTech which went really well, we were able to answer most of the questions that Lockheed had, and those that we couldn't answer Gary (Aerotech CEO and our first supporter) was able to answer them. We may have to adjust the diameter of the rocket to fit stock aluminum tubing sizes, which may change the design somewhat, but we feel the change will be manageable.  Also we are going to have to do some additional analysis for wind shear and thermal variables.  After meeting with both companies we all just felt really good about the project we felt like this is an ambitious project but we can do it! The companies really helped us feel like this is possible, difficult, but possible. I would just like to say thank you to all of our sponsors for all of your support and help we couldn't have gotten to this point without you!

Airframe Prototype Update

This semester we Mechanical Engineering students had to do a few Critical Function Prototypes, which would help us analyze critical components of the rocket and ensure they worked properly.  The airframe did a little write up of their prototype which looked at the rocket separation.  Here's what they wrote:

Prototype model red is the rest of the airframe, blue is the parachute bay and black is the black powder charge the shear screws can be seen at the tops and bottoms of the drawing

The section separation for parachute deployment is likely the most critical function for safe recovery of the rocket after it has been launched.  To verify the reliability of the separation design a scaled portion of the rocket was made to test the separation method.  The separation design used fastens the two sections together with three small shear screws which are broken when a black powder charge inside of the connection ignites and explodes the two sections apart.  

Prototype of the connection between the motor and the rest of the airframe

The connection after the charge was set off

We calculated that about 6 grams of black powder would be required to shear the screws.  We incorporated a safety factor of 1.5 to ensure that there would be a large enough explosion to separate the sections, so we loaded the test section with 9.5 grams of black powder.  We tested the separation 4 different times, and each time everything functioned perfectly.  One lesson learned is that a smaller safety factor may be used for the amount of black powder because when the videos frames are slowed we observed that the sections separated with excessive force.  

Another critical lesson learned is that little to no debris from the black powder charge will escape into the avionics bay.  This was another critical part of the test because debris or soot in the avionics bay could damage the electronics systems.

Prototype parachute bay after detonation test, very little debris in the chamber

The airframe and avionics teams on the day of the test

Status updates!

Alright, I'm going to give some updates about what's going on with our senior project.  Designs continue forward we just bought a 6 degree-of-freedom program to determine where our rocket is going to land when we launch it and it's been having problems.  We are currently talking with their technical support to get it fixed.  Hopefully it will get resolved quickly.  Also we are currently in process of getting clearance for our launch in March both from the FAA and the Black Rock Nevada park.  We just found out that we may have to get the police to close off the lake bed during the launch and recovery, at our cost! That could be a problem, we are going to ask to see if the local police there will volunteer their time to help us out.  If you know someone in the police department with connections let us know!  Also we are pleased to add a new sponsor to our project. Steve's Intermountain Service Center. Thanks for the help, we are willing to accept any donations no matter how big or small they may seem!  Let us know if you'd like to contribute. Check out www.stevesintermountain.com for more information on them. More to come on some of the demos we've been doing lately.

AIAA Presentation and results

A couple weeks ago we did a presentation for AIAA which is the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.  It went really well, thanks to everyone involved!  Victor Ruiz is the local student chapter of the AIAA and he set up the meeting for us, he is also an mechanical engineering student on the airframe team.  We are currently working with Northrop Grumman through AIAA and will be receiving a donation from them soon!  We'd like to thank everyone over there at Northrop for believing in us and hope to gain even more support so that we can finish up this exciting project. Here's a picture from the presentation:

Left to Right: Brandon Terry, Justin Cote, Victor Ruiz, Danielle Hudson, Rachelle Heiselmeyer, and Kelvin Bailey

Model Rockets

Over the summer we wanted to get an idea of the scale of the size rocket we are building, both for our own benefit as well as to help show possible donors.  My dad Kelvin E. Bailey and I were able to put one together.  Here are some pictures of the finished result. Enjoy!

My dad Kelvin Bailey with the finished product.

Side view showing the fins and with small tubes for fun *actual nozzle may vary :)

Back view

Front isometric view *nose cone is missing

Shot to emphasis the height

Rocket with moon in background

Myself (Kelvin Bailey) during initial construction

Some Pictures

I thought I'd add a few pictures of the team, to help everyone get to know at least some of them.  We have 15 of us on the team, only 7 of which are pictured in this post.  More pictures to come so you can get to know everyone. The pictures show us working out the projected size of the rocket we would need to design. Meetings on campus as well as a teleconference with Lockheed Martin.  Enjoy, more to follow!

Original URoc Team: Brandon Terry, Chase Nelson, Danielle Bowen, and Kelvin Bailey

URoc Team on campus: Victor Ruiz, Brandon Terry, Chase Nelson, Danielle Bowen, and Kelvin Bailey

Team lead teleconference with Lockheed Martin

Kelvin Bailey, Joseph Green, Jacob Warner, and Chase Nelson

Motor Update

It's exciting to note that we are nearing completion of our motor design.  Our design is in for final review with the engineers over at AeroTech and then we will have a final meeting with Lockheed Martin and AeroTech to complete our approval process.  Once that's done we are ready to start building! Keep watching for more updates!

Rocky Mountain Space Grant Consortium

We'd like to give a special thanks to our friends at the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium for becoming one of our sponsors! They are "committed to promoting science, technology, engineering and math among K-12 students, teachers, and the general public. We are also aimed at increasing public awareness of NASA and other space-related programs." They have also generously donated a large amount to our project.  Their donation will go a long way to helping us complete our project, however we are still looking for more sponsors so if you'd like to help us please contact us at "uroc@eng.utah.edu"! Once again a special thanks to Dr. Dwayne Westenskow and Brenda Maldonado and all the people at the Space Grant Consortium for all their help and support, we're glad to have you as part of the team!

Who We Are

Welcome to the University of Utah's URoc blog.  We'll be keeping you up to date on all the latest project information.  We are currently in the fall semester of our senior design project for the U of U.  There are 15 team members comprising 12 mechanical engineering students and 3 electrical engineering students.  We are divided into 4 subgroups including: Airframe, Avionic, Launch Tower, and Motor Design.  The tentative launch of our historic project will be around March 21, 2011 but is subject to change based on weather conditions.  We are excited to share this experience with the world, make sure to follow us here and on Facebook! Look for URoc.