Rocket Lab Report

By Katie Wadsworth
For Mr. Hendricks’ Honors Physics class at the
Academy for Math, Engineering, and Science
12-18-18

Abstract

This lab was done over four parts; the first of the four was the thrust analysis. On this
day, the main point was to understand how the engines work. A sample rocket on a
gage was set off and then with the results the type of rocket was identified. The second
part was to understand air resistance, a wind tunnel was used to estimate the air
resistance on the rockets that were eventually launched. The third part was calculating
what the predicted maximum height would be. Then finally the rockets were launched
with various engines. And the predicted heights are compared with the actual heights
below.
A B C- Red/silver

Predicted 83 m 153 m Not Done

Actual 70 m 124 m 318 m

Introduction

This project was done to bring together everything that the students have learned over
this school year. This project was done over the course of four classes, the point of
doing it over multiple classes was to familiarize everyone with the equipment and
calculations needed but also because there are a lot of things that the students had to
learn about rockets before launching them. And also with what it actually takes to
launch a rocket and predict different aspects of it. The study of motion is called
kinematics, throughout this project kinematics was a fundamental part (motion
equations). As well as dynamics which is when an object has force acting upon it
(F=ma). Three of the sections were done before actually launching the rockets.

The first section was the Thrust Analysis section. In this section, an unknown engine
was used on a test device against a force gage. Then with the data collected, the
impulse and average force was found. Impulse is equal to the force multiplied by the
amount of time. Force is the amount of strength or movement that is acting upon
something. The point of this section was to understand the engines and how they differ.
Most importantly, to find the thrust as a function of time, which is needed later in the
project.

The second section was the Drag Force section. In this section, a wind tunnel was
used to show the effect that air resistance has on a rocket. Before doing this section
always when doing calculations in class air resistance was ignored. Which wasn’t a
problem because when the object is moving slow air resistance is negligible. But
actually, air resistance is very important in calculating the predicted height of the
rocket. Air has a big effect of fast moving objects. Air resistance can also be called drag
force, which means the effect that the air has on the moving object. The equation for
drag force is Fd=kdv^2. When the coefficient (kd) is a smaller number, then the
resistance on the rocket is decreased, meaning that the rocket will go higher. To bring


the kd down then air must move over the rocket smoother. Like if it had had smooth
clean edges rather that sharp jagged edges for the air to get caught on.
With this section, the coefficient kd was derived and then used when calculating the
predicted height of the rocket.

The last section before launching was the Numerical Analysis section. This was the day
that all of the past physics knowledge paid off and was used to calculate the predicted
height of the rockets with various engines. At first the calculations were done by hand
to find things like average impulse (impulse momentum theory below), average force,
final/initial velocity, and so forth. In order to assure that students understood how the
calculations were done. There were also things that were assumed to make
calculations easier like that mass is constant over the entire launch. After doing the first
few tenth of seconds a spreadsheet was used to calculate all the way to twelve
seconds. Within the time of twelve seconds the max.height can be found by scrolling
the times of the spreadsheet. A sample spreadsheet can be found in the appendix of
this report. The cell where the maximum height is marked. Along with when the fuel will
run out of the engine. The purpose of this section was to calculate
when the rocket would reach its max height.

Thrust Analysis

The purpose of this section of the project was to measure the amount of thrust given off
by the engine in the rocket as a function of time all throughout the burn. The set-up
used was the same rolling car on the track that was used for the momentum lab. But
this time the car had a candy box attached to the top when the engine would go. And it
was also up against a gage that can measure the amount of force that the car is push
with after the engine has started. The application that was used on the computer was
called Logger-Pro. This application takes the data collected from the car and turns it into
a time v. force chart. Before actually starting the data collecting there are a few steps
that need to take place. First, the gage has to be zeroed out because the weight of the
car on the gage would otherwise skew the data. Second, in the settings it has to be set
to take a data point ever 0.1/sec for a duration of at least three seconds. Finally, the
triggering has to be set on with a threshold of (-0.1), because if a person manually hit
the start button the human reaction time might makes it so that the data wasn’t fully
captured.


When the experiment is actually done after all

the programs are ready, someone has to light
the engine for it to start. But if they just lighted
the engine with a match their hand would get
burnt. So instead an ignitor is used to start the
engine. An ignitor is a wire that is bent with a
piece of tape holding it in shape and it has a bit
of red phosphorus on it like a match to hold the
flame. Then as the engine is set off there are
multiple people taking pictures and videos in
slow motion so that observations could be
made about the stability of the engine in the
candy box.

The way that the engines are categorized is by a letter that corresponds to the amount
of impulse given off and then a number that is the average thrust given off by the engine
like for instance “C6-5”. The first thing that was calculated was to find the letter category
(the impulse). Which is the area under the curve. But because there is no equation for
the line it was done by drawing little rectangles underneath each section that was the
width of 0.1 and the height of whatever the force was at in the given time. With this
area was 8.8 N*s which is closest to the C engine which is a
10N*s.

This data above that was collected by the class matches the manufactures data for a
type C engine which was also calculated by the class. The graphs below are the graphs
that were published by the manufacture of the rocket engines. Each type of engine has


difference amounts of fast, slow and normal burning fuel making the graphs appear
different for every engine.

To find the average force given take the average of the forces on the chart and the then
get the average force which was 4.6N and concluded it was a C5 engine. Then when
Mr. Hendricks revealed the engine it was actually a C6 engine.

Some things that may have skewed the data was that maybe the engine had not been
made exactly to average out to a 6N force. Or that maybe when the engine was set off
it went at a weird angle that made the force not so direct. It also might have been that
the data taken wasn’t enough, it should have been taken for every 0.01 s. Overall the
data was nearly there but was slightly thrown off for one of these many things.

Drag Force (Air Resistance)

The purpose of this section of the rocket lab is understand how air
resistance will affect the rocket when it is launched. The main thing that
was used during this section was the wind tunnel. The wind tunnel
contains the front section which is sucking in air that will go through
honeycomb to make it as smooth as it can be which is a laminar flow of air,
that then goes across the rocket in the box that is attached to a
string. The angle that is being pushed at is viewed by three different
people to get an average. After the air passes the rocket the air goes
through another honey comb that goes to a fan pushing outward to create a turbulent flow out
the back.


.
.
.
The velocity (v= 32m/s), mass (m=43 g), and the three angles of the rocket are given:

By drawing a free body diagram the forces

acting upon the rocket can be used to derive an equation that will solve for the drag coefficient
(kd).

After deriving this equation it can be used to find the kd on the specific rocket that is being
used:


Numerical Analysis

The purpose of this section is to use all of the knowledge

obtained throughout the year and lab to estimate what the
rocket’s maximum height, the time it reaches it, and how
long the fuel is being burned. To first calculate the average
thrust, take the average of the two impulses on the chart.
Then by using the a free-body diagram, the average net
force and be calculated by subtracting the downward forces
from the upward forces. For the average impulse take the
average force multiplied by the amount of time has passed
(0.1 s). And by using the impulse momentum theory an
equation can be derived to find the final velocity:
Vf=impulse+mvi/m
The initial velocity can just be the final velocity from the line
before. The average velocity is the average between the final and initial velocity. Then
with the average velocity the drag force can be calculated. And finally, for the height at
the end of the time interval take the initial height from the line before and the velocity
average then multiply by how much time has passed.

Instead of doing all of the chart by hand a spreadsheet was created to calculate each
line with only having to enter in the mass, kd, and thrust for the first two seconds. This
spreadsheet was then used to find the time when the fuel ran out and when the rocket
reached its maximum height. An Example of the spreadsheet is shown below.


To find on the spreadsheet where the fuel runs out it is when the average thrust is zero
because the engine is no longer giving out a thrust. The number furthest to the left is the
thrust and the number closest to the right is the time.

To find the maximum height for the rocket it is when the final height is at the highest
value before starting to decrease again. The number on the left is the height and the
number on the right is the time.

After going through and finding all of the maximum

heights and when the fuel runs out the following
data was collected. This data reveals that in theory
and with the calculator made (with simplifications)
the C6 engine will go the highest out of the three
and it will take longer as well. It is then followed by
the B6 engine, and finally the A8 engine which will
go the lowest but will be the fastest to get there. For


the second calculations, the kd was made to equal 0 which means that air resistance is
ignored. As shown when air resistance is ignored the A8 engine rocket will reach
nearly reach two times higher with only a 1.2 s difference. There is also a significant
difference between the B6 engines, as for the C6 engine the data on the spreadsheet
only records for a total of 12s but it goes so high that it doesn’t reach its max. within the
time frame that the spreadsheet calculates.
The amount of time it would take for the fuel to run out was also calculated which
is when the average thrust goes to zero. This data shows that the C6 engine will have
the most fuel because it takes the longest for the thrust
to get to zero. Which makes sense because this
engine also goes a lot higher than the other too but it also takes more time because the
fuel is burning longer than them.

Flight Results

Before launching the rocket, the parachute must be protected so before

launching the rocket a material called waddling. Waddling is like tissue paper that is
treated with a chemical that makes it so that it is non-flammable. It is placed between
the engine and the parachute it is used so that the last poof of the engine goes it
doesn’t damage the parachute so the rocket can safety descend.
After putting in the wadding, the engine is placed in and the then the ignitor out
on the launch pad. There is a little plastic stopper that keeps the ignitor in it; so when
going to light the ignitor it doesn’t fall off and start something other than the engine on
fire. After placing the ignitor in the engine, the rocket is put on the launch pad. The
wires are then connected to the ignitor which one other end is attached to the battery.
After the countdown, the last wire is connected and it ignites the engine and it goes off
into the air.
In order to calculate the height that the rocket goes there has to be
three separate people 50m away from the launch pad. These people
also stand about 120 degrees away from each other. These people also
have with them a protractor to find the angle that the rocket it as when it
is at the highest point. The reason for this is because the rocket doesn’t
actually go straight up so by having the three people find the
approximate height then the average angle can be used.


With this average angle from the three people an equation can be used to find how high
the rocket approximately went. The way to derive this equation is by using a triangle
and then trig identities to find h.

There are a lot of complications with finding the height of the rocket because the rocket
does not go exactly straight up. There are also x direction forces on the rocket which
means it doesn’t go exactly straight. This can taint the data and angles being used
(reason for three people). And for the B engine rocket used the rocket went so high it
went in to the clouds so the three people couldn’t record the angle that the rocket was
at.

Conclusion

A B C (red/silver)

Predicted 83 m 153 m Not Done



Actual 70 m 129 m 239 m

The results of the rocket lab are shown above, each actual vs. predicted is about 21 m
off. There are many reasons why the data from the actual might be off from the
predicted. First off the engine might not have actually been exerting the amount of force
and impulse that it says on the rocket. Because the results from the engine used in
Thrust Analysis were off in which engine was being used. So, for the rockets launched
here the engine might not have been working. Also, the kd that was calculated during
the Drag Force section could have been off because when outside the wind was not
moving in the same ways that the wind tunnel was simulating. Also, the rockets that
were launch might not have had the same quality of fins, like how smooth they are etc.

When doing the calculations in the Numerical Analysis section there were multiple
things that were incorrectly assumed. For example, the mass of the rocket was
assumed that the rocket’s mass was not changing, but in reality when it is losing fuel the
mass will slowly be decreasing. Along with the changing force using the kd coefficient
that was probably incorrect. Along with the rockets themselves, they most likely did not
all have the same quality of fins and build to them. Along with having struggles in finding
the angles for their height because the clouds were in the way or they went too high.
And for the fact that the rockets do not go exactly straight up. When doing this lab there
were a lot of things that could have gone differently that could have caused the data to
be altered from the predicted. But overall for the things that were assumed and stuff that
might have been done wrong the predicted vs. actual was not that far off.

Reflection

Over this lab I gained a lot of knowledge in physics, not only did I use past physics by I
also used a bunch on new things. Before this lab we had always ignored air resistance
because when doing our equations, the air resistance is so little that it doesn’t have a
large effect on the object. But when something is moving really fast the larger the
resistance which means it has a real effect on the engine. Also, it was really cool that
we got to use all of our past physics knowledge to calculate what we thought the height
would be.

Appendix