"Solid Rocket Motor Performance Analysis and Prediction"

by Thiokol, Hercules, Rocketdyne, Purdue University, and NASA scientists and engineers

Solid Rocket Motor Performance Analysis and Prediction

by Thiokol, Hercules, Rocketdyne, Purdue University, and NASA scientists and engineers

This ultimate textbook tells exactly how to evaluate rocket motor static tests to determine the best grain geometries, motor configurations, and propellants for a design of any size.  It's the best, most complete and comprehensive volume of its kind anywhere!

With these instructions you can make detailed analyses that will predict full-scale motor performance, by using theoretical performance criteria (from chemical-thermodynamic information), and the demonstrated performance data obtained from subscale motor tests, or from previous firings on full-scale motors of similar design.

If you design, build, test, or use solid propellant rockets, you need this reference handbook.  It's the official NASA design and engineering guide, loaded with once highly-secret data, parameters, scientific analyses, rocketry information, and esoteric lore, providing data on all types of rocket and missile propellant grains. 

Fundamental phenomena and theories are reviewed, and the interrelationships of the critical performance parameters are explained.  It presents methods for predicting the time histories of motor pressure, thrust, and mass flow, together with techniques for evaluating the input parameters necessary for identifying and evaluating performance loss mechanisms of various propellant systems and with various motor operating conditions.

You'll learn how to analyze losses upstream and downstream of the nozzle throat, for their effect on nozzle performance and deliverable specific impulse.  You'll also discover the professional ways to assess test motor characteristics, determine the number of tests and test conditions needed for a given design. 

There's more!  Now you can understand exactly how to scale these parameters to predict full-scale motor performance!  Predicted and demonstrated propellant and motor performance are correlated and explained in great detail, showing the necessary techniques and procedures.

Prepared at the NASA Lewis Research Center by scientists and engineers from Rocketdyne Solid Rocket Division (North American Rockwell Corporation), Hercules Powder Company, Purdue University, and Thiokol Chemical Corporation, this valuable book gives the practical information you need to design and evaluate a high-technology, state-of-the-art composite solid propellant rocket motor. 

The contents are the result of more than 25 years of investigations by the world's largest propulsion contractors.  Literally billions of dollars were spent obtaining this critical yet hard-to-find data. 

The prediction of pressure and thrust versus time is analyzed, with attention to internal flow-field monitoring, prediction of motor mass and motor balance versus time, evaluation of propellant performance parameters, and prediction of performance variability.

In a word, this is the most complete and comprehensive book ever written about the theoretical and practical engineering design predictions for solid performance.  It’s thick, heavy, and packed with accurate information for the professional (and “amateur”) rocket scientist, engineer, technician, and experimenter.

There are also more than 25 engineering figures, and several tables.  Plus there's a 7-page glossary of nomenclature, symbols, and definitions; 11 pages of technical references (149 different studies are listed);  ... and MUCH more not mentioned here!

All essential algebraic formulae and equations are included, working with a wide variety of common and complex propellants and motor configurations.

If you design, build, test, or fly rockets or missiles of any size, you'll want this superb reference textbook.  It’s especially useful for “amateur” rocket builders -- with an abundance of data, esoteric information, and once-secret lore from the world's foremost rocket builders: Aerojet, Thiokol, Rocketdyne, Hercules, and NASA.

Very hard to find and now out-of-print, this new limited edition has been republished by the Rocket Science Institute.  It's printed with a high-resolution laser printer (not photocopied) on high-quality, bright-white, acid-free paper for years of reference use.  106 pages, large and easy-to-read 11" x 8-1/2" size.  ISBN 1-878628-22-4          $24.95

The Rocket Science Institute is a non-profit scientific and educational foundation in support of "amateur" experimental rocket science, engineering, and technology.