The paper presents the design of small 1,000 lbf., and 200,000 lbf. ablative annular plug nozzle engine developed. The concept of plug nozzles is not new, and numerous Aerospike engine nozzle design analyses have been performed. The purpose of this study was to perform optimal design of nozzle and structural analysis. Single Stage to Orbit vehicles would require significant advances in rocketry technology, not the least of which is the aerospike engines. The strength of this type of engine is its ability to adjust to varying operating conditions resulting in improved off design performance as compared with traditional converging-diverging nozzles like the bell. The design methodology is presented for only nozzle, and the flow over nozzle is analyzed in more detail. Based on this analysis, the approximate design method used for determining the plug nozzle shape is shown to yield a highly efficient nozzle. In this study, computational fluid dynamics code is used to optimize the most efficient Aerospike nozzle design, and the structure analysis is used to determine the structural response and weight. From these structural response, and load cases on the most critical section, the structural optimization is performed by selecting the most appropriate layers of Graphite/Epoxy composite.
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