Water Rocket Forum

I am finally getting around to making a launchpad that is capable of a rocket with fall away boosters! Here is a model I created in Blender to show the guts of my design.
I didn't include the launch tubes and the clear hose that connects to them. Nor did I include the base. I will upload a picture when I finish it, which will be soon, hopefully.

I included two shutoff valves so that if I am launching a rocket with only 2 boosters, I can shut off the other two launch tubes. And I can launch a rocket without a booster on the same pad.

Let me know what you all think.

-DogLover

Hi Doglover,

What size nozzles are you going to use on your boosters?

I'm currently working on my launchpad to make it able to launch rockets with drop away boosters.
My original idea was to use 4 boosters like you, but I changed my plans because of the huge forces acting on the sustainer and release mechanism. So I'm starting with 2 boosters, hope to launch it next week.
does every booster have it's own release mechanism or are you going to hold the boosters down with the sustainer?

The boosters will have full bore nozzles. If I ever decide I want a smaller nozzle, I will probably try using a thrust capacitor, which I believe bugwubbler came up with on the forum. I can shut off the valves if I don't want to use all 4 boosters. I made the launch tubes a little tighter fit on the bottle necks, hoping that will help hold the boosters since I am only holding the main rocket down with a clark's cable tie system.

-DogLover

Nice to see you're going to try full bore boosters, I'm also going to try 2 full bore boosters on my rocket. I don't worry about the clark cable tie system so much but I think the most difficult thing of full bore boosters is how you connect the boosters to the sustainer, a full bore booster at 100 psi will push up with a force of 230 N.
Aircommand has launched some rockets with drop away boosters, they used pins on the boosters wich slide in tubes on the sustainer I believe one time the boosters forced themselfs up and split the tubes on the sustainer, and they where using restricted nozzles!
Are you planning to use the pins/tubes system?

I'm going to try a different aproach, wich I think shoul be capable of holding more force, I'll post the results and details here on the forum in a few weeks.

I am testing it with the pins/tube system, but I have not heard of any other systems that do not require complex parts or anything.

DogLover wrote:I am testing it with the pins/tube system, but I have not heard of any other systems that do not require complex parts or anything.

Our design uses a 5 booster first stage where the boosters are connected at the strongest point of the bottle and drops off as a unit, but we have also experimented with the same system with receptacles that hold side boosters at the top and has a smaller connection at the rear which mainly holds the bottles aligned. The majority of the lifting force is concentrated at the top of the boosters and those connections are the strongest.

U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote: Our design uses a 5 booster first stage where the boosters are connected at the strongest point of the bottle and drops off as a unit

interesting... What do you mean with "the strongest point of the bottle"?
If it's the neck of the bottle, this seems very similar to what I"m working on right now.