Performance analysis of water ballast rockets
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2014 10:45 pm
I've been having a lot of fun with these water ballast rockets that have a hole in the tip of the nose cone. But I've often wondered what performance hit these were taking to not have a sealed nosecone.
I was finally able to launch a single pressure bottle in two configurations, once with a conventional nosecone and parachute recovery, and once with a water ballast nosecone with about 1/2" opening in the tip. I should point out that I was not precise with amt of water so this was really just a ballpark check.
Here are the results:
And the launch video:
[youtube][/youtube]
The pressure bottle was my 1 liter 30mm nozzle widemouth bottle with triangle 1/4" plywood fins.
Launched at 100psi.
I was finally able to launch a single pressure bottle in two configurations, once with a conventional nosecone and parachute recovery, and once with a water ballast nosecone with about 1/2" opening in the tip. I should point out that I was not precise with amt of water so this was really just a ballpark check.
Here are the results:
- HK-A_2014426_2048.png (154.47 KiB) Viewed 33 times
[youtube][/youtube]
The pressure bottle was my 1 liter 30mm nozzle widemouth bottle with triangle 1/4" plywood fins.
Launched at 100psi.