Performance of Mixture-Ratio-Controlled Hybrid Rockets Under Uncertainties in Fuel Regression

What is it about?

O/F shifts in hybrid rockets are referred to as the shifts in instantaneous oxidizer-to-fuel ratio. The purpose of this study is to classify the sources of O/F shifts and the paths through which the O/F shifts affect the flight performance of rockets and challenge the conventional conclusion that performance loss due to O/F shifts is negligible except for deep throttling. This paper started from the detailed classification of the mechanisms of O/F shifts and their effects on flight and propulsive performance including those not considered in previous studies. Next, the performance increase due to O/F control was evaluated by simulating the vertical launch of hybrid rockets under the presence of a constant scale of errors or random errors in the fuel regression model. The error models were modeled from a few datasets of experimental data. This study revealed that O/F-uncontrolled hybrid rockets with a 71.4% propellant mass fraction lose their 6.69% and 4.06% ∆V for +3σ systematic error and for the worst case, respectively.

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