Water Bottle Rocket
Skills Utilized: FDM Printing, CAD, Technical Communication, Data Procurement and Analysis, Prototyping
My team and I were tasked to meet the following four objectives:
Perform wind tunnel experiments to characterize drag and the effect of rocket spinning
April 2023
Design and construct a water bottle rocket prototype to physically test launches
Develop a model to predict rocket launches
Validate model experimentally to measure and improve accuracy
This is the plot of the coefficient of drag that we calculated for various nosecones against Reynolds Number for a straight fin that induced no spinning
CAD Design
Physical Prototype
Example of a flight model with input parameters of wind speed, wind direction, water pressure, water mass, and vertical angle. Flight model was derived from moving control volume analysis with a quasi-steady state assumption and Bernoulli equations
Comparison of test and model data with varying water pressure inputs
Flight demo
Website developed for on-site calculations
Read more about this project!