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Design and Optimization of A Rocket Structure Foll
Design and Optimization of A Rocket Structure Foll
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Abstract
Amateur rocket structures are usually made of composite materials, wood or aluminium, their internal
geometries and interfaces are usually restricted by the available manufacturing techniques. However,
with the appearance of the additive manufacturing sector new possibilities arise for the design of the
structures and its complexity.
In this paper a PA-12 and glass fibre composite structure for the Phobos rocket is designed which the
UPC Space Program aims to use to participate in the European Rocketry challenge. The Phobos rocket
structure is designed and optimized to be fabricated using additive manufacturing by Hewlett-Packard.
The structure is designed using a lattice approach to obtain a PA-12 skeleton which is then reinforced
with a skin of glass fibre composite.
Moreover, to obtain the desired structure an optimization methodology is set using a design loop in
which the critical section of the rocket is parametrically optimized to reach the equivalent traditional
structure performance. The structure is optimized in the size of the lattice geometry and in the thickness
of the skin as parameters. To do so, the critical load during the flight of the rocket is identified and
translated to the Nastran environment to run a parametric optimization of the structural model. The
optimized geometry is then extended to the rest of the rocket to obtain the overall optimized structure.
In addition, several analyses are conducted to validate the structure behaviour for the different load
cases. Finally, both the optimized critical case and the overall optimized structure are compared to
traditional design structures to obtain conclusive results about the use and limitations of the available
additive technology and its materials.
Keywords
Rocketry, Students, Design, Optimization, Structure
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4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities
Barcelona, April 2022
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4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities
Barcelona, April 2022
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4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities
Barcelona, April 2022
The composite materials used in this analysis The optimization process was set with a target
are a glass fibre and epoxy composite. For its critical lineal buckling load of 30 KN, which
modelling the rule of mixtures [8] is applied. corresponds to the critical load of the traditional
design for two glass fibre layers (Factor of
𝐸𝑐 = 𝑓𝐸𝑓 + (1 − 𝑓)𝐸𝑚 (1) security of 10 over the design load).
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4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities
Barcelona, April 2022
For both the traditional two-layer design and the 4.2.1. Linear buckling analysis
24 triangles optimized design are compared. Table 3. Comparison between traditional and
optimized rocket designs under linear buckling
Table 1. Comparison between final optimized analysis.
critical section and two-layer traditional critical Traditional Optimized
section design design
T (mm) Triangles Mass (Kg) Max. BF (Buckling 6,744 13,076
(Width x Lineal factor)
height, mm) Load (N)
Traditional 0.50 - 0.17 3.18E+04
Optimized 0.25 3.1x1 0.32 3.03E+04 4.2.2. Non-Linear buckling analysis
Table 4. Comparison between traditional and
4.1.2. Global and local deformations optimized rocket designs under non-linear
buckling analysis.
The 4 mm deformation is induced in the model Traditional Optimized
design design
at half length of the critical section displacing Max. Von Misses 11.9 0.7
mesh elements: stress (MPa)
Max. Disp. (mm) 0.2431 0.0121
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4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities
Barcelona, April 2022
There are several sets of conclusions which can reach higher quality standards than hand made
be extracted from the design of the rocket parts, which increase the reliability and safety of
discussed in this paper. the mission.
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