Compressed air/fuel rocket?

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Tony~
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Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:43 am

Compressed air/fuel rocket?

Post by Tony~ » Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:20 pm

Can you use compressed air as the oxidant in a rocket? And maybe a liquid or gaseous fuel, for example; Gasoline or butane? Butane may be the way to go beacuse of simplicity but it don't as much energy as gasoline but using already pressurized butane takes out the need of pumps and such.

If you are to use compressed air, can you go about the way a Ram-jet works? That is, you have a diffuser to slow down the air from the compressed air tank, mix it with the fuel and then ignite.

How many PSI/BARS do you think the compressed air tank should be pressurized with to travel at a sufficent speed for the hole ramjet principle to work?

Tom
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Re: Compressed air/fuel rocket?

Post by Tom » Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:43 pm

Surely there is no way that just compressed air could have enough Oxygen content to be practical, that's why specific oxidizers are used, eg, Nitrous or O2, liquid Nitrous more often in hobby rocketry as it holds more O2 then gaseous oxygen for the same area, which is all that can be had without investing in some high end cyrogenics. I don't think it would be that practical for more then a few seconds, and the whole idea of combustion you are taking about sounds like it belongs in the ramjet forum, it's not really a rocket as such.
Experience speaks more then hypothesizing ever can. More-so in chemistry.

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