Someone has to try this

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Zippiot
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Someone has to try this

Post by Zippiot » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:33 am

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... t-man.html

Where can I find oxygen or N2O to test this out? I could grab a bottle of gaseous stuff from any hardware store but it wouldn't be easy to rig it together.....
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Jim Berquist
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Post by Jim Berquist » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:16 am

Damn thought of that using foam! In place of butane or inert gas use OX!

Epoxy is self hardening, Does not need to breath to cast up. You could preform Grains in the forms with it. Cool.

Gaseous would be the only way! Have you ever seen what happens when you introduce LOX to anything that can com bust?

I seen a Airman loose his foot because he stepped in a small puddle of LOX with Rubber soled boots. Any Friction is enough to start BAD THINGS!

I don't have the means to do it but it would be cool to try a slurry of Tire Rubber and Epoxy Binder.

BernzoMatic sell small bottles of Gas! 8) st a thought! :?
Last edited by Jim Berquist on Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by El-Kablooey » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:19 am

Neet, but probably a bad idea for an amatuer.

Pressurized oxygen and oil are a bad combination. Most folks with oxy/fuel torches know to keep oil, or any other contaminants away from the oxygen valve or the regulator. Oil in an oxygen regulator can result in the violent destruction of the regulator as the oxygen and oil react and explode. That's enough to keep me away from any containers of oil being pumped to high pressures with pure O2.

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Post by Jim Berquist » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:23 am

El-Kablooey: How you been? Jim
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Zippiot
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Post by Zippiot » Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:08 am

I think oil was used b/c of its burning properties and potential, im sure a plastic of sorts could be substitued in.
There are many things that can dry hard, without air might be the kicker though. Gotta be strong enough to hold the air bubbles, acrylic resin or plastic injection maybe.
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Oxygen and binders

Post by Mark » Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:52 am

I wonder if he would have thought of the same idea if instead of eating an aerated chocolate bar he had been eating pop rocks. ha
Oxygen is pretty sneaky stuff though, it only takes a small amount to go bang and blast your eardrums. Pressurizing oxygen with a fuel to such high pressures would make me nervous.
I remember reading about some Canadian who discoverd some nobel gas compound, perhaps it was Xenon tetroxide and I can't even remember if it was made/combined under high pressure or what but I do remember the account well enough to recall there was an explosion and the guy was hospitalized. It was a long time ago when I was reading about inert gas compounds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_tetroxide

I wonder if you could make a sugar/oxygen pop rock fuel. I remember trying the Orbiting Orange flavored pop rocks when I was in college.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Rocks
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Oxygen and germ-X

Post by Mark » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:49 am

I wonder if germ-X could be loaded up with tiny pure oxygen bubbles at STP and be safe enough to tinker with in some kind of fashion? I like to keep in mind though the adage/traditional saying that you should never grind/mix more or than you want to blow up in your face. Just in case, get to know the characteristics of what you are working with. Oxygen can go exponential on you in a big way.
http://www.germx.com/data/photos/2.5ozGermX.jpg
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Post by Zippiot » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:48 am

I think sugar is waaaay to brittle. Also its really thick, would have to keep it hot and udner pressure.
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Post by Mark » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:23 pm

Maybe it would be possible to encapsulate the O2 in some other material or microballoon and then add the spheres to the fuel. While it would probably not be ideal, it might be enough to get off the ground.
One thing though, if you made your rocket fuel too foamy/light, it's not going to have a lot of mass, or rather it's going to be bulky. Another thought is that I'm wondering if his fuel is still a bit oxygen starved, having to carry the oxidizer as a compressed gas instead being a solid or liquid reactant. Depending on how much O2 gas pressure the epoxy can hold, it is still far less dense than liquid oxygen. In effect, he is carrying compressed oxygen without the weight of a tank.


Some little crumbs .
http://www.nigellawton009.com/Alumilite ... lloons.JPG
http://www.conservationresources.com/Ma ... n36_03.htm
http://www.plasticareinc.com/SystemThree_Fillers.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/syntactic- ... technology
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Post by Zippiot » Tue Mar 04, 2008 8:11 pm

The article claimed over 200isp right? I'm wondering how dense the stuff is, epoxy and motor oil are pretty dense but compressed O2 isnt.
Still if you could get 200+isp out of a light foam it still trumps the 100isp Ive been getting from RCandy.

Mentioned the O2 diffuses in with the oil, so could some pvc pipe be adapted to this...

Cap both ends but the top is a screw off, fill with the oil and resin and add top cap. Top cap has a valve for adding the Oxygen. Add enough pressure to get it to diffuse in but not too much to explode the pvc pipe. Unscrew top cap and you have a pre-cast in liner rocket fuel grain.

At 200isp an endburner should work right? aeortech has a new enderburner withthat much.
http://www.rocketryplanet.com/content/view/1758/95/

edit: the warp-9 claims 137 isp
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Post by El-Kablooey » Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:50 pm

Zippiot wrote: Cap both ends but the top is a screw off, fill with the oil and resin and add top cap. Top cap has a valve for adding the Oxygen. Add enough pressure to get it to diffuse in but not too much to explode the pvc pipe. Unscrew top cap and you have a pre-cast in liner rocket fuel grain.
Hey, go for it. We can't stop you. If you do this though, do it with the knowledge that there is a really good chance of things going horribly wrong. It's just not worth it.

Hey Jim, I'm doing great! How 'bout yourself?

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Post by Zippiot » Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:05 am

pvc pipe at 1/2 inch can hold 600psi...Don't wanna know what those O2 bottles are holding back

Well anything that can go wrong will, so wear a helmut.
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Post by Zippiot » Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:42 am

NEW PLAN

Taking your advice I decided not to lose an arm leg and eyeball but to still kinda test this theory.

He was using 2.1 megapascals of pure O2 to pressurize [check spelling] his first test fuel, I think I have a much more safe and still somewhat practical idea.

Regular Oil+hardener fuel and KNO3 oxidizer, setup in the pvc pipe and pressurized with air to 100psi, or about .7 megapascals. It would carry 1/3rd less the gas volume and only 20%ish would be oxygen.
Just to test if at 100psi gas will diffuse into the fuel really. IS air at 100psi more oxygen per gram than KNO3?
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Post by Mark » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:24 pm

I wanted to present a few variables to keep in mind which may or may not be of any importance or correct. ha
I was reading of how oil in the seal of an oxygen tank causes explosions, that when the pressure comes on, there is a rapid pressure increase and it might be seen as the diesel effect or if you recall those fire pistons for campers where you rapidly compress ordinary air onto a small piece of tinder. So just to be on the safe side, you might want to introduce your air or O2 slowly I guess to avoid rapid heating.
http://www.firepiston.com/
Another thing is that KNO3 and epoxy resin hardener might cross-link or slowly decide to interact and make some terrific gas release or amazingly poisonous fumes or carcinogenic compounds. Again, these are just concepts I like to keep in mind whenever a single variable is changed. Chemistry is really the land of Murphy's Law if you are blazing new trails.
As I know very little about epoxy hardeners, I can't say much. But apparently there are several varieties. I wonder what type of oil and hardener he used?

"Uncontrolled curing and burning of epoxy"
"The chemical reaction that cures mixed epoxy is *exothermic*, or heat generating. If left to cure in a contained mass, such as in a mixing pot, it can generate enough heat to melt plastic, burn your skin or ignite surrounding combustible materials. The larger or thicker the epoxy mass, the more heat generated. A 100-gram mass of mixed epoxy can reach 400°F."
"Spontaneous combustion is a danger when hardeners are mixed with sawdust, wood chips, or other cellulosic materials. When hardener is spilled onto or mixed with sawdust, the air and moisture react with the amine to generate heat. If the heat is not dissipated quickly enough, it can ignite the sawdust. Do not use sawdust or other cellulosic materials to absorb a hardener spill. Likewise, do not pour unused hardener into a trashcan with sawdust or other cellulosic materials."
http://www.mrfiberglass.com/safety_information.html
http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ohb/HESIS/epoxy.htm

Another point brought up is that Derek Willis spins his mix which probably also adds uniformity to the mass as well as making the walls of the fuel stronger by getting more bubbles to migrate inward toward the core. It might be that when you take your batch out without spinning that there are regions which are more or less infused with O2 bubbles, which would cause uneven burning, I don't know.
For some reason the early days of chemistry come to mind, when the first chemists mixed hydrogen and chlorine gas in glass flasks covered with black cloth. Apparently the little molecules or atoms bounce around, perhaps a few here and there combining with each other but there is never enough heat generated to initiate a chain reaction. But when hit with sunlight or ultraviolet light, by removing the black cloth, the flasks detonate. I just wonder how similar this analogy is with oxygen and oil at high pressures?
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Post by Zippiot » Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:52 pm

Yeah we used to start fires on accident at the boathouse, adding 4-1 epoxy in 2-1 ratios would do the trick.
I mixed up some oil and hardener to see if it would harden at all, it did a little overnight but would take a very long time to cure out in the open.
Sailing Student- How do I know if my life jacket is tight enough?
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