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Book cover
  • Textbook
  • Nov 2019

Chemical Rockets

Performance Prediction and Internal Ballistics Design

Authors:

  1. Subramaniam Krishnan

    1. Professor of Aerospace Engineering (Retired), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

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  2. Jeenu Raghavan

    1. Solid Propulsion Research Entity, VSSC, Indian Space Research Organisation, Thiruvananthapuram, India

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Features worked examples and end-of-chapter exercises

  • Contains design computer-codes with source listings and exe files along with design problems and their outputs included

  • Offers an instructor's solution manual for the exercises

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

  • Request lecturer material: sn.pub/lecturer-material

Part of the book series: Springer Aerospace Technology (SAT)

About this book

The purpose of this book is to discuss, at the graduate level, the methods of performance prediction for chemical rocket propulsion.  A pedagogical presentation of such methods has been unavailable thus far and this text, based upon lectures, fills this gap. The first part contains the energy-minimization to calculate the propellant-combustion composition and the subsequent computation of rocket performance.

While incremental analysis is for high performance solid motors, equilibrium-pressure analysis is for low performance ones. Both are detailed in the book's second part for the prediction of ignition and tail-off transients, and equilibrium operation.

Computer codes, adopting the incremental analysis along with erosive burning effect, are included. The material is encouraged to be used and presented at lectures.  Senior undergraduate and graduate students in universities, as well as practicing engineers and scientists in rocket industries, form the readership.


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Keywords

  • equilibrium composition
  • energy minimization
  • bridgeman table
  • gaussian elimination
  • Rocket internal ballistics
  • chemical potential
  • grain design
  • erosive burning
  • incremental analysis
  • rocket performance
  • rocket engines
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Reviews

“The book guides the reader through the complex subject of thermochemistry behavior of combustion in solid rocket engine in a very smooth and easy to understand way. … This book is an important contribution from the authors to the subject and ready to be employed in classes for undergraduates and postgraduates, moreover, it can be used as a research and design tool.” (Abdulkarim Hassan, PhD)
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Authors and Affiliations

  • Professor of Aerospace Engineering (Retired), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

    Subramaniam Krishnan

  • Solid Propulsion Research Entity, VSSC, Indian Space Research Organisation, Thiruvananthapuram, India

    Jeenu Raghavan

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About the authors

Dr. Krishnan Subramaniam  is retired and former Professor and Head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. He also served as a Visiting Professor at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kyungpook National University (South Korea), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, and SRM University (India).

Dr. Jeenu Raghavan is Head of the Grain and Nozzle Design Division at the Solid Motor Group of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation.  Among others, his fields of specialty are combustion and propulsion, and propellant technology.
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Bibliographic Information

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