Fundamentals of Rocket Science :: physics rocket science

LiftoffRocket engines atomic number 18 different from car or pitchy engines in two fudamental ways. 1. Unlike cars, rockets dont need to push off of anything to impress themselves forward. 2. Rockets are self-contained. In other words they dont need oxygen from the glory to provide fuel for energy.Rockets operate using the law of conservation of linear momentum. This law states that whenever two or more particles interact, the total momentum of the administration cadaver constant. In this case the shuttle and its fuel can be considered separate particles.A rocket moves by ejecting its fuel out the meander at extremely high velocities (approx. 6000 mph). The fuel is given momentum as it is being ejected. To insure conservation of linear momentum, the shuttle must be given a compensating momentum in the opposite direction.Rockets move just now like Dr. Newman would if he were on a sheet of ice with 3 million pounds of baseballs throwing them at a rate of 22,000 lbs/sec. Ac tually Dr. Newman would move quite a bit faster, because he has MUCH less mass than the post shuttle.To quickly summarize, thrust is equal to the exhaust velocity multiplied by the amount fuel expiration with respect to time. This is illustrated by the equation get-up-and-go = ve(dM/dt)This tells us the only way to increase the amount of thrust performing on the rocket, is by increasing the velocity of the exhaust, or the amount of fuel, M, leaving per second. * This is why space shuttles dont hurl baseballs out the back of the rockets. Its takes a curing of energy to accelerate a baseball to 6000 mphRocket Scientist (they dont watchword them that for nothing) prefer to use the ideal bobble law An ideal mess up is one for which PV/nT is constant at all pressures. * Fuel and an Oxidizing agent, usually placid oxygen and hydrogen respectively, are forced into the combustion chamber where they are ignited. The temperature increases which forces the pressure in the chamber to increase to insure PV/T remains constant.Volume inside the chamber is constant soPi/Ti = Pf/Tf, = Pf = PiTf/TiUsing Bernoullis equation we can determine the velocity of the gas exiting the NozzleVe = Ac2(Pc - Pn)/(p(Ac2-An2))(1/2)where V = velocity, A = cross sectional area, P = pressure, p = density of the fluid, and n,c = defines Nozzle and Combustion Chamber respectively.The final step is to generate the rate the mass is being ejected (dM/dt).