Recommended Reading

These will prepare you to hit the ground running and to become a propulsion god

Key reads

• The Science and Design of the Hybrid Rocket Engine

  • This is Aaron’s most recommended piece of reading as an introduction to hybrid rocketry. It’s extremely accessible (written in plain language with no complex theory) and is quite comprehensive.

  • If there is one book you should read cover to cover, it is this.

• Introduction to hybrid design

• Propulsion section of the 2022 IREC technical report (starts on page 8)

  • Do take a glance at the other sections. Learning about the rest of the rocket is helpful.

  • You can the skip appendices/schedules/nontechnical stuff for now, it’s just required for the report

• Hybrid safety (ignore sections on LOX and HTP)

• The physics of nitrous oxide

• 'Rocket Propulsion Elements', Sutton and Biblarz

  • Incredibly useful and popular rocketry textbook; the “rocketeer’s bible”

  • Chapters 2, 3, 6, 8, 15, 16

    • Feel free to skip some content if it’s too dense; focus on the “big picture” for now

• 'Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines', a.k.a. Huzel & Huang

  • More focus on detailed mechanical design

  • Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9

    • Feel free to skip some content if it’s too dense; focus on the “big picture” for now

Not key but still useful / for reference:

• Modelling the nitrous oxide run tank emptying

• The thrust optimized parabolic nozzle (a bit esoteric, still neat)

• Hybrid propellant properties (relevant for flight dynamics)

• Hybrid engines and rocket stability (relevant for flight dynamics)

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wu03X2-UVpHXGEY0cWbmG_KR5w_1zfLT/view?usp=sharing (2018 FYDP pt.1)

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gshytGEK52xszuZxl6s1w71-1MVjOEMa/view?usp=sharing (2018 FYDP pt.2

  • The current Kismet v3 engine is derived from the original Kismet v1 engine which was a capstone design project by some old team members. These two FYDP reports give a ground-up design explanation of the engine.

  • Again you don't need to read all the formal report charts and schedules and stuff. But some of the appendices have interesting discussions of simulations and calculations)Read these as time allows, it's not like assigned homework lol. But if you read all of these you will have a lot of really useful context which makes working on new projects way easier. And feel free to ask me about absolutely anything, I like explaining stuff :)