Design of a Valve Segment for a Hybrid Rocket Engine

This paper deals with the design of a valve segment for the Helios hybrid rocket engine, built by ExperimentalRaumfahrt-InteressenGemeinschaft e.V. (ERIG) for the Leonis project in cooperation with Institute of Aerospace Systems of Technische Universität Braunschweig. In the Leonis project ERIG will develope a supersonic rocket named Regulus for the Studentische Experimental-Raketen program (STERN), which is initiated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Helios is based on a liquid oxidizer and a solid fuel grain. A valve segment is needed to connect the oxidizer vessel with the combustion chamber. This valve segment is responsible for some crucial features of Helios such as regulation of the mass flow from oxidizer vessel to the combustion chamber. Especially because of the high mass flow per second, the requirement for a light design and the integration of several features a new valve segment is designed. Thus different concepts of switching are compared e.g. hybrid, electromagnetical and pyrotechnical. The results of this study and the final design of the valve segment are presented in this paper