About
For my senior capstone, I worked on a ten-member team tasked with designing, building, and test-firing a hybrid rocket engine for BYU Rocketry. This was a complex end-to-end engineering project that took us through the full technical design lifecycle. We developed detailed system requirements, conducted design reviews, created measurable verification plans, and produced formal engineering documentation throughout the year. Our team engineered the hybrid motor and test stand from the ground up. The engine itself used a paraffin-graphite fuel grain paired with liquid nitrous oxide. The test stand was built to be capable of supporting our engine and larger future systems. Overall, we modeled combustion performance, predicted mass flow rates, sized the nozzle for supersonic expansion, and designed the full plumbing and instrumentation suite. The project culminated in two successful static test fires—the first hybrid engine firings in BYU history—demonstrating that our analytical work, manufacturing, and system integration all met the mission requirements.
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