PDR Notes

Date

Attendees



Notes



Discussion items

ItemWhoNotes
General

Structures
  • AIRFRAME AND OVERALL STRUCTURE/WEIGHT
    • Composite Airframe
    • Potential Weight Reduction
    • 3 Tubes for Avionics Accessibility
    • Problem: Lots of mass forward, needed to bring cp far forward to compensate, not ideal
      • discussions on moving reaction wheel/av bay upwards
      • concerned of internal surface finish in nose cone
      • don't want to add more components to fix stability issue
      • can increase length of recovery tube
      • Solutions: make rocket longer, shorten nose cone, better surface
    • James May (RIT Student): Need More Space for Shock Cord
      • >6 in
      • More space will decrease integration time
      • Easy way to add appropriate size is to add a 1ft long "Shock Cord" component to the recovery bay
      • This space will be in addition to ~2" of space next to each bulkhead for recovery hardware (eye bolt, quick link, etc)
    • Surface Finish Matters
    • Estimate component weights
  • BOAT TAIL SECTION
    • Motor does extend through boat tail
    • @alex: @avi @payload @reaction Needs to submit a final size as soon as possible because space allocations are not changing
    • Boat tail is assumed to be onyx
      • If we cannot source this from MarkForged, need to find a new solution
      • Action: find backup solution to manufacture boat tail, either on campus or not
    • boat tail transfers all thrust to the rockt
    • What are holes in fin guides?
      • bottom portion of fin structure, to be discussed later
    • Yevgeniy Gorbachev (RIT Student) : does surface finish on boat tail matter?
      • @alex: surface finish was fine last year, not expected to impact anything
    • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) : what if we don't have a boat tail?
      • @alex: apogee drop 400 feet
      • Jim: if we dont have capabilities to manufacture, should consider cutting altogether.
    • @Jake: might be hard to assemble with tighter boat tail
    • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) : look to charm boattail/motor retainer
    • Grace Dertinger (RIT Alumni) can we send some components out now?
      • Alex: ???
    • Will Merges (RIT Student): can we buy cots?
      • Yes, need to find solutions soon
  • NOSE CONE SECTION:
    • basically the same as last year
    • no avionics, so its CF
  • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) male mold means you only control surface finish of inside
    • this is not something we've ever done
    • Alex: clam shell still gave us a shit surface finish
    • can do it like water bearer transition, pre-preg quilt and spin
    • Do we have a laythe?
      • no
      • this idea does not seem very fleshed out, more of a suggestion
      • Jan will not be happy if you laythe foam in the machine shop
    • Jake: lots of the problems last year were because of a BAD MOLD, not necessarily a bad method
    • Seams are the hardest part to get right
    • Blackouts was also not great
  • @alex: can look into CF sleeves/socks
  • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) : investigate cost of COTS nosecone?
    • we have one in the basement
    • @alex: might be hard to adapt to a cots nosecone, sizing wise
    • Grace Dertinger (RIT Alumni) : we need to start prototyping or working on this method soon
  • BULKHEAD SECTION
    • adding fillets to bulkhead
    • goal is 80-85% weight reduction
    • easier to apply epoxy
    • FEA completed
      • @nate: need to complete more rigorous testing and FEA
    • Grace Dertinger (RIT Alumni) Why use the lip?
    • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) how is eye bolt secured?
      • could be through bolted or threaded
      • could save mass
    • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) can 60 thou withold charge?
      • @nate need to do more FEA
    • @will, now that we are doing single bay, are we going to suffer from drilling more holes in this?
      • could add collars around where these holes are
    • @grace how long to machine?
      • could make one in an hour
    • All bulkheads identical except for nosecone
    • consider ball end tooling
    • Action: Go/no-go on a clear tube for checking adhesion
  • RAIL GUIDES
    • can buy cots tear guide
    • design will be flown on an L2 before
    • can look into teflon coating
    • how much heavier is this?
      • not significant
      • need to quantify drag reduction benefits
    • need to think about where these will be placed in the vehicle
    • Can we make this replaceable with COTS?
    • Is there even a benefit to this?
    • any changes to how we are drilling holes this year
      • alex butthead: was actually real easy
  • FINS SECTION
    • fin flutter FOS is 1.32
      • this is a very low FOS
      • Need to check IREC documentation
    • Jim Heaney (RIT Student) How are we manufacturing? We no longer have the PCB mill.
      • Need determine manufacturing process
  • FINISHING PROCESS
    • better tow
    • heat shrink method
    • squeegy twice
    • sand a lot
    • Questions on how to reduce time?
      • liberal coat is gonna help make sanding more effective
    • Tools?
      • not really, sand paper
    • Wet sanding??
      • recommended for the last layer
      • decreases the lifespan of sandpaper
      • Need to do more research 2 week deadline on this research phase
  • STRUCTURES TIMELINE
    • only first semester is on the time line
    • Need to keep track of time and materials used
    • Paige: suggestion to wind CF, buy FG tubes
      • estimate 50 hours
      • 200 hours for void (yikes)
    • @grace: should not wind FG if we cannot make a good finish
    • do other teams wind FG? no
    • Is it impressive? if its good
      • ours was not.
    • Is it a good use of our time to wind tubes?
      • ongoing debate
      • resolution: purchasing FG tubes as the primary, winding is to be R&D after done with IREC tasks
  • ANALYSIS SECTION
    • lots of tensile testing
      • cant do compression (dangerous)
    • physical and analytical
    • wind tunnel

Payload



Avionics
  • FLIGHT COMPUTERS
    • same as last year
    • Need to buy soon
    • Need to spec out batteries soon
    • Bigger battery on BigRedBee
    • Smaller battery on RRC3's
  • AV Bay
    • Delrin over plywood
    • concerns over thermal properties of delrin
    • mostly the same av bay as last year
    • how will the av bay be secured internally
    • reduce number of retention hole
    • concerns about placement of holes


REACTION WHEEL

  • less spin is more better
Recovery

Action items

Structures

open rocket

  • Add ft of shock cord in open rocket
  • Surface finish is really important
  • Recovery components estimate
  • ras aero
  • Making rocket longer and shorten nose cone and making surface finish gets us to 11000 ft 
  • Coupler attached to booster 
  • Payload rests on coupler so update in or
  • Structures team needs to prepare for the case where we are unable to 3D print a boat tail at MarkForged
  • look into other 3d printing sources 
  • Brainstorm weight reduction
    Boat tail:
  • By CDR need finalized boat tail design and manufacturing contingencies
  • Look at charms boat tail and motor retainer 
  • look into buying boat tail
  • Analysis of screws for motor retainer and thrust plate

  • Nose Cone
  • NEED TO look into nose cone layup method and mold
  • look into water bearer nose cone
  • Printing on graces big printer a nose cone mold
  • Look into carbon fiber sleeves  
  • Look into bough nose cone go no go date Alex Speyer (RIT Student) 
  • Ask about rules of coupler to nose cone
  • look in to nose cone sharp angle maybe glue tube to nose cone

  • Bulkhead
  • Reduce weight
  • FEA on reduced bulkhead move to 75 thou and add holes with collar for wires
  • Clear tube with bulkhead to show filets and test with old space race tube go no go Alex Speyer (RIT Student) 
  • thread bulkhead and only have one nut

  • Rail guide
  • Smooth edges 
  • Need to compare or not worth it

            Fins / Fin Support Structure

  • Look into minimum FoS for fin flutter required by IREC
  • Look into alternatives to cutting fins (crushinator is out of operation)Finishing Process/Manufacturing
  • Need to keep track of what we are using when manufacturing 
  • Look into finishing process
  • meeting to discuss finish
    Structures Timeline
  • heat shrink wrap
  • Test flight date**
  • RND fG NEED MONEY Grace Dertinger (RIT Alumni) 

  • Analysis
  • Grace to get wind tunnel access Grace Dertinger (RIT Alumni) 
  • Wind short tube 
  • Make samples
  • Tour of lab and meet up with Carter
  • Timeline dependencies 

  • Avionics
  • look into batteries 
  • Look into screw switches 
  • Need battery requirements-for size of batteries 
  • Powerup gps before we get to the rail so big gps battery
  • don't put rail button in line with rail
  • Clear Delrin laser cutting with construct
  • Look into delrin material properties 
  • holes in delrin 
  • delrin and rocket epoxy
  • FIX TIMELINE get things done this semester
  • Get mece for ave bay
  • Backplane has to fit inside the ave bay 
  • Backplane to have physical standard by October 21st

  • Backplane
  • Backplane has to fit inside the ave bay 
  • Backplane to have physical standard by October 21st
  • Pick connector to backplane

  • Sensor Mod
  • Data budget (how much do we need to hold for one flight?)
  • look into what hertz we want at what time in the flight
  • put reaction wheel chip and put on board
  • Have IREC team ensure data ranges of sensors chips works for everyone's needs
  • Add more sensors 
  • Temperature in booster
  •  Power Mod
  • Look into using something other than Buck converter directly to LDOs
  • Conversation of LDO to switchers
  • Power draw calcs review
  • verify EM noise to other modules is not an issue

  • Radio
  • Select antenna make sure fits in ave bay
  • break outs for sb gps
  • what is rf transmission of delrin

  • Autopilot Board
  • Deadline for all other breakout boards
  • Date for PDR within avionics this saturday and invite Joe
  • Date for CDR
  • Date for prototypes design 1
  • TIMELINE
  • Wednsday BOM for Grace 

  • Payload
  • heat shrink antenna is important
  • Flower petals 
  • Walk through design 
  • design version 2
  • assign tasks
  • Start on the theory
    • what is the speed
  • flush out how we are going to tell it deployed
  • electronics for the payload
  • electronics timeline
  • batteries talk
  •  

  • Reaction wheel
  • look into when launch L1 maybe do a private day at urge and find another place to launch
  • flight force balance
  • motor needs to be rated for high g environment
  • how fast will rocket spin
  • Recovery hardware spin survive worst case need to quantify
  • block diagram asap
  • sensor for oscillation kill switch

  • Recovery
  • look at streamer in open rocket
  • Look into streamer purchase 
  • open rocket to determine decent rate of a streamer
  • order tender descender 
  • duel redundancy of tender descender and ematches
  • Meeting to flush out open rocket


Other

  • test launch date and location
  • Design choices made and follow rules by CDR