RXπ — Rensselaer Experimental Propulsion Initiative
RPU-1 "Reliant": RPI's First Liquid Rocket
Chief Engineer — engine & feed system design
Led the engine and feed system design for a brand-new team building RPI's first liquid-fueled rocket, with no institutional playbook to build from — most of what the team knows now was earned the hard way over the course of design and fabrication.
Wrote a custom Python implementation of the Non-Homogeneous Non-Equilibrium (NHNE) model to predict multiphase nitrous oxide flow through the injector, and a MATLAB heat-transfer solver using the matrix exponential to propagate inner wall temperature over burn time.
Injector orifice: 1.59 mm · N2O stiffness: 102% · Vapor fraction at orifice exit: 21%
