Swirl Induced Pintle Injector Plate Design
Swirl Induced Pintle Injector Plate Design from Annalisa Vilaysing
Swirl Induced Pintle Injector Plate Design

Each year, the senior aerospace design class at UCSD attempts to improve the performance of an LR-101 Atlas Vernier liquid fueled rocket engine. Students analyze, build, and test the rocket in the Mojave desert in conjunction with FAR. One area in need of improvement was the rocket's injector plate.

In the 2018 class, an excess of students were interested in designing the new injector plate and were divided into 2 teams to propose a new design and compete for use in test firing. The design is a swirl inducing pintle with nine elements. Pintle injector plates are popular in US rockets, while the addition of swirl are popular in Russian rockets. The team decided to put the two concepts together to create an injector plate that would be impossible to fabricate if it weren't for advancements in 3D printing technology.

The team was not chosen in the end since the design is purely experimental and does not have much academic research behind it. The class was uncertain of its performance.

Isometric View - A complete view of the injector plate as seen from the outlet.
Center Line Section View - A view showing the inner chambers of the injector plate. Fuel enters the injector plate through the holes on the sides while LOX enters through the inner chamber of each pintle. Each chamber has corkscrew walls in opposing directions to add swirl to the fluid and allow for a greater amount of mixing and atomization. The LOX and fuel impinge on each other, with the inner chamber of the pintle spraying out in a cone and the fuel spraying straight out into the LOX.
CFD Animation of Injector Plate Center Line View - An animation to help illustrate how the LOX and fuel move through the injector plate. The red arrows represent the LOX and the blue arrows represent the fuel.
CFD Animation of Injector Plate Fuel Chamber View - An animation to help illustrate how the LOX and fuel move through the injector plate. The red arrows represent the LOX and the blue arrows represent the fuel.
CFD Animation of Injector Plate LOX and Fuel Mixing View - An animation to help illustrate how the LOX and fuel move through the injector plate. The red arrows represent the LOX and the blue arrows represent the fuel.
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Swirl Induced Pintle Injector Plate Design

Each year, the senior aerospace design class at UCSD attempts to improve the performance of an LR-101 Atlas Vernier liquid fueled rocket engine. Students analyze, build, and test the rocket in the Mojave desert in conjunction with FAR. One area in need of improvement was the rocket's injector plate.

In the 2018 class, an excess of students were interested in designing the new injector plate and were divided into 2 teams to propose a new design and compete for use in test firing. The design is a swirl inducing pintle with nine elements. Pintle injector plates are popular in US rockets, while the addition of swirl are popular in Russian rockets. The team decided to put the two concepts together to create an injector plate that would be impossible to fabricate if it weren't for advancements in 3D printing technology.

The team was not chosen in the end since the design is purely experimental and does not have much academic research behind it. The class was uncertain of its performance.

Annalisa Vilaysing
Quality Engineer at Rock West Composites San Diego, CA