Water rocket foam flights

Air Command Water Rockets flies a foam powered water rocket for fun.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• water
• rocket
• foam

[BigHairyTroll]

Very nice. I was wondering what kind of foam additive youput in your water to make it foam like that...? Also I guess you use a Robinson coupling to get the foam before ejection?

[gk123434534]

We use about 20mL of kids bubble bath mixed into the water. That is correct we use the Jet Foaming technique which uses a Robinson coupling on the last bottle to make the foam in flight.

[skuula]

That's a very nice rocket you have there! The joints you have between the bottles take more pressure than mine (I cut the top of one bottle, make holes the bottom of the next one, and seal the 2 together over the whole container diameter). But I don't have the flexing problem (the whole cross section is under pressure everywhere - very stiff). If you could pressurize the shrouds over the joints a little, that would be perfect :) Or just tape some carbon fiber rods on side of the rocket...

[gk123434534]

Hi Soren,

Sounds like your joining technique is a good way to achieve better rigidity. We make the rockets modular this way so that they can be easily repaired and reused or extended so we have to pay the flexibility penalty.

We have actually tried pressurizing the shrouds previously with the hybrid splice (on our website), but did not have good success with it. The carbon fiber rods on the side is a good idea though and we may need to try that :)

[morphles]

Very nice flights in this video. Seems better than in "Big 2 stage Water rocket" video. I noticed that that big rocket bends while your putting in between boosters. Maybe because of such deformations(that probably happen in flight) flight path curves? Maybe something could help make big rockets more rigid, like aluminum or even "wires" going along long rockets side?

[gk123434534]

The rockets are quite flexible, and making them stiffer certainly would help. Adding any stiffening though increases the weight. Eventually we will reinforce with fiberglass which will give the necessary stiffness and allow us to increase the pressure.

[BigHairyTroll]

Thanks for the details!

When my brother in law Fabrice talked about making water rockets during our last visit to France, I was wondering what he was up to. And then he showed me your videos.

Now I am hooked up to them and I try to refine my own rockets to do as good as his (the last ones in his video) and maybe one day yours.

I ponder RC gyroscopes/servos to correct fishtailing and ensure vertical flight; I will need a proper recovery instead of lawndarting.

I have too many questions...

[skuula]

Hi,

Thinking about that with the CF rods: You might need to do a little research on how to tape them on, so that the bottle stack is allowed to expand a little in the longitudinal direction when pressurized. I'm sure you will find out something :)

Regards, Soren

[gk123434534]

When you say boiling do you mean as in HOT (100 deg C) water, or just bubbling?

[Chonchielopez]

never happened to me...