I built a rocket engine in my garage - it makes shock diamonds!!!

This rocket engine is by far my most advanced propulsion project to date, being the first to consistently achieve supersonic exhaust. This project has been a great educational process as I learned about basic rocket science. I hope you can also learn something new as you follow me in this adventure of engineering and discovery!
Be sure to comment, like, and subscribe if you would like to see more rocket engine videos!

[jasonthomashorn]

Seriously, hand shaping your proto nozzle for the win!

[jcims]

BRO! That liquid demonstration of nozzle expansion is AMAZING! holy shit

I'm super impressed with everything...this is crazy amount of skill and work!

[LowSetSun]

beautiful work! I would love to see you make more engines of various designs.

[SKYWURX]

Fantastic work!
Scientific approach, great measurement techniques and a pathway to improvement. Great job Ayden!

[MsFactnotfiction]

Nice!!! you could try those paintball tanks as air source. Some of them can handle more than 3000psi and the compressor to fill them are not that expensive ~300$. Instead of liquid oxygen you could try nitrous oxide like they use in hybrid rocket engine.

[SidlyBoDidly]

We are living in fantastic times when we can do this stuff to satisify our tinkering natures. Great work.

[UncleBildo]

Dude, my first bump into your channel, I love it! That is some badassery in motion. Scaled up, that would be a jaw dropper.

[lloydevans]

If you are having problems with unreliable ignition and/or unstable combustion when using a gaseous hydrocarbon fuel, you could possibly solve this to some extent by running the rocket motor in a fuel-rich condition. Not just slightly above stoichiometric either - the ideal hydrocarbon to oxygen ratio for a rocket is where the hydrogen component is oxidised to water vapour and most of the carbon component is oxidised to carbon monoxide rather than carbon dioxide. For the simplest possible example of CH4 + 2 O2 ---> 2 H2O + CO2 (complete combustion of methane), you would reduce the amount of oxygen used by exactly 25%. You can do equivalent calculations to find the ideal ratio of fuel to oxygen to achieve a similar outcome for other hydrocarbon fuels, such as the propane you were using here.

This has several beneficial effects:
(1). The most important effect is the reduction of the average molecular weight of the gases in the rocket exhaust. This is important for performance and efficiency, since lower molecular weight components are exhausted at higher velocity, for any given temperature. The higher the velocity of the exhaust components, the more thrust you get.
This is why any "hydrolox" rocket (hydrogen fuel, oxygen oxidiser) is always run as fuel-rich as possible, to get as much unburned hydrogen into the exhaust as possible - hydrogen is the lightest possible exhaust component, so has the highest possible exhaust velocity.
(2). It reduces the energy output of the reaction happening inside the combustion chamber of the rocket and therefore reduces the temperature of combustion, meaning lower thermal stress on the hottest parts of the rocket - injectors, combustion chamber and nozzle.
(3). Reducing the amount of oxygen the rocket has to carry will naturally increase the amount of fuel it can carry for any given total weight, which gives some extra range. This last one is of course not relevant to an experimental rocket motor on a test stand, but it would be relevant for an actual launch vehicle, if the rockets you are testing are eventually developed that far.

[kobusdowney]

You will get massively increased isp with o2/butane, but that has other risks such as engine rich exhaust when your fuel/o2 ratio is lean.

[arthurzettel]

The thrust is reminiscent to the full power thrust of a Ramjet from the SR-71 Blackbird and YF-12. GREAT JOB 👍

[savager]

Jesus christ. I hope I can be as smart as this kid when I grow up. I'm 45.

[ASAVSP]

This is really impressive! Schlieren footage is incredible

[nanastos]

WOW.. hats off to you sir…. Amazing video! Love the project, amount of hard work and research and explaining!! please keep up the amazing hard work. Can’t wait to see what’s next.

[cookrileyw]

Congratulations to the proper mach diamond formation ! Very cool 😎

[jasperaj]

If you don't blow yourself up with one of your experiments, you will probably achieve great things and work on very interesting projects. Impressive work!

[Tortugo_]

dude this is a great video, its criminal that it only has 12k veiws

[raidriar]

Forming the nozzle with the tubes is genius! I’ll have to do that when building mine

[oscaranderson]

I salute you young man. That is a mighty fine rocket. Thank you very much for allowing us to to see you do this
.. amazing that you can build hypersonic rocket. In your basement with stuff.. 1 to 10 I give it a 9.5 keep tweaking on it.❤ Congratulations this is my most favorite rocket on YouTube at this time..

[homeworkshopengineering]

What a great piece of work, both mechanically and design calculation. Looks like you will go far 😊

[sadboidex]

ive never seen such perfect mach diamonds at this scale