Liquid fuel rocket engine

Hi my name is donovan annandale

I live in South Africa im currentl an employee at a company called Aerospace Research

I'm interested in building a liquid fuel rocket motor using lox and kerosene (just to start with)

Q-what is the best way of cooling a liquid motor

I'm not a rocket scientist, but I would say the best way to cool the engine would be regenerative cooling, where the lox is pumped through a jacket around the engine.

If you haven't had a chance, I would suggest going to http://www.armadillaerospace.com and reading through their updates from about March 2005 on. The updates document the LOX/Ethanol engine development and all of the methods they have tried for engine cooling.

I'm not a rocket scientist either, but this is what I've picked up:

What is "best" depends of course on what your requirements are. Regenerative cooling requires more engineering than simpler methods, and you get the issue of having to deal with the coolant mass inside the tubes. But in terms of efficiency, impulse and lifetime, it's probably the best way.

Ablative cooling is simple, but it limits the lifetime of the engine.

Film cooling is also quite simple, and has potential for longer lifetime than ablative cooling.

The spacex kestrel engine uses radiative cooling in combination with ablative cooling.

To use LOX as the coolant, it has to be supercritical, i.e. above about 800psi, which is hard for a first design. Most regen engines use the fuel as coolant.

Regen is efficient, film cooling is easier, and ablative is great if the engine isn't reusable.