Armadillo Aerospace News: Temperature probes, Powered landing sim

We finally started logging thermocouple data to help us get to the bottom of our engine warmup issues. What we did was drill the swagelok fittings on the engines all the way through, so a 1/8″ pipe can pass completely through it instead of butting up against the internal stop. We then took an immersion thermocouple with a 1/8″ shaft, put the swagelok ferules around that, inserted it all the way into the motor, and tightened the swaging nut to lock the ferules on the TC shaft.
We can now interchangeably put either a pressure transducer or a thermocouple at any port, which is very handy. Conveniently, a 1000C thermocouple (K type) and amplifier exactly fits our engine operating temperatures. We get up to about 1800F under well mixed conditions, but it does go higher under the flameholders where the water isn’t mixed well with the flame. Read More