Aerodynamic Analysis of a High-Powered, Multi-Stage Rocket

The Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) is one of the world’s largest student-built rocket competitions, connecting students from across the United States and around the globe. IREC is built upon motivating and encouraging students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) based careers, allowing students to develop real-world engineering problems through designing, building, and flying multistage rockets. The University of Georgia (UGA) has designed, built, and launched IREC-ready rockets for three years with different design focuses. This year, the primary focus has been on the integration and deployment of air brakes. IREC challenges teams to reach a target altitude of 10,000 ft, and as a result, teamwork and engineering innovation are required to achieve precise apogee control, ultimately determining the competition scoring. A CFD model, using ANSYS Fluent with the k-omega SST turbulence model, was developed to analyze the effectiveness of air brakes in controlling the rocket’s velocity, trajectory, and apogee during flight by accurately capturing high-speed flow characteristics. In order to process and monitor these flight characteristics of the rocket in real-time, live telemetry was utilized, ensuring compliance with the 10,000 ft apogee. Precise deployment of the air brakes at exact altitudes in real-time is complex. Given the nature of this problem, the live telemetry database is populated with data points of simulated velocities and drag forces on the rocket at predetermined altitudes and angles of attack, which will be determined with a high-fidelity, parametric CFD analysis in Fluent Aero. This will give the UGA IREC team a predictive model that can help identify and alleviate problems that may come from inclement conditions, such as weather caulking, and overall enhance decision-making of flight controls based on deviation from the predicted analysis. This CFD-based analysis establishes a reliable framework for integrating air brakes and ensuring an optimal balance between aerodynamic performance and flight control for the 2025 UGA IREC rocket.