The university that I work with does not allow for mixing of solid motors
because of a multitude of reasons, liability being one of them.
They even went so far as to see if they could use the Chemistry
department's storage facilities and off campus labs and were turned down.
They do allow for testing of solid, hybrid and tribrid motors on another
piece of campus owned land that is removed from the main campus. The
process to be allowed to test there was quite involved. A few trees gave
their lives for this to happen.
Any propellant is mixed is at a private individuals property that mixes
solid motors for use under Tripoli Research rules.
Edward
On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 1:35 PM, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Most universities won't allow it for a wide range of liability issues of
which fire is fairly minor.
MIT allows small liquid rocket testing inside a building in a test bay
originally built for combustion experiments; it is metal lined and can be
filled w/ nitrogen to quench any fires. It also features remote control
from an adjacent room.
Of the others w/ whom I have visited (Yale, UVA) no testing of any sort is
allowed on university property.
It might be informative to visit w/ the USC / RPL folks but this could
also be a question they would not care to bring to the attention of their
university insurers.
Bill
On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 1:07 PM Brett Coles <brettcoles@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi there! I have lurked for a while, but this is my first (or second. Not
sure if the first one went through) post. I have a question about solid
rocket propellant mixing.
I'm at BYU, and we are attempting to get permission from the university
to mix our propellant on campus. We have mixed propellant before.
Particularly, one of the members of our group frequently flies custom
motors. We are getting significant pushback from the university about the
fire risk. I can understand that since solid propellant burns hot and
cannot be extinguished. I know that some other universities mix propellant
on campus, and I am curioius what we can do to ease the fears of our Health
and Safety department as well as the fire marshal. Any suggestions would be
appreciated.
Thanks
--
Brett J. Coles
