-----Original Message-----On
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Behalf Of Henry Spencerof
Sent: Monday, 5 December 2016 3:36 PM
To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AR] Re: Parabolic Nozzle Approximation Function
On Fri, 2 Dec 2016, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
The rocket nozzle is also acting as an aligning reflector, but there
is a significant difference from the searchlight case. The rocket
throat will be too wide in relation to the nozzle size to be treated
as a point source of high-velocity gas molecules without losing some
efficiency. (I expect the gas molecules' bulk interaction with each
other, decreasing as expansion increases but still present, is also a
complicating
factor.)
curves. The true Rao nozzle is optimal -- for one particular definition
"optimal" -- at expanding the flowing gas to convert the thermal energyinto
bulk kinetic energy. However, its curve is complicated to compute, and in