In this post, we want to provide you more information about our Nico engine. Maybe you wordering about the naming of the engine? It is named by my little dog who is called Nico (see picture).
But let´s come to the topic of this post: The Nico engine is a hybrid engine, which uses a solid fuel and a liquid/gaseous oxidizer. The solid fuel is 3D-printed to also live up to our vision! This also means that the whole engine will be 3D-printed using metal Fused Depositon Modeling (FDM), also known as Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) to meet the requirements regarding temperature and pressure. And yes, you can print metal with a 3D printer. We decided to use aluminum (Aluminum 6061) and stainless steel (SS316L) from our sponsor The Virtual Foundry to print the engine.
A rendering of our CAD model of the Nico engine is shown in the picture. The shape of the hybrid engine differs to a liquid engine – the combustion chamber is much longer / bigger and the nozzle is quite small. Since we develop in the first step a demonstrator, the rocket will not be used in space and the nozzle only needs to expand to ambient pressure.
Within the design phase several tests are performed regarding the fuel grain, the combustion chamber and the whole engine (cold/hot test). More information about the tests will be provided here.
If you want to know more about the engine, do not hesitate to ask 🙂
Stay tuned,
Stephanie
