Multistage water rocket. Professional hydro rocket units. Tools and materials

Anyone can launch a rocket. To do this, there is no need to rent a spaceport or spend a multi-million dollar fortune, because you can build a real water rocket from an ordinary plastic bottle.

First, let's deal with necessary materials for a water rocket.
We will need a regular plastic bottle, one fitting (you can use the fitting from the camera old tire or buy it on the market for about a dollar), glue gun, a piece of thread (preferably nylon, since it is stronger), a regular pump and tap water.

First, you need to make a small hole in the bottle cap, screw a fitting into this hole and seal everything with hot glue for greater fixation and insulation and tightness.

Next, you need to grow one ring on both sides of the lid. This must be done so that when winding it around the lid, the thread does not slip off. You also need to remember to fix one edge of the thread when building up rings.

The rocket is ready. The question remains, how exactly does this design work?

You need to fill the bottle with a little more than half of the water, and then tighten the cap. Do not screw the cap too tightly as it will the main role- do not allow air to pass through. The next thing you need to do is take a pump and pump air into the bottle. Next, all that remains is to take the thread and screw it onto the lid. To launch the rocket, all you need to do is lightly hold the bottle with your left hand, and quickly pull the thread with your right so that the cap quickly unscrews.

The pressure of air and water lifts the rocket into the air.

ATTENTION!!! Maintain safety precautions. Never launch the rocket in the closed position.

Summer is in full swing! For those who are already fed up with barbecues and sun loungers on the beach, we offer a cool idea for entertainment on fresh air: water rocket. The children will squeal with delight, the girls will be amazed, and the dacha neighbors will be furious and extremely surprised. The idea is not new; water rockets are very popular in foreign countries; there are even special championships for launching these things. You can buy them in the store, or you can make them yourself. Let's talk about this.

The principle of operation of a water rocket is extremely simple. You need a plastic bottle, one-third filled with water, a bicycle or car pump, a nipple and a launch pad (launcher) on which the rocket is fixed. The pump pumps air - the bottle flies high and far, splashing water around. All the “fuel” is squeezed out in the first moments after launch, and then the rocket flies along a ballistic trajectory (therefore, the center of gravity is moved as far forward as possible).
But the technical variations in the manufacture of this design can be very different. Some amateurs create real masterpieces:

Let's consider one of the simplest options.

1. Choose a bottle

The rocket should not be too long or too short, otherwise the flight will be crooked or not take place at all. The optimal diameter/length ratio is 1 to 7. A volume of 1.5 liters is quite suitable for the first experiments.

2. Select a cork

You will need a valve stopper for lemonade or any other drink. This will be the rocket nozzle.

It is important that the valve is new, not worn, and does not leak air. The best way to test it in advance is to put the cap on the empty bottle and squeeze tightly.

3. Attaching the nipple

You need to make a hole in the bottom of the bottle and fix the nipple in it, with the “nose” facing out. The main thing here is to achieve the highest possible tightness: tighten the clamping screw to the maximum, you can experiment with glue or plasticine. The bottle should not allow air to pass through.

4. Cut out the stabilizers

In order for the rocket to fly smoothly, it must be installed correctly. The easiest way is to make a stabilizer (legs) from another plastic bottle. To do this, the bottle is cut in half and straightened. Then, on this flat surface, draw the contour of the stabilizer, provide a backlog for attaching to the rocket body.

Now cut out the stabilizer along the contour and glue it to the rocket with tape.

The picture also shows a weighted rocket body; this author used a cut-off part of another bottle with a weight-bolt in the cap. In fact, there is complete scope for imagination and experimentation; you can accurately determine the optimal load in the head of your rocket only after several launches. The shape of the legs can also be different, for example, you can use the top of a plastic bottle, attach plastic legs to it, and place the rocket itself inside:

As for the launch pad, you can get creative here too. Someone's cooking complex designs with a guide axis, some cut out special devices from wood, while others simply fix the rocket on a flat surface using improvised means.
In principle, the simplest water rocket After the described steps, you are ready. You just need to take it with you more water, pump and assistant: he will hold the rocket with the plug down and press the valve with his hands while you pump the air with the pump. It is recommended to pump 3-6 atmospheres into a 1.5 liter bottle (in this sense, a car pump is more convenient), then disconnect the hose and release the cap on the count of “three or four”. The rocket has been launched! It flies quite high and impressively, and most importantly, the whole process is not life-threatening. True, the assistant usually has to take a forced shower from the “fuel” :)

If you liked this idea and want to experiment further, we recommend reading, for example, there are more complicated rockets here, with real launchers. picture with step by step instructions, though in English, but everything is drawn quite accessible. Well, if you liked the video and wanted to repeat something similar, welcome to the rocket modeling club: serious guys use several bottles of compressed air during launch, and only one contains water.

The air-hydraulic model is one of the simplest types in rocket modeling. It is characterized by simplicity of design and operation. This model makes it possible to conduct many different experiments and, most importantly, get acquainted with the action of a jet engine. You can easily build an air-hydraulic rocket yourself.

Such a simple rocket can be made very quickly from scrap materials. First you need to decide what size the rocket will be. The base of its body will be a simple plastic soda bottle. Depending on the volume of the bottle, the flight characteristics of our future rocket will vary. For example, 0.5 liters, although it will be small in size, will also take off not very high, 10-15 meters. The most optimal size is a bottle with a volume of 1.5 to 2 liters, you can, of course, also take a five-liter vessel, but this will be too powerful for us, not to fly to the moon. To start, you will also need a basic tool - a pump, it is better if it is a car pump and with a device for measuring pressure - a pressure gauge.

The main component in the rocket will be the valve, the effectiveness of our entire rocket will depend on it. With its help, air is pumped into the bottle and retained. Let's take a punctured or perhaps working chamber from any bicycle and cut out the “nipple”, the part to which we connect the pump. You will also need a regular stopper from bottles of wine or champagne, but since there are a lot of them different forms and sizes, then the main selection criterion for us will be a length of at least 30 mm and a diameter so that the cork fits into the neck of the bottle with an interference fit of 2/3 of its length. Now in the found plug you should make a hole of such a diameter that the “nipple” fits into it with force. It is better to drill the hole in two steps, first with a thin drill, and then with a drill of the required diameter, and the main thing is to do this gently with little force. Next, the “nipple” and connect the cork together, after first dropping a little “super glue” into the hole of the cork to prevent air from leaking out of the bottle. The last part in the valve will be a platform that serves to attach the valve to the starting pad. It needs to be made from durable material, for example metal or fiberglass with a thickness of 2-3 mm and dimensions of 100x20 mm. After making 3 holes for fastening and nipples, you can glue the plug to it, but it is better to use epoxy glue for a more durable connection. In the end, the main thing is that part of the nipple protrudes above the platform by about 8-11 mm, otherwise there will be nothing to connect the pump to.

I started on the rocket itself. To make it you will need two 1.5 liter bottles, a ball from table tennis, colored tape. You can put one bottle aside for now, and let’s perform the operation with the second. You need to carefully cut off the top of the bottle so that the total length is approximately 100 mm. Next, we saw off the threaded head from this part. As a result, we got a head fairing, but that’s not all. Since there is a hole left in the middle, it needs to be closed and in this case you will need a prepared ball. Let's take a whole bottle, turn it upside down, put a ball on top and put on the head fairing. In total, it turned out that the ball protrudes slightly beyond the circumference of the bottle; it will serve as an element that softens the impact on the ground during descent from orbit. Now the rockets need to be decorated a little, since the bottles are transparent, the rocket will be difficult to see in flight, and for this, where there is a smooth cylindrical surface, we wrap it with colored tape. So in the end we got the cherished missile, although it looks more like a ballistic one intercontinental missile. You can, of course, make stabilizers to make it look like a standard rocket, but they will not affect the flight of this projectile in any way. Stabilizers in the amount of four can be easily made from cardboard from household appliances, cutting them out into a small area. You can glue them to the rocket body using liquid nail glue or something similar.

Now let's start making the launch pad. To do this, we need a flat plywood sheet 5-7 mm thick, cut into squares with sides 250 mm long. In the center, we first fix the previously made platform with the valve, choose the distance between the holes arbitrarily, the distance between the two platforms must be at least 60 mm, and for this we use bolts with a diameter of 4 or 5 mm and a length of at least 80 mm as fastening. Next, in order to fix the rocket on the launch pad, you will need to make a holder with a launching device, which consists of two corners, two nails and 4 bolts with fastening. At the corner, on one side, we drill two holes for fastening to the launch pad; the distance between the holes, both in the corner and in the main platform, should be the same, for example 30 mm. On the other side of both corners, you also need to make two holes with a diameter of 5 mm for two large nails of the same diameter, but the distance between the holes should be such that the distance between the nails themselves is from 28 to 30 mm. When everything is assembled, you should adjust the height of the fixing nails. To do this, we will install the bottle on the valve, as in combat mode, with great effort, and after that we need to select the height of the corners so that the nails slide easily in the holes themselves and between the neck of the bottle. The nails also serve as a release mechanism, but we will also need to make a special plate connecting them and for the rope that we will pull to launch the rocket. The final elements in the launch pad will be the legs, for which you need to drill 4 holes in all corners of the pad and screw 4 small bolts from 30 to 50 mm long; they serve to fix the launch pad in the ground.

The rocket must be filled with water in a strictly specified amount, this is 1/3 of the total length of the entire bottle. It is easy to verify experimentally that you should not pour too much water or too little, since in the first case there is too little space left for air, and in the second there is too much. The engine thrust in these cases will be very weak, and the operating time will be short. When the valve opens compressed air begins to throw water through the nozzle, resulting in thrust, and the rocket develops an appropriate speed (about 12 m/s). It should be borne in mind that the amount of thrust is also affected by the cross-sectional area of ​​the nozzle. The thrust, which decreases as water is thrown out, will allow the rocket to reach a height of 30 - 50 m.

Several test runs at low or moderate wind allow us to conclude that with a hermetically sealed connection between the valve and the bottle, proper filling with water and with a vertical installation of the model at the launch, it can reach a height of about 50 m. Installing the rocket at an angle of 60° leads to a decrease in the lift height, but the flight range increases. With flatter trajectories, either the model’s launches will be unsuccessful or the flight range will be short. A model launched without water will be very light and will rise only 2 - 5 m. Air-hydraulic models are best launched in calm weather. As a result of the tests, it is easy to notice that the model has good stability and a tendency to orient itself against the wind, both in the presence of traction and after the engine has stopped running. The flight time of the model from start to landing, depending on height reached is 5 - 7 seconds.

By the way, air-hydraulic rockets can be multi-stage, that is, they can consist of several bottles or even five or more. In general, the record for the flight altitude of such a rocket is as much as 600 meters; not every standard rocket model can reach such a height. At the same time, they can lift a significant payload, for example, some testers install cameras or mini video cameras and successfully conduct aerial photography.

So, when everything is ready, you can go out and make the first launches. Along with the rocket and equipment, you also need to take additional fuel - several bottles of water. Such missiles can be launched anywhere, in a schoolyard, in a forest clearing, the main thing is that within a radius of 20 meters there are no buildings that would impede a combat flight. In the center of our test site, install the launch pad so that the installed rocket is strictly vertical. Next, we connect the pump to the valve, fill the rocket with water of the required volume and quickly install it on the launch pad, so that the valve fits very tightly into the neck of the bottle. Now let's cock trigger, insert two nails into the holes, fixing them. It is better to launch an air-hydraulic rocket together, one will pull the string to make the launch, and the other will pump air into the bottle. The length of the rope should be approximately 10 - 15 meters, this distance is enough so that the launcher is not splashed with a fountain of water from the rocket, but you won’t envy the one who will work with the pump, he has a very good chance of taking a cool shower during a non-standard flight of the rocket. Since our rocket consists of a 1.5 liter bottle, it should be inflated to a pressure of 4 - 5 atmospheres, you can try more, but the valve itself and the connection to the pump will not withstand such high pressure, and a leak will occur. When inflating, you don’t have to be afraid that something might happen to the bottle, because according to technical data, it can withstand 30–40 atmospheres. Air injection lasts approximately 30 seconds. When the required pressure in the bottle is reached, the launcher is given the command “Start”, who with a sharp movement pulls the string and after a moment the rocket rushes into the sky, performing combat mission. To decorate the flight, you can tint the water, for example, with paints or potassium permanganate, so you can accurately trace the jet stream and trajectory of the rocket. For the next start, all that remains is to add fuel from the reserve and pump air into the engine compartment again. Such a rocket can be a good source of entertainment on a sunny summer day.

Air-hydraulic model belongs to the type of protozoa in rocket modeling. It is characterized by simplicity of design and operation. This model makes it possible to conduct many different experiments and, most importantly, get acquainted with the action of a jet engine. You can easily build an air-hydraulic rocket yourself.

Such a simple rocket can be made very quickly from scrap materials. First you need to decide what size the rocket will be. The base of its body will be a simple plastic soda bottle. Depending on the volume of the bottle, the flight characteristics of our future rocket will vary. For example, 0.5 liters, although it will be small in size, will also take off not very high, 10-15 meters. The most optimal size is a bottle with a volume of 1.5 to 2 liters, you can, of course, also take a five-liter vessel, but this will be too powerful for us, not to fly to the moon. To start, you will also need a basic tool - a pump, it is better if it is a car pump and with a device for measuring pressure - a pressure gauge.

The main component in the rocket will be the valve, and the effectiveness of our entire rocket will depend on it. With its help, air is pumped into the bottle and retained. Let’s take a punctured or perhaps working chamber from any bicycle and cut out the “nipple”, the part to which we connect the pump. We will also need a regular cork from bottles of wine or champagne, but since there are so many different shapes and sizes, the main selection criterion for us will be a length of at least 30 mm and a diameter so that the cork fits into the neck of the bottle with an interference fit of 2/3 of its length . Now in the found plug you should make a hole of such a diameter that the “nipple” fits into it with force. It is better to drill a hole in two steps, first with a thin drill, and then with a drill of the required diameter, and the main thing is to do this gently with little effort. Next, we connect the “nipple” and the stopper together, after first dropping a little “super glue” into the hole of the stopper to prevent air from leaking out of the bottle. The last piece in the valve will be the pad, which is used to secure the valve to the launch pad. It needs to be made of durable material, for example metal or fiberglass with a thickness of 2-3 mm and dimensions of 100x20 mm. After making 3 holes for fastening and nipples, you can glue the plug to it, but it is better to use epoxy glue for a more durable connection. In the end, the main thing is that part of the nipple protrudes above the platform by about 8-11 mm, otherwise there will be nothing to connect the pump to.

I started on the rocket itself. To make it you will need two 1.5 liter bottles, a table tennis ball, and colored tape. You can put one bottle aside for now, and let’s perform the operation with the second. You need to carefully cut off the top of the bottle so that the total length is approximately 100 mm. Next, we saw off the threaded head from this part. As a result, we got a head fairing, but that’s not all. Since there is a hole left in the middle, it needs to be closed and in this case you will need a prepared ball. Let's take a whole bottle, turn it upside down, put a ball on top and put on the head fairing. In total, it turned out that the ball protrudes slightly beyond the circumference of the bottle; it will serve as an element that softens the impact on the ground during descent from orbit. Now the rockets need to be decorated a little, since the bottles are transparent, the rocket will be difficult to see in flight, and for this, where there is a smooth cylindrical surface, we wrap it with colored tape. So, in the end, the treasured missile turned out, although it looks more like a ballistic intercontinental missile. You can, of course, make stabilizers to make it look like a standard rocket, but they will not affect the flight of this projectile in any way. Stabilizers in the amount of four can be easily made from cardboard from household appliances by cutting them into a small area. You can glue them to the rocket body using liquid nail glue or something similar.

Now let's start making the launch pad. To do this, we need a flat plywood sheet 5-7 mm thick, cut into squares with sides 250 mm long. In the center, we first fix the previously made platform with the valve, choose the distance between the holes arbitrarily, the distance between the two platforms must be at least 60 mm, and for this we use bolts with a diameter of 4 or 5 mm and a length of at least 80 mm as fastening. Next, in order to fix the rocket on the launch pad, you will need to make a holder with a launching device, which consists of two corners, two nails and 4 bolts with fastening. At the corner, on one side, we drill two holes for fastening to the launch pad; the distance between the holes, both in the corner and in the main platform, should be the same, for example 30 mm. On the other side of both corners, you also need to make two holes with a diameter of 5 mm for two large nails of the same diameter, but the distance between the holes should be such that the distance between the nails themselves is from 28 to 30 mm. When everything is assembled, you should adjust the height of the fixing nails. To do this, we will install the bottle on the valve, as in combat mode, with great effort, and after that we need to select the height of the corners so that the nails slide easily in the holes themselves and between the neck of the bottle. The nails also serve as a release mechanism, but we will also need to make a special plate connecting them and for the rope that we will pull to launch the rocket. The final elements in the launch pad will be the legs, for which you need to drill 4 holes in all corners of the pad and screw 4 small bolts from 30 to 50 mm long; they serve to fix the launch pad in the ground.

The rocket must be filled with water in a strictly specified amount, this is 1/3 of the total length of the entire bottle. It is easy to verify experimentally that you should not pour too much water or too little, since in the first case there is too little space left for air, and in the second there is too much. The engine thrust in these cases will be very weak, and the operating time will be short. When the valve opens, the compressed air begins to eject water through the nozzle, resulting in thrust, and the rocket develops an appropriate speed (about 12 m/s). It should be borne in mind that the amount of thrust is also affected by the cross-sectional area of ​​the nozzle. The thrust, which decreases as water is thrown out, will allow the rocket to reach a height of 30 - 50 m.

Several test launches in light or moderate winds lead to the conclusion that with a sealed connection between the valve and the bottle, proper filling with water and with the model mounted vertically at launch, it can reach a height of about 50 m. Installing the rocket at an angle of 60° leads to a decrease in height lifting, but the flight range increases. With flatter trajectories, either the model’s launches will be unsuccessful or the flight range will be short. A model launched without water will be very light and will rise only 2 - 5 m. Air-hydraulic models are best launched in calm weather. As a result of the tests, it is easy to notice that the model has good stability and a tendency to orient itself against the wind, both in the presence of traction and after the engine has stopped running. The flight time of the model from start to landing, depending on the height reached, is 5 - 7 seconds.

By the way, air-hydraulic rockets can be multi-stage, that is, they can consist of several bottles or even five or more. In general, the record for the flight altitude of such a rocket is as much as 600 meters; not every standard rocket model can reach such a height. At the same time, they can lift a significant payload, for example, some testers install cameras or mini video cameras and successfully conduct aerial photography.

So, when everything is ready, you can go out and make the first launches. Along with the rocket and equipment, you also need to take additional fuel - several bottles of water. Such missiles can be launched anywhere, in a schoolyard, in a forest clearing, the main thing is that within a radius of 20 meters there are no buildings that would impede a combat flight. In the center of our test site, install the launch pad so that the installed rocket is strictly vertical. Next, we connect the pump to the valve, fill the rocket with water of the required volume and quickly install it on the launch pad, so that the valve fits very tightly into the neck of the bottle. Now we cock the trigger mechanism, insert two nails into the holes, fixing them. It is better to launch an air-hydraulic rocket together, one will pull the string to launch, and the other will pump air into the bottle. The length of the rope should be approximately 10 - 15 meters, this distance is enough so that the launcher is not splashed with a fountain of water from the rocket, but you won’t envy the one who will work with the pump, he has a very good chance of taking a cool shower during a non-standard flight of the rocket. Since our rocket consists of a 1.5 liter bottle, it should be inflated to a pressure of 4 - 5 atmospheres, you can try more, but the valve itself and the connection to the pump will not withstand such high pressure, and a leak will occur. When inflating, you don’t have to be afraid that something might happen to the bottle, because according to technical data, it can withstand 30 - 40 atmospheres. Air injection lasts approximately 30 seconds. When the required pressure in the bottle is reached, the launcher is given the “Start” command, who with a sharp movement pulls the string and after a moment the rocket rushes into the sky, performing a combat mission. To decorate the flight, you can tint the water, for example, with paints or potassium permanganate, so you can accurately trace the jet stream and trajectory of the rocket. For the next start, all that remains is to add fuel from the reserve and pump air into the engine compartment again. Such a rocket can be a good source of entertainment on a sunny summer day.