SPARK 1 was a Student Researched And Developed (SRAD) resin 3D-printed liquid rocket engine which cost under $5k to make. SPARK 1 was UNLV's & Nevada's first ever student-led liquid rocket engine. This engine featured a single element swirl coaxial injector, which was fully resin printed. SPARK 1 used ethanol and GOX in a one-to-one mixture ratio. A 3D printed ablative liner was used for heat management.

Project manager: Gavin Chung Technical Advisor: Brandon Fallon Sub-System Leadership:

1. Thrust Chamber Assembly: Ronaldo Valdivia & Gavin Chung

2. Electronics: Rabih Chaar

3. Feed/Plumbing: Gavin Chung

4. Test Stand: Foroutan Rezazadeh

This project was successfully hot-fired and wrapped up in May 2024. More description found below. Goals of Each Subsystem: (have the leads write a short paragraph about their susbsytem indidvidual goals and accomplishments maybe)

1. Thrust Chamber Assembly: Ronaldo Valdivia & Gavin Chung

2. Electronics: Rabih Chaar

3. Feed/Plumbing: Gavin Chung

4. Test Stand: Foroutan Rezazadeh
   

Simulation

Thanks to our sponsor ANSYS, we were able to run Computational Fluid Dynamics on our resin printed nozzle. Exhaustive simulations were performed to optimize the rocket engine performance. As shown, the exhaust velocity at the nozzle throat achieves sonic speeds. The infamous Mach diamonds make an appearance as the plume appears to be slightly under expanded.

Meet the team behind SPARK 1!

From left to right;

First row: Zoe B, Nicholas N, Rabih C, James F

Second row: Brayan S, Reza B, Ron V, Riley S, Dominic P, Jerome A, Etsub M , Gavin C, Foroutan R

SPARK 1 Hotfire

• SPARK 1, Nevada’s first student-built bi-propellant rocket engine.