A new European labeling directive (2003/89/EC) states that certain foods and products derived thereof must always be declared. Among the tree nuts specified is Macadamia nut (Macadamia spp.). During the last few years, cases of IgE-allergic reactions, even severe anaphylaxes, have been reported. Reliable methods for the detection of this nut are needed. Protein from Macadamia nuts was isolated. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in SDS revealed two main protein bands of about 20 and 50kDa. These protein bands were cut and extracted from the gel and rabbits were immunized with each protein. Immunoblotting showed dominant reactivity with the respective antigens. The antisera were further tested for specificity in immunodiffusion and in rocket immunoelectrophoresis. In addition, a specific DNA-method was developed, based on Real-Time PCR using Macadamia vicilin as target sequence. Two different primer pairs were tested. Specificity was tested against potentially related nuts. Optimisation of primer and probe concentrations was performed. The limit of detection was 2-4 pg DNA, corresponding to a macadamia nut concentration of 50 to 100 μg per g. In a background of soybean DNA, down to 0,01 % macadamia DNA could be detected.

Major part of the current work describes the development of the update methodology for onedimensional code (TML) currently used at Volvo Aero Corporation during turbine design process. The methodology is then applied and tried out in a general engine analysis (GESTPAN).

This report handles the preliminary design of a control system that includes both attitude control and boost control functionality for sounding rockets. This is done to reduce the weight and volume for the control system. A sounding rocket is a small rocket compared to a satellite launcher. It is used to launch payloads into suborbital trajectories. The payload consists of scientific experiments, for example micro-gravity experiments and astronomic observations. The boost guidance system controls the sounding rocket during the launch phase. This is done to minimize the impact dispersion. The attitude control system controls the payload during the experiment phase. The system that is developed in this report is based on the DS19 boost guidance system from Saab Ericsson Space AB. The new system is designed by extending DS19 with software and hardware. The new system is therefore named DS19+. Hardware wise a study of the mechanical and electrical interfaces and also of the system budgets for gas, mass and power for the system are done to determine the feasibility for the combined system. Further a preliminary design of the control software is done. The design has been implemented as pseudo code in MATLAB for testing and simulations. A simulation model for the sounding rocket andits surroundings during the experiment phase has also been designed and implemented in MATLAB. The tests and simulations that have been performed show that the code is suitable for implementation in the real system.

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To be competitive in the market, it is very important to design cost effective and reliable products. For this purpose, it is necessary to consider reliability as an integral part of the design procedure. Therefore, reliability which is a design parameter that affects cost and safety of a system should be taken into consideration in early phases since it is very difficult to change design at the later phases. Reliability of a rocket motor can be evaluated by reliability testing but these tests are very expensive and difficult since the tests are destructive and test sample size is determined by the binomial law. Because of the difficulties in reliability testing, in early design phases reliability can be evaluated by using reliability prediction results. This thesis report includes application of probabilistic approach for a solid rocket motor design to evaluate its reliability in preliminary design phase. In this study, it is aimed to assess the solid rocket motor ballistic performance reliability and casing structural reliability, determine important parameters affective on the solid rocket motor reliability and find a new design point to improve the reliability. Variations in dimensions and material properties are considered as the sources of failures and the limit states for acceleration, total impulse and maximum stress in the casing are approximated with response surface method by considering these variations. With the response surface functions, Monte Carlo simulation is used to assess failure probability and distributions of the rocket motor performance. Besides the assessment of the reliability, capability of the response surface functions to estimate the rocket motor performance and effects of the input parameters on the rocket motor performance and performance variation are also examined. By considering the effect of the input parameters, a new design point is proposed to decrease the total probability of failure.

A parametric study on Secondary Injection Thrust Vector Control (SITVC) has been accomplished numerically with the help of a commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code called FLUENT&reg / . This study consists of two parts / the first part includes the simulation of three dimensional flowfield inside a test case nozzle for the selection of parameters associated with both computational grid and the CFD solver such as mesh size, turbulence model accompanied with two different wall treatment approaches, and solver type. This part revealed that simulation of internal flowfield by a segregated solver with Realizable k-&amp / #949 / (Rke) turbulence model accompanied by enhanced wall treatment approach is accurate enough to resolve this kind of complex three dimensional fluid flow problems. In the second part a typical rocket nozzle with conical diverging section is picked for the parametric study on injection mass flow rate, injection location and injection angle. A test matrix is constructed / several numerical simulations are run to yield the assessment of performance of SITVC system. The results stated that for a nozzle with a small divergence angle, downstream injections with distances of 2.5-3.5 throat diameters from the nozzle throat lead to higher efficiencies over a certain range of total pressure ratios, i.e., mass flow rate ratios, upstream injections should be aligned more to the nozzle axis, i.e., higher injection angles, to prevent reflection of shock waves from the opposite wall and thus low efficiencies. Injection locations that are too much downstream may result reversed flows on nozzle exit.

Composite propellants are mainly composed of: crystalline oxidizer, metallic fuel, and polymeric binder. Additives, such as plasticizers, catalysts, bonding agents and curing agents may also be incorporated to propellant compositions in small amounts. These ingredients should be mixed rigorously in order to obtain a uniform microstructure throughout the cast propellant profile. The quality of the propellant mixture has to be determined quantitatively to improve the product quality and to reduce costs. In this study, it was aimed to develop an easy, cost effective and rapid test method for determining the optimum mixing conditions for the manufacturing process of solid rocket propellants. An analytical method used in the literature for assessing mixing quality in highly filled polymeric systems is wide-angle x-ray diffractometry (WA-XRD). After finding out the concentration distribution of the components indirectly by WA-XRD, degree of mixing was identified using statistical methods. To accomplish this, series of samples were taken from various locations of the mixing chamber and analyzed by WA-XRD. Degree of mixing calculations based on ratio of intensity arising from aluminum phase over total crystal intensity, and the ratio of intensity arising from ammonium perchlorate phase over total crystal intensity gave satisfactory results. Radial mixing efficiency of planetary mixer was determined, and it was found that mixing at the center was more effective than mixing at the outer regions. Also, by scanning electron microscopy technique (SEM), interactions between binder and solid loading during mixing process were observed. It was seen that polymeric matrix gradually encloses solid particles during mixing.

Design process of a solid rocket motor with the objective of meeting certain mission requirements can be specified as a search for a best set of design parameters within the overall design constraints. In order to ensure that the best possible design amongst all achievable designs is being achieved, optimization is required during the design process. In this thesis, an optimization tool for internal ballistic design of solid rocket motors was developed. A direct search method Complex algorithm is used in this study. The optimization algorithm changes the grain geometric parameters and nozzle throat diameter within the specified bounds, finally achieving the optimum results. Optimization tool developed in this study involves geometric modeling of the propellant grain, burnback analysis, a 0-dimensional ballistic performance prediction analysis of rocket motor and the mathematical optimization algorithm. The code developed is verified against pretested rocket motor performance.

In this study, a detailed service life assessment procedure for solid propellant rockets under random environmental temperature and transportation loads is introduced. During storage and deployment of rocket motors, uncontrolled thermal environments and random vibratory loads due to transportation induce random stresses and strains in the propellant which provoke mechanical damage. In addition, structural capability degrades due to environmental conditions and induced stresses and strains as well as material capability parameters have inherent uncertainties. In this proposed probabilistic service life prediction, uncertainties along with degradation mechanisms are taken into consideration. Vibration loads are accounted by utilizing acceleration spectral density values which are induced during various deployment scenarios of ground, air and sea transportation. Furthermore, thermal loads are represented with a mathematical model being a harmonic function of time. Throughout the finite element analyses, a linear viscoelastic material model is to be used for the propellant. Change in the structural capability of the propellant with time is calculated using Laheru&#039 / s cumulative damage model. Moreover, to include aging effect of the propellant, Layton model is used. To determine the effects of induced stress and strains under variations and uncertainties in the random loads and material constants, mathematical surrogate models are constructed using response surface method. Limit state functions are utilized to predict failure modes of the solid rocket motor. First order reliability method is used to calculate reliability and probability of failure of the propellant grain. With the proposed methodology, instantaneous reliability of the propellant grain is determined within a confidence interval.

This work describes the development of a hybrid rocket propulsion system for a reusable sounding rocket, as part of the first phase of the UKZN Phoenix Hybrid Sounding Rocket Programme. The programme objective is to produce a series of low-to-medium altitude sounding rockets to cater for the needs of the African scientific community and local universities, starting with the 10 km apogee Phoenix-1A vehicle. In particular, this dissertation details the development of the Hybrid Rocket Performance Code (HRPC) together with the design, manufacture and testing of Phoenix-1A’s propulsion system. The Phoenix-1A hybrid propulsion system, generally referred to as the hybrid rocket motor (HRM), utilises SASOL 0907 paraffin wax and nitrous oxide as the solid fuel and liquid oxidiser, respectively. The HRPC software tool is based upon a one-dimensional, unsteady flow mathematical model, and is capable of analysing the combustion of a number of propellant combinations to predict overall hybrid rocket motor performance. The code is based on a two-phase (liquid oxidiser and solid fuel) numerical solution and was programmed in MATLAB. HRPC links with the NASA-CEA equilibrium chemistry programme to determine the thermodynamic properties of the combustion products necessary for solving the governing ordinary differential equations, which are derived from first principle gas dynamics. The combustion modelling is coupled to a nitrous oxide tank pressurization and blowdown model obtained from literature to provide a realistic decay in motor performance with burn time. HRPC has been validated against experimental data obtained during hot-fire testing of a laboratory-scale hybrid rocket motor, in addition to predictions made by reported performance modelling data. Development of the Phoenix-1A propulsion system consisted of the manufacture of the solid fuel grain and incorporated finite element and computational fluid dynamics analyses of various components of the system. A novel casting method for the fabrication of the system’s cylindrical single-port paraffin fuel grain is described. Detailed finite element analyses were performed on the combustion chamber casing, injector bulkhead and nozzle retainer to verify structural integrity under worst case loading conditions. In addition, thermal and pressure loading distributions on the motor’s nozzle and its subsequent response were estimated by conducting fluid-structure interaction analyses. A targeted total impulse of 75 kNs for the Phoenix-1A motor was obtained through iterative implementation of the HRPC application. This yielded an optimised propulsion system configuration and motor thrust curve. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.