Could Dry Ice Rockets Be Helpful in Finding a Clean Power Source for the Future?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The goals of this project is to see if the temperature of H2O (Water) combined with frozen CO2 (Dry Ice) will affect the launced distance of a Corning test tube at a 45 degree angle. Methods/Materials 1) Experiments were done 20 times per test sample. There were a total of 5 various temperature ranges: 10, 15.55, 21.11, 26.66, 32.22 degree Celsius. 2) All Test Samples consisted of 15 grams of frozen CO2 and 12.5ml of H2O. 3) The one variable was the temperature of the H2O prior to combining it with the frozen CO2. I ran 2 experiments per each test sample per day (total of 100) over a 10 day period. Material List: metal 45 degree angle launch pad; Corning 50ml plastic test tube; safety goggles; protective chemical rubber gloves; frozen CO2; H2O; metric thermometer; metric balance; metric tape measure; tongs; clear open area. Results My hypothesis was proven wrong with the farthest single flight being the H2O temperature of 15.55 degrees Celsius which went a distance of 46.421 meters. Then the furthest average flights overall went to 10 degrees Celsius with an overall average of 38.9934 meters. Temperature/Single Flight/Average Flights: 10-C/44.132/38.9934;15.55-C/46.421/ 35.5973;21.11-C/40.5384/35.3303;26.66-C/40.447/35.1006;32.22-C/39.9593/30.8346 Conclusions/Discussion I concluded that the reason the colder temperature went the furthest was due to the rate in which pressure builds up. The frozen CO2 does not sublimate as quickly in the colder temperature causing a slower pressure build up and thus allowing the test tube "rocket" to expand and hold more pressure before exploding. This extra pressure causes more power when the rocket launches out of the cylinder and in turn more distance. Whereas the hotter temperatures caused a fast rate of expansion and the plastic may not expand quick enough for the cap causing the cap to explode before the rocket reached a high pressure point and therefore providing less power to go as far. While doing this years project I realized that I can take pressure caused by sublimation and use this to build a clean environmentally friendly alternative power source to steam or maybe even fuel. Although I only have a "working theory" at this stage of my project, I hope to build this clean power source in the next few years of my "continuing" project.

Competition history

• CSEF 2003 Aerodynamics/ Hydrodynamics · Entry J0121

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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