• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.136-145
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• 2007

A computation was made to predict the movement of the thrust center position due to the rocket nozzle deflection. Three dimensional computations were done for the nozzle deflection angles of 0/1/3 degrees, and the oscillation of aerodynamic coefficients, not observed for the axisymmetric cases, was encountered. The position of the thrust center was found to be at -16 mm and -4 mm for the deflection angles of 1 and 3 degrees, respectively, and it can be concluded that the thrust center movement due to nozzle deflection is negligible. In addition to the computational results, the mechanism of thrust generation in a rocket engine is described with a brief mathematical derivation as it is sometimes mistaken. Also presented are some descriptions on the problem of pressure center definition for symmetric cases such as a rocket external flow problem and the nozzle deflection case.