RPA – Tool for Rocket Propulsion Analysis
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RPA Features

Feature Standard Edition Lite Edition
Calculation of thermal transport properties yes  
Scripting module to solve user's own problems, extending standard capabilities of the program yes  
Propellant analysis tool to evaluate different propellant compositions, with stepwise replacement of one component with another one yes  
Determination of combustion chamber size for given thrust, propellant mass flow rate, or throat diameter, with capability to export the resulting contour to DXF or ASCII file yes  
Designing parabolic nozzle contour or truncated ideal nozzle contour (TIC) using two-dimensional (axisymmetric) method of characteristics, with capability to export the resulting contour to DXF file yes  
Producing publication-quality plots (in raster or vector format) yes  
Output of results to PDF or ODF format yes  
Analysis of monopropellant and bipropellant rocket engines yes yes
Analysis of rocket propulsion engines with an arbitrary set of propellant components (multipropellant systems) yes yes
Robust, proven and industry-accepted Gibbs free energy minimization approach is used to obtain the combustion composition yes yes
Calculation of performance for a finite- and infinite-area combustion chambers yes yes
Analysis of nozzle flows with shifting and frozen chemical equilibrium yes yes
Calculation of thrust coefficient, characteristic velocity and specific impulse (sea level, optimum expansion, vacuum) yes yes
Optimisation of propellant components mixture ratio for maximum specific impulse of bipropellant systems yes yes
Altitude performance analysis yes yes
Analysis of nozzle performance with respect to overexpansion and flow separation yes yes
Throttled engine performance analysis yes yes
Estimation of test (delivered) nozzle performance yes yes
Expandable thermodynamic data library mainly based on NASA Glenn thermodynamic database includes data for numerous combustion product species, as well as data for such propellant components as hydrogen, oxygen, RP-1, RG-1, Synthine, methane, propane, hydrogen peroxide, MMH, and many other yes yes
Built-in species database editor: the users can incorporate into the thermodynamic data library his/her own chemical species, or species obtained from third parties yes yes
Tool for import components from PROPEP or CEA2 species databases yes yes
Nested analysis tool to evaluate the performance under dufferent conditions, stepping of up to four independent variables (component ratio, chamber pressure, nozzle inlet conditions, nozzle exit conditions) yes yes
Multi-platform graphical user interface for Microsoft® Windows™ (both x86 and x86-64), as well as for Apple® Mac OS X and Linux yes yes
Supported units for input data:
  • pressure: MPa, Pa, atm, bar, psia, kg/cm2
  • mass flux: kg/(m2·s), lbm/(ft2·s)
  • temperature: K, R, C, F
yes yes
Results output in SI or U.S. customary units yes yes
Output of results to Plain Text or HTML format yes yes
Graphical output of results of altitude and throttled engine performance analysis yes yes
Printing results of analysis yes yes
Two modes for comfortable work: Express Analysis and Extended Analysis yes yes

Copyright © 2009-2011 Alexander Ponomarenko  |  Contact  | 
Last modified: October 16, 2011