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Safety Protocols

Table of Contents 1 Nitrous Safety 2 Personal Protection Equipment 3 Safety Through Design 4 Additional Safety Procedures

Nitrous Safety

Resources:

1. AFRL Nitrous Oxide Explosive Hazards
2. Aspire Space: Hybrid Safety
3. Aspire Space: The Physics of Nitrous Oxide
4. Scaled Composites Nitrous Safety Guidelines
5. AIAA Handling Considerations for N20
6. SPG Nitrous Oxide Safety
7. Space Safety Magezine
8. Swiss Propulsion Lab Power Point

Personal Protection Equipment

Safety Through Design

1. Large pressure drop across injector (at least 20% chamber pressure)
2. Injecting the N2O must lag the ignition
3. Additional ullage space in the oxidizer tank
4. Avoid decomposing the N2O... bad things happen
5. Avoid copper, brass and bronze as they are highly catalytic
6. Avoid rust and use stainless steel filters in the fill line
7. Flourocarbons are ok, any other plastic is not
8. Use flourocarbon coated O-rings when possible, silicon o-rings as a back up (silicone and N2o can be impact explosive)
9. DON'T vent N2O through combustion chamber
10. Avoid adiabatic compression/waterhammer
11. Fill oxidizer tank at less than 20 psi/sec
12. Develop safety procedures, and pre-chill the pump, if you pump nitrous from the fill tank to

the run tank

1. Use pressure relief devices/burst discs on all trapped volumes of liquid nitrous to prevent

hydraulic overpressure

Additional Safety Procedures

1. We will potentially need to retest proof pressure of tanks after landings
2. Wear goggle AND gloves, N2O will cause water vapor in air to freeze if there are any leaks
3. Avoid grease as much as possible. When needed, MAKE SURE to use oxidizer-compatible grease
4. Keep mobile phones turned off when near N2O and ground all equipment