1. Design of ablative thrust chambers and their materials
2. In conclusion, flexible boundaries were shown to reduce skin friction in turbulent flow by as much as 40-50% in some configurations. The data suggest that CFis a complex function of longitudinal tension, lateral tension, viscosity (or kinematic viscosity), and either skin thickness and/or skin mass per unit area. Most of the data indicated there was a drop in CFas Txwas increased from 0.023 to 0.392 Ib/in. The thinner skin (0.0025 in.) performed better than the thicker skin (0.0035 in.) with water as the damping fluid. No trend was discernible in the effect of lateral tension (Tz) or viscosity on CF. If the magnitudes of Tzand viscosities were increased, perhaps a trend would emerge. Other variables that should be investigated in future experiments are velocity or Reynolds number, length and width of test plate, depth of the reservoir, and Young's modulus of the skin.