Hydrogen–oxygen torch igniter
Thermodynamics, heat transfer, and a Python analysis library for Purdue Space Program.
I worked on a five-person propulsion team at Purdue Space Program to design a gaseous hydrogen / gaseous oxygen torch igniter. My focus was thermodynamics and heat transfer.
The work
A torch igniter brings together combustion, fluid flow, and the material surrounding them. The gas temperature is only part of the problem: the heat transferred into the hardware matters too.
Our project connected those analyses to the design of the igniter. I contributed to the engineering work and wrote a Python library to automate NASA CEA and implement the Bartz correlation.
Making the calculations repeatable
NASA’s Chemical Equilibrium with Applications program calculates chemical equilibrium compositions and thermodynamic properties. The Bartz correlation provides an engineering estimate of convective heat transfer in rocket nozzles.
Putting these tools behind Python made the analysis workflow programmable. The useful intersection for me was software serving a physical design: code that helps answer an engineering question.
My part
- Propulsion engineering on a team of five.
- Thermodynamic and heat-transfer analysis.
- A Python library connecting NASA CEA calculations with a Bartz implementation.
This work ran from August 2024 through October 2025. The illustration on this page is a conceptual cutaway, not a drawing of the team’s hardware.
Further reading
The NASA CEA project provides the equilibrium-analysis tool. A NASA-hosted study, Experimental Studies of the Heat Transfer to RBCC Rocket Nozzles, describes the use of Bartz’s correlation in a hydrogen–oxygen thruster analysis.