RocketLab Engine Designer

Engine definition

Load reference engine

Architecture

Oxidiser Fuel

Power cycle

Combustor Nozzle

Operating point

Thrust [kN] Thrust ref Pc [bar] O/F Area ratio ε Bell length frac.

Thermal & technology

Liner Extension Film cooling frac. Regen to ε Coolant v [m/s] Hot wall [mm] T turbine FR [K] T turbine OR [K] RDE gain η_pg Integration (1=legacy)

Stage context

Stage Propellant [t] Payload above [t] Liftoff T/W Required Δv [m/s]

Thrust chamber contour

Wall shaded by hot-gas-side temperature

Wall & coolant temperature

Heat flux, MW/m²

Specific impulse vs altitude, s

Mass breakdown, kg

Power cycle

Parametric sweep

Variable From To Metric

Constraints & engineering notes

Optimise current architecture

Uses the architecture & stage from the Design tab. Latin-hypercube exploration, then differential evolution with constraint penalties (cycle power, wall temperature, coolant Δp, coking, separation).

Objective

Pc min [bar] Pc max [bar] ε min ε max Generations Exploration pts

Also optimise film-cooling fraction

Design space: explored designs

x y

Convergence

Best penalised objective per generation (lower is better)

Optimal design

Run an optimisation to see the result.

Architecture trade study

Optimises every architecture (LOX/CH₄, LOX/RP-1, LOX/LH₂ × GG / ORSC / FRSC / FFSC / expander / electric, plus rotating-detonation and aerospike variants) for the stage defined in the Design tab and ranks them. Each architecture gets its own optimal Pc, O/F and ε.

Objective Generations / arch Exploration / arch

Ranking

Isp vs engine T/W of optimal designs

Optimal design per architecture

Model validation against flight engines

Same code path as design evaluation: equilibrium thermochemistry → loss models → cooling → cycle → mass. Reference values are public figures.