Start Here¶
Pyskyfire is a Python library for analysing liquid-propellant rocket engines.
It supports:
combustion-performance and nozzle-flow calculations using NASA CEA;
thrust-chamber and nozzle contour generation;
regenerative-cooling analysis of chamber walls and coolant channels;
cooling-channel geometry, wall-material, and coolant-property models;
pump, turbine, and engine-network utilities;
plots, interactive 3D geometry views, and standalone HTML reports.
Pyskyfire is intended for preliminary engine design, thermal analysis, and engine-cycle studies.
Start with the minimal simulation¶
Minimal Simulation is the recommended introduction to Pyskyfire.
The tutorial builds and analyses a 5 kN nitrous-oxide/ethanol rocket engine. It shows how to:
define an engine design point;
calculate combustion-gas properties;
generate a thrust-chamber contour;
define walls and cooling channels;
run a regenerative-cooling simulation; and
generate plots, a 3D model, and an HTML report.
The complete source code is available in examples/minimal/minimal_sim.py. Use it as a starting point for new engine cases.
Documentation structure¶
The documentation is organised around the Diátaxis framework, with Validation added as a first-class section. Each section serves a different purpose.
Tutorials¶
Tutorials are guided, runnable introductions to a complete workflow.
Minimal Simulation Build and analyse a regeneratively cooled thrust chamber from a defined engine design point.
Howto¶
Howtos guide you through achieving a specific goal. For example hoe to use pyskyfire to find an optimum mixture ratio: Mixture ratio optimisation
Validation¶
Validation reports compare Pyskyfire analyses with published engine data.
RL10A-3-3A Reconstruction and validation of the RL10A-3-3A thrust chamber, regenerative cooling system, and expander cycle.
Explanations¶
Explanations describe the engineering models, code structure, and analysis methods used by Pyskyfire.
Capabilities Overview of the analyses, outputs, and visualisation tools provided by Pyskyfire.
Package Structure Overview of the repository, source packages, examples, validation cases, and their roles.
Regenerative Cooling Explanation of the regenerative-cooling model, solver structure, heat-transfer paths, and governing quantities.
Specific Impulse and Thrust Coefficient Explanation of the vacuum, optimum-expansion, ambient, and sea-level performance figures, and the conditions under which each applies.
The Moody Diagram Explanation of the friction-factor model used for cooling-channel pressure loss.
Rao Nozzle Contour Angles Explanation of the angle data used to construct Rao-style bell nozzles.
Reference¶
The reference section is generated from the source code and documents the available Python interfaces.
Package |
Purpose |
|---|---|
Shared objects including fluids, material models, result containers, stations, blocks, and engine-network infrastructure. |
|
NASA CEA-based combustion and aerothermodynamic calculations, nozzle utilities, and coolant transport properties. |
|
Thrust-chamber geometry, cooling channels, wall models, regenerative cooling, and film cooling. |
|
Pump and turbopump analysis utilities. |
|
Turbine models and utilities for engine-cycle calculations. |
|
Plotting, reporting, pressure-temperature diagrams, and 3D engine visualisation. |
Use the reference when you need the exact inputs, outputs, methods, or inheritance structure of a class or function.
Documentation and source code¶
Tutorials use runnable scripts from the repository. The minimal simulation tutorial includes selected sections of examples/minimal/minimal_sim.py, so the documented workflow matches the executed example.
The API reference is generated from docstrings in src/pyskyfire/.