I worked with a group to analyze the combustion in the Raptor engine by SpaceX. Using values found on X and other websites we were able to get design specifications like the inpute rate and state of the fuel and LOx and sort of reverse engineer the nozzle geometery. Using Cantera and the design specifications we simulated the transient conditions during combustion startup.

To take the project further, I used the mass flow rate and conditions found from the Cantera simulation to run an ANSYS Fluent simulation of the gas flow through the nozzle. This resulted in only a 4.35% difference in thrust from our model to the actual Raptor engine!