Machining
Injector test hardware, fixtures, flanges and structural pieces, cut from reviewed drawings.
- CNC injector heads and microdrilling
- Mount adapter and flow-bench fixture
- Finish machining of sealing faces
Get involved
Build it with us
Resonance needs manufacturing, measurement and research support to go from concept to tested hardware, and students who want to own a piece of it.
Where partners fit
Each ask is a defined piece of the engine or its test campaign, not a logo on a slide.
Metal additive and inspection
Design-for-additive feedback on the cooled copper, then a channel coupon or article with a CT report.
- GRCop-42 laser powder-bed printing
- CT scan of every cooling channel
- Dimensional inspection report
Diagnostics
The measurements that prove the wave is rotating, after checking what the test facility already has.
- High-frequency dynamic pressure sensors
- Synchronised acquisition at 250 kS/s per channel
- Calibration support
Research funding
A quoted, bounded milestone, routed through the appropriate university or student-organisation account.
- Test coupons and reviewed parts
- Cold-flow and inspection work
- Propellant and consumables
The first sponsor-backed milestone
A lower-risk, measurable step: a reviewed injector cold-flow fixture, a cooling-channel coupon with a CT report, or a reviewed fixture package. Each has a defined measurement and a pass or fail question before any money is asked for.
Problems your team could solve
These block a drawing release today.
Cooling-channel geometry
Settle one channel cross-section, then choose between printed GRCop-42 with CT inspection and machined OFHC copper.
Help that fitsMetal additive, CT inspection
Thermal design load
Bound the local heat flux on both walls for a liquid injector. Most published data is for gaseous propellants.
Help that fitsAnalysis and mentorship
Injector acceptance
Lay out the orifices and define a flow test that checks the design independently of its own assumptions.
Help that fitsCNC and microdrilling, cold-flow
Predetonator
Choose the mixture and energy, and qualify the starter on its own stand before it meets the engine.
Help that fitsSpecialist engineering
High-frequency pressure
Enough channels sampled at 250 kS/s or faster, with each sensor port's response measured.
Help that fitsSensors and data acquisition
Facility interfaces
Written numbers for delivered propellant flow, flange pressure, cooling water and the engine mount.
Help that fitsTest facility
How a partnership works
- 1
Start with a conversation
We share a one-page project brief and hear what your team does well.
- 2
Scope one contribution
A one-page part or measurement brief: drawing, inspection, acceptance criterion and timing.
- 3
Build, test, report back
We share the inspection results and test data from the hardware you helped make.
Public acknowledgement and other sponsor terms are subject to university approval.
For students
The engine splits into six areas. If one of them is the problem you want to work on, tell us which and why.
Injector head
Meters liquid oxygen and liquid methane into the channel. Replaceable, so the same head can fire every chamber length.
Combustion channel
The ring the detonation front runs around, between the outer body and the centerbody.
Water cooling
Deionised water runs through both the outer wall and the centerbody so the copper survives a sustained firing.
Nozzle
Contracts the annular flow to a single throat and expands it to make thrust.
Predetonator
A separate starter that fires a detonation into the channel, then is isolated so the wave has to sustain itself.
Instrumentation
Shows that the wave is rotating and measures what the engine delivers.
Talk to the project lead
Syed Aabis Akhtar studies aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
He previously built feed-system hardware for the LOX/IPA test stand at Liquid Rocketry at Illinois, a separate team, and took part in its May 2026 bipropellant hot-fire effort.
Emailheyaabis@gmail.com
Tell us what your team makes or measures, or which part of the engine you want to work on.