Main Page
BurnSim is software for simulating solid rocket motors, built to be as simple to use as possible while staying accurate for real motor designs. It's free to download and try, with a low-cost personal license ($49) for continued full-featured use - free for .edu (student/education) users; see the download page for details. The personal and educational licenses are for non-commercial use; business use needs a commercial license (details coming soon). See the License page for the full terms. This wiki documents BurnSim 4, the current cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) rewrite of BurnSim, and covers general topics related to experimental solid propellant motors: propellant characterization, motor testing, data acquisition, and more.
Still running BurnSim 3? It was retired in September 2026 and is no longer available for download, though existing installs and licenses keep working - see the FAQ for what that means and how to move to BurnSim 4. Its interface differs substantially from what's shown below; the old documentation is archived under BurnSim 3 (Legacy).
Visit burnsim.com for downloads, news, and release history. For questions about BurnSim itself, see contact me.
The Main Window
Hover over or click on parts of the window below for more detail on each area.
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Getting Started
New to BurnSim? Start with Getting Started with a Basic Simulation.
Topics
- BurnSim Fields - full field-by-field reference for the main window
- Grain Types - the available grain geometries
- Propellant Characterization - getting the numbers BurnSim needs for a propellant
- Propellant Thermochemistry - computing those numbers directly from an ingredient recipe, built into BurnSim 4
- Erosive Burning - simulating crossflow-augmented burn rate
- Characterization Motor - a simple test motor for gathering burn-rate data
- Data Acquisition - instrumenting a motor test
- Results Tab - every line the Results tab prints, and how to read it
- Results, Test Data and Notes - the three tabs in the bottom-right panel
- Test Data Tab and Import from CSV - bringing real test data into BurnSim
- Activating BurnSim - activating a license, online or offline, and what each message means