Solid State Air Propulsion?

[SagaLore]

I'll start off with an example: A few years ago I bought one of those fanless air filters. It has several metal plates that ionize the air, and in doing so cause a flow, while trapping larger particles to the plates.

I've also seen an episode on discovery channel about a really big ship that used a different way of moving in the water - water entered through a conduit, it was ionized in some way and same as above it caused it to flow and pushed the ship forward. They did this to make it silent.

Now my idea - take this premise, but mulitply the effect. Instead of propellars or jet turbines, charge the air and push it at extremely high speeds. Move a plane silently through the air with less chances of a mechanical part going bad during flight.

Discuss.

 

[Bassyhead]

Those "ionic breeze" or whatever air cleaners use a lot of power to move a little air. They're not fans but air cleaners, anyways. Additionally, I've heard that Consumer Reports does not recommend them because of excess ozone production.

I haven't heard of this ship that you speak of, anything on the internet about it? The problem with doing this on an aircraft, even if feasible, is that it would require electricity from somewhere. Batteries currently do not have the energy density or lightweightness that is needed, so you would need to generate it somehow, still requiring the need of an engine of some sort. Today's jets usually generate power from a turbine, sometimes a third smaller turbine reserved just for electric generation (I think some tanks do this, too). Turbines are very light and have pretty high reliability.

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
I'll start off with an example: A few years ago I bought one of those fanless air filters. It has several metal plates that ionize the air, and in doing so cause a flow, while trapping larger particles to the plates.

I've also seen an episode on discovery channel about a really big ship that used a different way of moving in the water - water entered through a conduit, it was ionized in some way and same as above it caused it to flow and pushed the ship forward. They did this to make it silent.

Now my idea - take this premise, but mulitply the effect. Instead of propellars or jet turbines, charge the air and push it at extremely high speeds. Move a plane silently through the air with less chances of a mechanical part going bad during flight.

Discuss.

For an engine with few to no moving parts, look at ramjets and scramjets. They can be very efficient, but they're anything but quiet.

As for charging the air and moving it with an electric charge, you need something that's highly abundant in the atmosphere, so probably only Nitrogen or Oxygen. Nitrogen is really hard to ionize. You can ionize oxygen, but as Bassyhead suggests, you're going to produce a lot of ozone, and that's bad.

 

[natto fire]

The sheer amount of thrust needed to make a commercial airliner fly would pretty much make this infeasible. I have never felt how much of a breeze comes off of one of those devices, but it can't be much. Even if the effect was aided through a venturi, there would probably not be enough thrust, not to mention backup issues, etc. I am not sure on the percentage of noise on an airliner that is coming from the engines, turbulence, plane support systems, but it would be interesting to find out.

 

[SagaLore]

Yea but keep in mind I'm not saying strap a hundred ionic breeze filters to a vehicle. It was just an examploe of application - I'm thinking there would be a newer/different kind of technology that was focused on propulsion. And I was thinking, it would have to do with Nitrogen because it composes the majority of air. Instead of ionizing, perhaps some kind electromagnetism? Some kind of frequency that nitrogen reacts to, the same way that water reacts to microwaves?

 

[patentman]

Originally posted by: Gibsons
You can ionize oxygen, but as Bassyhead suggests, you're going to produce a lot of ozone, and that's bad.

Just limit the use of the device to L.A. No one will notice.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Gibsons
As for charging the air and moving it with an electric charge, you need something that's highly abundant in the atmosphere, so probably only Nitrogen or Oxygen. Nitrogen is really hard to ionize.

What about a nitrogen plasma torch? Shoot a stream of nitro-plasma through a series of magnetic rings - the plasma will expand and contract causing a ripple effect, bringing in a flow of cooler air, and propelling the device. Not quite what I had in mind when I started this thread, but now that I think of it, might work...

Some space technologies similar to that...

 

[Bassyhead]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Gibsons
As for charging the air and moving it with an electric charge, you need something that's highly abundant in the atmosphere, so probably only Nitrogen or Oxygen. Nitrogen is really hard to ionize.

What about a nitrogen plasma torch? Shoot a stream of nitro-plasma through a series of magnetic rings - the plasma will expand and contract causing a ripple effect, bringing in a flow of cooler air, and propelling the device. Not quite what I had in mind when I started this thread, but now that I think of it, might work...

Some space technologies similar to that...

Those are all types of ion thrusters. They're intended for space use where there is little atmosphere and gravity. In space, they would very slowly propel a craft to a very high speed. I don't know if they would work in an atmosphere. Their purpose is to provide long distance propulsion in space after liftoff from earth. They are very weak thrusters. If you read the description for the first one, you'll see it takes thousands to hundreds of thousands of watts to produce a few Newtons of thrust, which is about as much as you'll get from a model rocket engine.

 

[Matthias99]

I haven't heard of this ship that you speak of, anything on the internet about it?

Google for "MHD" or "magnetohydrodynamic propulsion". I don't think it's in any sort of commercial use.

Wikipedia link