First-ever plane with no moving parts

fechter

fechter

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Link to article
http://electricaircraft.mit.edu/mit-engineers-fly-first-ever-plane-with-no-moving-parts/

MIT plane.jpg

The team’s final design resembles a large, lightweight glider. The aircraft, which weighs about 5 pounds and has a 5-meter wingspan, carries an array of thin wires, which are strung like horizontal fencing along and beneath the front end of the plane’s wing. The wires act as positively charged electrodes, while similarly arranged thicker wires, running along the back end of the plane’s wing, serve as negative electrodes. The fuselage of the plane holds a stack of lithium-polymer batteries. Barrett’s ion plane team included members of Professor David Perreault’s Power Electronics Research Group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, who designed a power supply that would convert the batteries’ output to a sufficiently high voltage to propel the plane. In this way, the batteries supply electricity at 40,000 volts to positively charge the wires via a lightweight power converter.

Once the wires are energized, they act to attract and strip away negatively charged electrons from the surrounding air molecules, like a giant magnet attracting iron filings. The air molecules that are left behind are newly ionized, and are in turn attracted to the negatively charged electrodes at the back of the plane. As the newly formed cloud of ions flows toward the negatively charged wires, each ion collides millions of times with other air molecules, creating a thrust that propels the aircraft forward.
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The secret to originality is to conceal your sources. :mrgreen:

Old news, first built maybe ~1960s.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mi...-fair-experiment-to-aircraft-engine-15326499/

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/08/...icopter-requires-electric-boost-for-lift.html

Probably too old to patent (you can't patent a common wheelbarrow).

fechter said:
Link to article
http://electricaircraft.mit.edu/mit-engineers-fly-first-ever-plane-with-no-moving-parts/
MIT plane.jpg
The team’s final design resembles a large, lightweight glider. The aircraft, which weighs about 5 pounds and has a 5-meter wingspan, carries an array of thin wires, which are strung like horizontal fencing along and beneath the front end of the plane’s wing. The wires act as positively charged electrodes, while similarly arranged thicker wires, running along the back end of the plane’s wing, serve as negative electrodes. The fuselage of the plane holds a stack of lithium-polymer batteries. Barrett’s ion plane team included members of Professor David Perreault’s Power Electronics Research Group in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, who designed a power supply that would convert the batteries’ output to a sufficiently high voltage to propel the plane. In this way, the batteries supply electricity at 40,000 volts to positively charge the wires via a lightweight power converter.

Once the wires are energized, they act to attract and strip away negatively charged electrons from the surrounding air molecules, like a giant magnet attracting iron filings. The air molecules that are left behind are newly ionized, and are in turn attracted to the negatively charged electrodes at the back of the plane. As the newly formed cloud of ions flows toward the negatively charged wires, each ion collides millions of times with other air molecules, creating a thrust that propels the aircraft forward.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
this is cool. i remember building a "lifter" in my garage after seeing it somewhere on the interwebz about 10 years ago. I remember seeing it raise off the table and freaked out.

[youtube]uF8otSSPgdA[/youtube]

[youtube]XKi9OOS-e94[/youtube]

ah here it is - used this to derive a HV supply for 0$.....

[youtube]r32e0QGdm8U[/youtube]

"ionic wind" was sort of the vague explanation of its "lifting" properties. MIT probably went a bit further than that...

I thought I was going to figure out how to build one of these for me to ride around in....
 
I had no idea this was even a thing.
Maybe the beginnings of the warp drive :0
 
I wonder what a super lightweight DC-DC converter that could go from say 48v - 40,000v could look like. If we need like 10kw of power, the 40,000 V output would only need to supply like .25 ~ .75 amps continuous...
 
Or you could just use 10,000 series Lipo cells. Don't touch that one. :kff:

It's sort of an amusing idea, but I imagine the efficiency won't be very good, but who knows. This might work well for one of those solar powered drone planes that just circle around at high altitude to provide wireless communications.
 
Yeah i wonder about the power usage as well.
It seems like blowing air would take less energy than affecting the air's molecules to the same effect.

I guess one advantage is if something hits it, it's likely to act like a foam cutter and slice the object in half perhaps? :lol:
 
I think it's a lot more likely to completely disintegrate the plane instead. ;)


neptronix said:
I had no idea this was even a thing.
Maybe the beginnings of the warp drive :0
Click to expand...

Ion drive has been used in spacecraft for a long time now (since the 1970s for some things, and a number of "recent" exploration missions use it). AFAICR it was first tested in space in the 60s, and on the ground late 50s or something like that. There's probably some wikipedia articles about the various spacecraft using it. I think it was actually suggested or invented (dont' recall which) over a hundred years ago.

There's two versions, one which uses the static force (like the plane in the OP), and one which uses magnetic. I don't know all the variations or specifics, though I recall that they can be a few to several tens of kW of power, and some of them have up to hundreds of nM of thrust.

You don't get a lot of thrust, but since it takes little "fuel" (ions to propel outward), it can run constantly for weeks or even years, and get you to a relatively high speed eventually. (and since it's electric, you can essentially power it directly from solar, or from more compact electric sources).

AFAICR the only real "wear part" is the grid(s) themselves, kinda like in vacuum tubes (similar problem).
 
That's awesome. What's the efficiency on ion drive versus choppin' up air?
 
X2flier said:
Probably too old to patent (you can't patent a common wheelbarrow).
Click to expand...

But you can patent new technology for a wheelbarrow.

I doubt there's any real patent on this, the expression "Reduced to a practice" can't be proven. Even if there was, it's probably not defensible for the same reason. It would be a shame to hold back for patent fears. But these things never get built even if they would work. Look at the Difference Engine.
 
Helium filled wings for lift and ion propulsion for thrust.

:D :bolt:
 
[e-beach post_id=1426919 time=1542934914 user_id=23741]
Helium filled wings for lift and ion propulsion for thrust.
Edit:MIT Ion Plane.jpg
:D :bolt:
 
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