PJ Alternators and Microwave PDE

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cudabean
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Post by cudabean » Fri Nov 14, 2003 11:15 pm

About this ionization...

So what's the deal, does heating of gases cause ionization? Positive or negative? If that's so, you might conceivably be able to use pulsating combustion strictly for ionizing the gases and use waves of moving magnetism after the combustion zone sort of like an afterburner to further accellerate the combustion products.

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Post by Mike Everman » Sat Nov 15, 2003 1:16 am

cudabean wrote:So what's the deal, does heating of gases cause ionization? Positive or negative? If that's so, you might conceivably be able to use pulsating combustion strictly for ionizing the gases and use waves of moving magnetism after the combustion zone sort of like an afterburner to further accellerate the combustion products.
I believe it is ionized while it is burning, I'm trying to find out. At the very least there are a lot of free electrons in there. Typically in ion engines for spacecraft attitude control, they use magnets to bend or focus the stream, and electric potential to accelerate the ions (typically the ions are from boiling cesium, I think). Electric potential gets charged things moving, magnetic fields bend and shape moving charged things.
what you're talking about is sort of like the MHD mentioned before, and you'd need electrodes at front and rear of the engine for the magnets to move the burning medium. In any case, it is a very low yield plan. When I was in aerospace circles we referred to ion engines as "Mouse Farts".
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Post by Mike Everman » Sat Nov 15, 2003 1:23 am

hey, 'cuda, you going to buy one of those 5 stage compressors?
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Post by cudabean » Sat Nov 15, 2003 5:37 am

I'm not sure. It's mass flow @ 50 cfm is kind of unimpressive. It is kind of intriguing though, but I'm not sure I want to pay $65 to satisfy my curiosity.

Further thoughts on compressors:
A friend pointed out that another way to stage centrifugal compressors is to take two turbo units and route the output of one into the input of another. This is fine if weight is not too much of an issue.

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Post by cudabean » Sat Nov 15, 2003 5:49 am

I believe it is ionized while it is burning, I'm trying to find out. At the very least there are a lot of free electrons in there. Typically in ion engines for spacecraft attitude control, they use magnets to bend or focus the stream, and electric potential to accelerate the ions (typically the ions are from boiling cesium, I think). Electric potential gets charged things moving, magnetic fields bend and shape moving charged things.
what you're talking about is sort of like the MHD mentioned before, and you'd need electrodes at front and rear of the engine for the magnets to move the burning medium. In any case, it is a very low yield plan. When I was in aerospace circles we referred to ion engines as "Mouse Farts".
Yes, I've been looking at ion space propulsion systems for what they're worth. Still, imagine that you had 30' to work with. Accellerate the gas every inch of the way. A cool thought is another scenario where the fuselage acts on all the air around it up to 8 feet and accellerates it rearward through some sort of electro-magnetic process the whole length of the fuselage. If possible (which currently it seems not), this would be extremely efficient and quiet.

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Post by Mike Everman » Sat Nov 15, 2003 5:55 am

'cuda wrote:Accellerate the gas every inch of the way. A cool thought is another scenario where the fuselage acts on all the air around it up to 8 feet and accellerates it rearward through some sort of electro-magnetic process the whole length of the fuselage...
Is that not the Holy Grail for which we seek, my friend?
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Post by Mike Everman » Sat Nov 15, 2003 5:59 am

cudabean wrote:A friend pointed out that another way to stage centrifugal compressors is to take two turbo units and route the output of one into the input of another.
If only they could somhow share a common drive-shaft somehow...
We should continue this back in that compressor thread.
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Post by mk » Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:43 pm

cudabean wrote:About this ionization...

So what's the deal, does heating of gases cause ionization? Positive or negative? If that's so, you might conceivably be able to use pulsating combustion strictly for ionizing the gases and use waves of moving magnetism after the combustion zone sort of like an afterburner to further accellerate the combustion products.

cudabean
As far as I remember, an ionizated gas can also be called plasma, what means that there are free negative (electrons) and free positiv charges (nuclei or rather protons) as well. This means that you'll have to decide whether you would like to acclerate the very, very light electrons on high speeds or the relatively heavy protons on lower speeds. however you decide, you'll have to consider that the opposite charged objects are acclerated in the opposite direction.
Than there are some other problems. Accleration with magnetic fields is nearly impossible, because the charged objects will always move on circular or spiral ways, so you would need extremly strong magnetic fields to keep the charged objects in a "focused" beam at their high speeds, where they would still circulating around a center. Acclerating is much easier with high voltage electrods (E[kinetic]=Q*U=n*e*U), one at the intake one at the exhaust (straight!), but there are needed some kV.
You will also have to consider that plasma is a very unregular kind of gas, including no homogenous temperature and particle condemnation.

So I would say using electromagnetic effects of an atomic and very hot gas isn't very advantageous.

mk

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Post by Mike Everman » Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:54 pm

Too true. I can imagine configurations that would make it into a powerful static electricity generator...
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Post by mk » Wed Jan 21, 2004 9:35 pm

If somebody is a real expert on plasma or s.th. he might proof the opposite of my opinion. But in fact that a pj is pulsating you would have to syncronize the electromagnetic dipole (simply an antenna) with the frequenzy of the pj, and generating electromagnetic waves, that would be strong enough to have any influence, in such short times would be a waste of energy if it would be possible, anyway. Because the strength of a magnetic field is equivalent to the strength of the current streaming througe a coil. And for getting a good (homogenous) electromagnetic field you'll need s o me coils. After all you'll also become trouble with the (melting-) temperatures, generated by the engine and the coils (or rather the current).

But testing might be interesting...

mk
Last edited by mk on Thu Jan 22, 2004 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Mike Everman » Thu Jan 22, 2004 6:39 am

What I envision has no coils, it collects the free electrons on the pipe if you insulate it, and have a ceramic insulated, conductive center body (shaft or something) to get you a static electric potential of very high voltage, and little amperage. If that all works, then the trick is getting it to do work, other than making fat sparks!
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Post by mk » Thu Jan 22, 2004 10:42 pm

But then you'll just get a negative tail pipe and a positive inlet, won't you?

You would still need an electical field between the exhausts open ending and the combustor to acclerate the charged particles.

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Post by resosys » Sat Jan 24, 2004 8:30 am

mk wrote:But then you'll just get a negative tail pipe and a positive inlet, won't you?

You would still need an electical field between the exhausts open ending and the combustor to acclerate the charged particles.
Now you have some voltage potential. This could be tested by insulating the two ends and the putting a spark gap between them to see if they did in fact generate some level of charge that could be useful.

I've done this by dripping water through a ring via Lord Kelvin's beautiful water driven spark generator.

http://geoffegel.tripod.com/kelv1.htm

If you go to the link, just read the experiment part. Don;t get lost in the "free energy" BS that surrounds it.

It would be interesting to see how much potential could be generated between the two ends, purely for charging some caps and making some big arcs, of course. Maybe using the arcs to ignite some gasoline bombs or the equivelent would be in order....

Chris

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Post by Mike Everman » Sat Jan 24, 2004 8:36 am

I still think the potential will be between the entire engine tube and an insulated central shaft or centerbody. I don't understand the front to rear logic...
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Post by resosys » Sat Jan 24, 2004 8:52 am

Mike Everman wrote:I still think the potential will be between the entire engine tube and an insulated central shaft or centerbody. I don't understand the front to rear logic...
You may be very right. Due to the reversal of direction, all charge may be completely lost as well. Hmmm, I'll have to think about this one.

An interesting thing to note about the kelvin water drop spark machine is that some of the water droplets would curve back up as they fell through the top ring as if defying gravity. Truly a fun project to play with. People just can't grasp how pouring water into a bucket at the top could possibly make that much electricity. Look ma, no wires.

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