What will power our vehicles in the future?

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#2765929 24-Aug-2021 12:05

Dinga96:

Dingbatt:

Well no, not really. Point loads are different from distributed loads (ie a fuel tank), so unless the wing has been designed to take pylon tanks (not drop tanks which as far as I know are only used by military aircraft) a structural redesign would be required. And yes airframe icing is a problem for pylon tanks particularly if they are ‘pre-cooled’ by their contents. The altitudes that these propellor driven commuter aircraft operate in is right in the icing zone.

Dinga96: The gondola fairing on the Caravan is fitted to compensate for its otherwise inadequate baggage storage. Any weight carried in a non-lift producing part of the aircraft requires more structure in the wing, which requires more lift, which requires more structure in the wing, etc…

Dingbat referring to your last comment above

Well both the DeHaviland Mosquito and Lancaster carried increasingly heavy payloads, much heavier than at the start of their service life.

No wing design change as far as I know.

Talking about two different situations.

Firstly they are military aircraft which don't come under the same design requirements. Losing the odd military pilot due to airframe failure is acceptable but losing fare paying passengers is another ball game. (Slightly tongue in cheek comment, but it has some basis of reality).

Secondly it is where the load is applied. Most of the increased weight you mention was carried in the belly. Yes, this increases the load the wing needs to carry BUT the wing has a design load limit which under normal flying conditions is protected by the fact the aircraft wing will stall (stop producing lift) before the design limits are reached. (Very crude description of what is happening here)

Attaching pylons under the wing needs a suitable structure within the wing for that pylon to attach to. Also the wing design needs to be able to support the weight of the item on the pylon when parked. This force is in the opposite direction to the normal load imposed on the wing.

And there's more as well but that's a very crude and brief explanation.

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Dingbatt

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#2765942 24-Aug-2021 12:33

Dinga96:

Dingbat referring to your last comment above

Well both the DeHaviland Mosquito and Lancaster carried increasingly heavy payloads, much heavier than at the start of their service life.

No wing design change as far as I know.

It’s getting a bit off topic, but I guess it goes to the complexity that operating in the third dimension. The two aircraft types you reference are military aircraft designed more than 80 years ago. The limiting factor in those days was more available engine power than airframe limitations. The Lancaster was a development of the Manchester and essentially added a new centre wing section and two engines to the Manchester wing. As such the centre section of the Lancaster wing was over designed to allow for increased operational weights and (being a warplane) to survive battle damage. The huge main spar passed right through the fuselage and crew had to climb over it to get forward. The Lancaster did get a bigger wing and fuselage in its Mk V and Mk VI versions but the aircraft was considered different enough that it was renamed ‘Lincoln’.

Likewise the Mosquito. It was able to take advantage of increasing power available updated versions of the RR Merlin engines.

The big differences between commercial and military aircraft are one prioritises economy and safety, the other performance, resilience and effectiveness.

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Technofreak

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#2765953 24-Aug-2021 12:58

Dingbatt:

Dinga96:

Dingbat referring to your last comment above

Well both the DeHaviland Mosquito and Lancaster carried increasingly heavy payloads, much heavier than at the start of their service life.

No wing design change as far as I know.

It’s getting a bit off topic, but I guess it goes to the complexity that operating in the third dimension. The two aircraft types you reference are military aircraft designed 80 years ago. The limiting factor in those days was more available engine power than airframe limitations. The Lancaster was a development of the Manchester and essentially added a new centre wing section and two engines to the Manchester wing. As such the centre section of the Lancaster wing was over designed to allow for increased operational weights and (being a warplane) to survive battle damage. The huge main spar passed right through the fuselage and crew had to climb over it to get forward. The Lancaster did get a bigger wing and fuselage in its Mk V and Mk VI versions but the aircraft was considered different enough that it was renamed ‘Lincoln’.

Likewise the Mosquito. It was able to take advantage of increasing power available updated versions of the RR Merlin engines.

The big differences between commercial and military aircraft are one prioritises economy and safety, the other performance, resilience and effectiveness.

The increase in engine power has no impact on what load the wings can carry though. The increase in power just allows more weight to be carried for the same performance.

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#2765963 24-Aug-2021 13:19

Dinga96:

Hydrogen may still be considered to have a question mark as to its future in aviation but these guys seem to think it will be a goer.I do not know how this will work.They appear to be serious about the future developement of Hyrogen delivery to airports and to aircraft,not much detail though .What do you all think.

Universal Hydrogen to convert 15-plus airliners to run on H2 pods (newatlas.com)

Was linked to earlier in the thread.

Interesting that the 2MW-class EPU, to replace the Dash-8's 1,860-kW Pratt & Whitney turboprops is being built by MagniX.

Their 1st-gen 750-horsepower (560 kW) magni500 electric engine's in AeroTEC’s battery powered 208B Cessna Grand Caravan flying out of Moses Lake, and Harbour Air's DHC-2 Beaver flying out of Vancouver.
In both of them it replaced the Pratt & Whitney PT6A turbine - commonly used in nearly everything..

They've now unveiled two new “optimized-for-flight” electric propulsion units (EPUs), the magni350 and magni650 to cover more range.
MagniX seems to be the go-to for retrofit motors, inverters and motor controllers around here - and it's owned by an expat Kiwi - Singapore based Richard Chandler.

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#2765966 24-Aug-2021 13:28

Technofreak:

The increase in engine power has no impact on what load the wings can carry though. The increase in power just allows more weight to be carried for the same performance.

Structurally or aerodynamically?

And that’s why military aircraft, particularly ones from the middle of last century had a structural design factor of 1.5 to 2.0 rather than 1.15. Not many military aircraft are limited to a -1/+2.5g envelope like commercial aircraft.

Now it’s way off topic so I’ll bring it back by saying, don’t expect effective military aircraft (with minor exceptions) to be powered by battery or hydrogen any time soon.
Several attempts have been made to achieve nuclear powered flight. The Americans modified a B-36 to carry a nuclear reactor (not power it) but it came to nothing because the amount of shielding required to protect the crew. The Soviet Union had two programs (from memory). One was a hoax that had the Americans running round in circles. The other was a modified Bear with a reactor in its bomb bay. The only way it could be proven feasible was to sacrifice the health of the crew by minimising the shielding. So until “Mr Fusion” arrives the power of the atom remains out of reach.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Technofreak

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#2765968 24-Aug-2021 13:31

Dinga96:

Hydrogen may still be considered to have a question mark as to its future in aviation but these guys seem to think it will be a goer.I do not know how this will work.They appear to be serious about the future developement of Hyrogen delivery to airports and to aircraft,not much detail though .What do you all think.

Universal Hydrogen to convert 15-plus airliners to run on H2 pods (newatlas.com)

This was mention back on page 11 of this thread. https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=162&topicid=288766&page_no=11#2760195

Will they succeed and make a commercial go of it? I don't know. I think they have a much higher chance of success than the like of Lillium with their EVTOL and Heart with their ES19.

They're starting with a proven airframe. All they're doing is putting a new (different) propulsion system into the aircraft. There'll be some challenges but I see no reason why it won't fly successfully. Just a matter of if they can make it economic.

Right at the moment I think the returns on alternative fuels for aviation are rather small. The development costs are high for a small market, plus aviation creates a very small amount of the total world emissions.

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Rikkitic

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#2766084 24-Aug-2021 16:53

Dingbatt:

Several attempts have been made to achieve nuclear powered flight. The Americans modified a B-36 to carry a nuclear reactor (not power it) but it came to nothing because the amount of shielding required to protect the crew. The Soviet Union had two programs (from memory). One was a hoax that had the Americans running round in circles. The other was a modified Bear with a reactor in its bomb bay. The only way it could be proven feasible was to sacrifice the health of the crew by minimising the shielding. So until “Mr Fusion” arrives the power of the atom remains out of reach.

With modern technology would it not be possible to design an effective nuclear-powered drone and just not bother with shielding? Isn't this sort of what they did with the Voyager probe? If we are talking military here I guess we don't need to worry too much about the niceties of international treaties.

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#2766101 24-Aug-2021 17:11

Rikkitic:

Dingbatt:

Several attempts have been made to achieve nuclear powered flight. The Americans modified a B-36 to carry a nuclear reactor (not power it) but it came to nothing because the amount of shielding required to protect the crew. The Soviet Union had two programs (from memory). One was a hoax that had the Americans running round in circles. The other was a modified Bear with a reactor in its bomb bay. The only way it could be proven feasible was to sacrifice the health of the crew by minimising the shielding. So until “Mr Fusion” arrives the power of the atom remains out of reach.

With modern technology would it not be possible to design an effective nuclear-powered drone and just not bother with shielding? Isn't this sort of what they did with the Voyager probe? If we are talking military here I guess we don't need to worry too much about the niceties of international treaties.

If I recall the Voyager was unmanned and not operating near any known human inhabitation. Therefore radiation isn't much of a problem.

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#2766141 24-Aug-2021 18:01

Technofreak:

If I recall the Voyager was unmanned and not operating near any known human inhabitation. Therefore radiation isn't much of a problem.

If your intention is to kill people, it shouldn't be much of a problem either.

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#2766361 25-Aug-2021 10:10

Rikkitic:

With modern technology would it not be possible to design an effective nuclear-powered drone and just not bother with shielding? Isn't this sort of what they did with the Voyager probe? If we are talking military here I guess we don't need to worry too much about the niceties of international treaties.

Feasible, not practical.
Nuclear reactors are effectively Steam engines powered by Uranium rather than coal.
ie, they are heavy .

The voyager space probe's RTG was 160W ,relatively low power . Not enough to drive a delivery drone of any significance ,
they can be made bigger , but then you have the issue of weight . If unsheilded , it could fry electronics on the drone .

And there is the small issue of what would happen if/when nuke powered planes/drones crash.

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#2766363 25-Aug-2021 10:12

USA in the 50-s (I think) did fly a reactor around in a plane for giggles but ICBM's made it redundant.

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#2766395 25-Aug-2021 10:43

RobDickinson:

USA in the 50-s (I think) did fly a reactor around in a plane for giggles but ICBM's made it redundant.

See my post 6 above yours. (#2765966)

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Technofreak

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#2766417 25-Aug-2021 11:01

RobDickinson:

USA in the 50-s (I think) did fly a reactor around in a plane for giggles but ICBM's made it redundant.

It was more than just for giggles, they were quite serious about making a nuclear powered aircraft....... for a while.

As first mentioned here https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=162&topicid=288766&page_no=16#2765966

They did around 50 flights involving over 200 hours with a reactor hung on the bomb bay of a Convair aircraft with the crew encapsulated inside a 11 ton lead lined capsule. That reactor did not power the aircraft but was used to prove the capabilities of the radiation protection for the crew etc. The intention was to build at least one fully functioning nuclear powered aircraft, the Convair X6. The project was scrapped before the X 6 was built due to several reasons, the very slow development of the nuclear powered aircraft, the achievement of supersonic flight with jet engines, the risk of a crash and the radiation fall out from that and the introduction of ICBM's.

The Russians also apparently had a similar programme where they claimed to have flown a Tupolev Tu-95LAL with a reactor in the bomb bay. They also claimed that they had a nuclear powered aircraft flying, this turned out to be a hoax to fool the USA.

Even though the idea was abandoned lessons were learned that were useful in the US space programme.

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#2766446 25-Aug-2021 11:27

Technofreak:

Even though the idea was abandoned lessons were learned that were useful in the US space programme.

One good idea they had was to hire elderly Air Force crews to pilot the hypothetical nuclear planes, because they would die before radiation exposure gave them fatal cancers.

Technofreak

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#2767063 26-Aug-2021 15:42

Don't think these guys have been mentioned yet.

https://www.eviation.co

Originally slated to deliver their first aircraft next year to Cape Air. Boy are Cape Air going to busy flying all these new electric aircraft from all of these different E-aircraft manufacturers who say Cape Air is a customer. Though it might appear from one of the news stories linked on the website that Cape Air are no longer a customer.

The prototype hasn't flown yet so a 2022 or even a 2023 delivery timeframe doesn't seem likely. The certification process is likely to take some time.

They've had one battery fire so far and the expected range keeps reducing.

Going to be interesting. I'm sure it will get to fly, whether or not it actually reaches the market or is a commercial success is another story.

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