NASA has yet to invest its billions on cryogenically cold energy for VTOL flight
Key to the future of flight, may be a re-direction of the very few dollars NASA can spend at universities and impoverished start up companies like JOBY Aviation (now worth billions). BUT JoeBen Bevirt, the man who built Joby’s brilliant electric powered aircraft, is now looking very seriously into the use of hydrogen as an energy source, since powering his brilliantly designed flying taxicab (with batteries) is no longer looking all that smart. YES, JOBY and their key investor: Toyota, (and its R&D gang working on hydrogen fueled automobiles), may just be the best member of a consortium that will make things fly with Hydrogen. The caution is that the Toyota Mirai (based on a heavy hydrogen-fuel-cell powered “hybrid” propulsion system which necessarily needs a battery boost in order to keep the specific energy specs (horsepower) on their “automotive” H2 fuel cell down at economically practical levels) required THREE, composite graphite fiber, high pressure tanks to provide sufficient total energy to stay business competitive with Elon Musk’s Tesla marketing blowout. Very LITTLE of the Toyota contribution fits well into the needs of an electric VTOL (except for a few billion dollars of investment in a factory that claims it will soon be running at full “automobile industry” manufacturing infrastructures. Lots of high pressure (10,000 psi) tanks to stay aloft for a long time, or to run at high speeds (Joby’s BIG claim to fame), or to travel lots of miles between recharging; is NOT as good as two or three brilliantly engineered liquid-hydrogen cryogenic-cold tanks.. The point is: NASA (especially Kennedy Space Port) knows a LOT about keeping LOTS of liquid hydrogen happy, given Zero-boil-off constant refrigeration, double wall vacuum insulation, supported by brilliant Multi-Layer-Insulation (MLI) material techniques, and as well as buying infinitely light pulse-tube cryocooler refrigeration units that will be guaranteed to run for 10 years in deep space. What NASA has intentionally (lack of money) ignored up to the present is the application of that Cryo tech to heavy lift VTOLs powered by LH2.
LH2 CRYO-COPTER GUTS
SHOWN HERE IS THE FIRST DESIGN FOR LH2 TANKING INTEGRATED WITH A SUPER-CONDUCTING MOTOR DRIVING A SLOW, QUIET SINGLE LIFT FAN FOR FUTURE VTOLS
WHO ARE THE CONSORTIA CONTRIBUTORS?
Why must the electric motors be made of super-conductors?.
This “HUB” is the digital home of diverse innovators working for the next 10 years, cooperatively on the same, singular mission objective. That is not to save the global atmosphere, but to deliver “EMERGENCY VEHICLES” needed to deal with all the disasters that will be created by climate change. These innovators (gov agencies, Universities, big and small corporations and especially AGGRESIVE investors) will be using funds from various charitable R&D trusts as well as tax free city/state development “bonds” to be sold over the next decade.
Most VTOL innovations exploit the “toy-quad-copter” concept of multiple motors (& propellers) based on the high power-per-kilo-of-weight available from permanent-magnet DC motors. Key to that aircraft design strategy has been the 4, or 5 or 6 (or more) “DC-power plants changing the current (RPM speed) to the motors, and/or changing the prop’s angle of attack. That works well for staying stable in a hover mode, but that is energetically very inefficient, so all VTOLs now promote their rapid transition of leaving the hover configuration (for take off) and moving forward horizontally. The Joby aircraft tilts its well designed lift-fan propellers, from vertical to horizontal for efficient forward flight. Others simply shut down completely the multi-motor “lift function” and stability of many horizontal motors, and at sufficient altitude, turn on a forward thrust(s) to enable typical “wing” structures to provide efficient lift, for maximum travel distance on a given Gigajoule of stored energy. Liquid Hydrogen will change that dynamic. It permits a single (or 2 or 3, or 4) lift fan(s) of much LARGER dimension, with LOTS of lift fan blades (more than 5), to provide excellent HOVER efficiency by SLOWLY rotating the unique thrust-fan which, in turn, slows the downdraft airflow and hence the level of noise during near-ground hover. Adding to that, the best aerodynamic efficiency would be to put the lift-fan(s) into a duct, and the best of that is to have two counter-rotating fan-discs in a proper ducting (akin to Bell’s solution). The end result: SUSTAINED HOVERING EFFICIENCY, especially with lots of stored energy, is the real breakthrough.
WHAT CAN WE SAY HERE? (QUOTE STUFF)
The history of electric powered VTOL flight was in the hands of Mike Hirschberg, editor of “Vertifilte” the association magazine/website for the Vertical Flight Society. (he is seated third from the right (dark business jacket) at the table of innovators who launched the TRANSFORMATIONAL VTOL consortium. On the far left seat of the table, (in his white “smoking”) is the “GODFATHER” of hydrogen powered VTOL aircraft R&D, based on nearly 50 years of obsessive commitment to the subject, starting in 1970 when working effectively as a “venture capitalist” in the Central Research Labs of the 3M company (which has had a LOT to do with the materials issue of cryogenic insulation, fuel cell PEMs, aircraft fabrication adhesives, etc.)
Some Useful links
To be available soon
Tags Cloud
BREAKTHROUGHS INDUSTRY LIQUID H2 PUBLICATIONS UNIVERSITY R&D USA CONTRIBUTIONS VTOLs
Latest Posts
