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Scaling Mach Effect Propulsion
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M-E and the thrusts from M-E devices are 2 different things. The thrusts from the current UFG design (Woodward design) noted in this paper scale with the cube of frequency, and the frequency is limited only by the ionic limits of the material or “phase angle” that describes how quickly the ceramic can move. It is limited to the low Ghz region, so we're looking to start with an ability to scale up this thrust efficiency many orders magnitude. The current test article operates at 38kHz, so at least 5 orders magnitude frequency. The simplest reason for not building test items in the microwave region is that the electrical engineering for such power systems is really “black magic” indulged in by the best PhD EE's. Without a real staff with such people onboard, Ghz UFG's are not an option.
The thrust efficiency also scales with the cube of the k of the ceramic used. The PZT in the current test items is cheap Steiner-Martin stuff available on EBay. It has a k of about 1,000. By contrast, the PMN-15 available from TRS has a k value of ~ 20,000-25,000. Simple substitution would yield an increase of thrust of about 8,000X.
The trouble of course is, there is no such thing as “simple substitution” when you are doing a pure research program. This work reported wasn't R&D. Future work with PMN-PT will be closer to R&D, but it's important to recognize that for instance, the PZT used in the past is a piezo-active material that possesses both a 1w piezo bulk acceleration response, and a 2w electrostrictive response. The current design makes use of both of these. PMN-PT is an electrostrictor with no characterization available about it's 1w piezo response, so using it may require a new design.
See more and subscribe to NextBigFuture at 2012-08-16 03:21:17 Source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/08/scaling-mach-effect-propulsion.html
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