Uncovering China's New Electric Plasma Jet Engine
2020 ж. 26 Шіл.
4 379 820 Рет қаралды
A team of researchers from Wuhan University in China recently released a paper describing how they have managed to create a jet engine that runs on 100% electric power and the air around it! This video explains how this works in comparison to ion thrusters and conventional jet engines! I hope you enjoy!
Ducted fan clip from SINTRATEC:
• 3D printed Electric Du...
Research paper:
aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063...
Jet engine video:
• Jet Engine, How it works?
Ion thruster video:
• New NASA Ion Thruster ...
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Thanks for all the support on this video! I really enjoy reading everyone's opinion on this new technology. However, PLEASE keep comments related to the video topic and not about personal opinions of China. Many thanks, Ryan!
You don't like colonized in earth?
model s has a 100 kwh battery pack so not sure you would want to dump all of it on a 10 mins at max thrust . also thrust requirements can be minimal based on type of aircraft . and since there is no oxygen requirements it can fly at much higher altitudes . so in theory you could have family sized aircraft with inter state travel capability , similar performance to a helicopter.
@Jau Tang wow great work sir . i have few question on the designs .
What if the gas being ionized was Hydrogen?
@@arvedludwig3584 I for one am able to discern between the chinese people and thier government. The people are nice from what I have heard. Thier government is just a small fraction of them that is running a authoritarian ethnostate against the will of the majority. I have no grudge against chinese scientists doing thier work in the scientific community, which is pretty international anyways. Science is about working together to gain unbiased insight into the world we all live in! 🤗❤🔬🌍🌎🌏🔭
Now we just need a nuclear fusion reactor and we are ready to go.
Ask Iron Man, maybe u get one 😅
Das some Tony stark shit
XPgamingMASTER they going to put these in the new new Tesla’s
Lockheed is currently working on one which could fit inside of an aircraft.
It doesn't matter who we are what matters is our plan
This is the best thing to come out of Wuhan since....er, nevermind.
They are both airborne thought. This should be dubbed the China Flew.
@@roeland1205 lol
🤣
Dout it
Hot tubs for pet bats?
Whenever I hear "Wuhan" I get flashbacks and this ain't even over yet.
…AND it‘s probably not even CLOSE to being over: most estimates - although the info’s being kept pretty low-key, so as not to depress people - place the earliest date of when things will start returning to “normal” at around March of 2022… IF the virus doesn’t mutate beyond the capabilities of our current vaccines, AND normal may not even mean the same thing anymore: working from home is probably here to stay, as are masks (not around the clock, but there’ll be a stigma around sneezing or sniffling in public mask-less), and the death of family businesses and local economies will mean corporations have an even greater stranglehold on us than before, unless we band together and do something about it. (I say we exile Charles Koch, break up Koch Industries, and distribute all that money to re-open mom-and-pop stores worldwide.) And this was just one pandemic: if the population keeps expanding, and if we keep denuding the planet of its wild areas and species and releasing God-knows-what into the atmosphere, and if we continue over-consuming half-course of antibiotics when we don’t need them and lathering antibacterial soap over everything when it’s unnecessary, thus helping bacteria and viruses build their resistance to our remedies and grow more deadly, the pandemics are going to start hitting harder and more frequently, and we’ll be defenseless against them. Whee! I mean, it had to happen sometime… but I betcha never thought you’d see the end of civilization in your own lifetime, didja?
Wuhan is a patsy. Tell me why Wuhan is living more freely than the US right now? Why aren’t they “suffering” from this lockdown like we are?
Because they know that they have to wear mask
@@stevenwang79 yep
Epidemics that follow close to the course of what this should generally have around 560 days. We have likely greatly increased that time because of Lockdowns and other measures simply slowing it down.
And that's going to take a HUGE amount of electricity. A quote from one of the scientists working on the project. Our results demonstrated that such a jet engine based on microwave air plasma can be a potentially viable alternative to the conventional fossil fuel jet engine,” he concluded. More work is needed to improve the prototype’s efficiency before it can be tried in a full-sized jet, and getting enough electricity to the engine to create plasma could also be a challenge. But if it can work on a large scale, it could usher in an era of guilt-free flying.
Yeah considering microwave ovens can take 1500W of power, it seems very wishful. Power consumption is also a concern for electric propulsion
i guess you'll need an arc-reactor huh
Batteries are advancing every single month
@@gratefuldoge8598 no they aren't. Tesla's newest battery is the same energy density as the ones before it. They just made them cheaper to produce and make less heat. That doesn't help for air travel. For air travel they need fuel that is massively lighter, like a factor of 2. Basically it's a pipe dream till solid state batteries come to be. Plus let's be honest here, cleaning the airliner industry is kinda just a waste. Air planes only make up 2% of all CO2 emissions. It's significant, but there's only so much lithium to go around so might as well just use that for cars and solar backup. Makes far more sense for planes to use hydrogen in the future as hydrogen is even more energy dense than gas so it makes way more sense with the weight limits. Batteries make sense for cars and trucks, but industrial transport like boats and planes make way more sense to use hydrogen. Though of course there are already nuclear cruisers.
Skylancer727 im not talking bout tesla
I wrote an article regarding this very technology years ago. If someone would ping this comment in a couple days I'll post the blog entry. My server needs repaired a bit since I moved domains.
Cool
ping pong
peng
Ping
Ping?
I worked on something like this at Boeing in the 1980's for other applications. Too much power consumption was the result then and now. A magnetron is about 65% efficient and all you are doing is heating air. It is more efficient if you are going to make a controlled plasma is to seed jet fuel with potassium salts (or ammonium salts) and you also get heated ionized air. Ionization gives some superior control issues, nut is lower in efficiency as energy goes into making the plasma. The lower temperatures push larger volumes for the same fuel and is more thermodynamically (energy) efficient. minimum energy into a reaction mass is .5m+v^2 in joules is the energy and thrust is m*v in newton seconds . The slower the reaction mass is the more thrust per unit of energy ( 2v newton-seconds per joule). the trick is to speed up more mass with less velocity and get more efficiency. that is how fan jets work to be more efficient than turbojets or ram jets. This system looks to be less efficient than any of the fan jet turbo jet or ram jet. Rockets use a different measure of efficiency use of MASS where jets measure ENERGY efficiency in terms of watts per newton of thrust.
We were thinking the same thing at Domino's
And that's why they pay you big bucks.
Well said! As an A+P tech at a major airline, this concept of a turbine engine running on electrically superheated air instead of a fuel/ air combustion chamber struck me, when I first read about the theory in a trade publication, as one of those "works great on a lab bench, but is completely impractical in real life" ideas. I would imagine that the battery system required to move a typical mid-sized airliner, say an Airbus A320, over even short commuter flight length flights would be so massive that it would displace much of the passenger/ cargo space. We can get away with in cars now, but even those new super batteries can't begin to approach the energy density of a full tank of petroleum.
@@Wayne--O I bet Starbucks will beat you to it.
@@Wayne--O the key is using air instead of Pizza in the microwave.
When he said WUHAN... Definitely check the comments section 😂
@Robert Miller even if it's true, it's still uncool man
@Robert Miller totally agreed, they shouldn't engineer the virus in the first place
@Robert Miller maybe you and your country should follow science, wear a mask and abide by social distancing advice before defaming China virus. They didn't engineer it. China has the virus under control and your country has not. YOUR FAULT!
@@KOTAKVISUAL prove it troll.
@@KOTAKVISUAL it wasn't engineered idiot.
The cadence of your narrative is much better then the often manic pace of many other video narrations. Interesting stuff and it seems clear that creating propulsive force from electricity has a long way to go become commercially viable. Flying drones powered by this technology may be the starting point.
I fly my private jet with hamsters running in metal cylindrical cages. I feed them super foods and espresso. So far the results have been excellent.
Why would you feed them portuguese newspapers?
@@monsieur.Chipmunk Hello brother. We have to eat. A few ideas. Get some chickens. Simple to build a cage in the yard. Fresh eggs every day. You can get food scraps free. Hospital cafeteria. They eat anything. You can grow wheat grass easily and juice it. Super good. Get all those green nutrients. Start baking your own bread. It's easy. There are rabbits called speckled giants...they grow to maturity in 6 weeks..tastes like chicken. Canning is easy. Good luck.
@@brucewilson1958 Thanks for the advice. I love fresh eyes everyday, they taste like jelly.
Feed 'em crack smoke and watch the RPM's rise!!!
What sort of thrust to cage rpm you getting out of that? I’ve got 72 hamsters knocking out just under 3600kg of thrust. Been tweeking it for around 6 months now, some fancy electronics have shown hamster 35 as the weakest link in my engine. May have to replace 35, or “fat Dave” tomorrow, got some good little runners lined up to replace him.
Video:"a team from Wuhan University" 2020: let me stop you right there
Got me too
🤣🤣
Yeah i was like "HOL UP"
I wouldn't underestimate China , will not be long until it overtakes America as world's largest economy. Not just my words , Check out Elon Musk's view www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/elon-musk-urges-military-to-prioritize-innovation-in-space.html
The world seems to have had more than enough of "things from Wuhan" in 2020. Prior to this year most people around the world had never heard of Wuhan, and now it will be forever linked to the COVID -19 Pandemic and bat viruses.
they invented Tony Starks Patented Repulsor Lift Technology.
Legit.
@August Landmesser you thought.? 🤣🤣🤣
I think you're referring to the first repulsor cannon
I made a design very similar to this awhile back.
@August Landmesser Sike, you thought
As an engineer who likes data quality, I would like to see a few more points for those straight line correlations. But good work on developing this. It would be cool to see this be scaled up for sure. I'm thinking a normal fan blade like on the front of a normal jet engine could be used and rear turbine blade to drive it from the hot gasses.
Would you like fries with that also?
a fusion reactor powered aircraft would be really cool. this device is almost like a plasma torch turned up to 11
Flyingwigs Cool description!
Nice. Have you heard of torch ship concept, by the way?
America tried a fusion powered plane but flopped due to weight and potential safety hazards back in the day
@@humdilla576 that was fission, not fusion. decaying radioactive fuel rods to generate heat to make steam. fusion is still not yet fully operational, but in theory can be scaled down to manageable sizes.
would be stupid to run the engine electric tho
Interesting. Now we just have to figure out fitting a nuclear reactor to the plane.
The Americans did that during the cold war i think (as you can tell it wasn't commercialized) look it up its a fun watch
@@daylenhigman8680 So did the Russians.
Russians already working on it.
Not feasible. The shielding needed to make the reactor safe will be too heavy for an aircraft. Also, imagine what happen if the plane crash.
@@fadlya.rahman4113 Indeed. It didn't stop them trying though. I believe the Russians actually flew one of their test flights with the reactor running (not powering the plane though). Basically, ICBMs put an end to this madness anyway.
I am glad this technology is being looked into again. In the early '80 research was halted due to lack energy storage capabilities and keeping those power cells warm enough at high altitude, and available materials and complimenting technologies of the time.
Why store the energy? Just build a nuclear reactor that can generate the electricity on the fly.
Isn't that like overkill?
thank you so much for explaining the actually working of an electric jet its good to understand all the tesla channels i've seen never go into how it might actually work so it was very frustrating .
So this is essentially an electric ducted fan with an afterburner running of microwave heated plasma. Have I gotten that right?
minus the motor of a normal ducted fan. This is mare like modifying an existing jet engine. In theory, you could replace the fuel systems with an air compression system and microwave units. The fuel jets( the sprayers that spray jet fuel and fuel combustion in the center of the engine) in the engine could be replaced by these plasma jet tips instead. The hot jet of plasma would replace the old hot jet of jet fuel. The engine then could work as normal, sucking air in, compressing it, using the plasma to combust it and shoot it out the back. Electricity and air pressure would be provided by the engines when they run. When on the ground or in case of an engine stall, power could even be provided by the APU Jet engine located in the tail, as it provides power and air pressure when the main engines arnt running. Even ground crew can provide power and air pressure, as this tech already exists in most commercial planes and airports anyway. It takes air pressure to start normal jet engines as it is and also provides pressure to run a/c systems and deicing systems. so integration wouldn't be as hard as it seems. In the air, jet engines of today already compress air, just because of how a jet engine works. So air pressure is sipped from that during flight to run all those systems.
Seems readable to replace fuel tanks with batteries and use the plasma her to spin a compressor turbine just like a fuel burning jet. Might have shorter range and cargo capacity but you'd only need chargers at each end of a flight. Schedule flights to coecide with charging times possibly?
@@justins.1283 Wouldn't even need a compressor turbine, modern jets sip off of the compressor turbine the engine already has
Its really a jet engine with the fuel replaced by a microwave heater.
@@tonystanley5337 YUP
As a retired airline pilot I've always been interested in advancements in aviation. In the last half century we've seen aerodynamics, avionics, and construction methods improve but propulsion improvements have lagged. Light category aircraft have benefited from improved engine reliability but the high bypass fan jet engine has been the workhorse of the airliners and seems likely to remain so for a long time.
Beating their incredible efficiency and the energy density of jet fuel is one hell of a hurdle. Got me thinking though. I'd imagine, unlike history, civil aviation will be the first adopters of this. Unless fast charging and energy densities _really_ increase for batteries, the military is going to want the faster turn-around times of just shoving fuel in the aircraft. (Though I'm sure the US Navy is already looking at this really hard. The newest carriers have a ton of extra capacity for energy generation and distribution for future tech. Electric aircraft would reduce logistics requirements a fair bit.)
@Robert Slackware lmao, no. Just no. Literally no one banned anyone from pursuing cold fusion. It just _literally doesn't work._ Except for muon-catalyzed fusion, which is in fact a thing. It also requires you to have a particle accelerator handy. Not exactly practical, and farther from net positive energy than the worst tokamaks.
I remember as a kid i was always asking why no one build plasma engines, it seemed so doable. And now after years upon years of imagining what it would be like and playing around the idea in 3d modelling program, now China makes the first steps. Same goes for space mining. Why nobody tried before until now China is making the first steps again. Its kinda weird.
@@EddyKorgo Don't mistake being the first to publish something that might work with the first time it's been tried, or even developed.
@@EddyKorgo It's cos of the cultural shift in the 1960s. Western Society turned its back on the incredible scientific advances that propelled humans to the moon, and turned towards "the arts", hence we went from walking on the moon to not even being able to achieve low Earth orbit without using someone else's shuttle. When our young 'uns start studying science again, instead of "arts", we will stop falling backwards like the Western world did after the fall of the Roman Empire. We should learn from the South East Asians, who went from agricultural societies to leading the world in technology in a few short decades. A very inspiring bunch of chaps. Cheerio!
Kerbals: hey, I've seen this one. Its a classic.
What do you mean you've seen it? it's brand new.
@Edzel Arciga I'm just shocked how he doesn't know of kerbals
@Qwerty wait why is this a wooosh?
It would be a cool mod. A jet engine that can work on any atmospheric gas and requires awful lots of power.
@Qwerty...
Lakey inspired on the background sounding really good
Hello, the clip at 0:30 is from our 3D printed EDF video. We would appreciate if you included the original as a source in your video description. Many thanks.
If he doesn’t reply within a month you can file a copyright strike
@@Unknown12462 hah
You're asking the Chinese to give credit??....Hahahahahahahahaha, hahahahahahaha (takes a deep breath), hahahahahahahaha.
Replying so you can get boosted up in the comments
Same
Excellent video. Fascinating topic presented clearly with simple graphics. Hope to hear more about this plasma jet engine in the future!
World in 2100: all electrical Emp bomb: im about to end this mans whole career
Or just a nuke. They produce an EMP burst and destruction. But for real the only way all electric, which would be great, would work is producing said electricity with a nuclear reactor fission or fusion. Granted the materials for a fission reactor is finite but the energy potential is HUGE and fusion reactors are still just a theory. This means we need to quit with the stupid politics and do something that would actually be beneficial to the world.
@@Ronin_72 even better: both!
@@Ronin_72 **fusion reactors with a net energy gain that don't use gravity are still theoretical**
well, normal bombs destroy gas powered engines...
@@paddlesaddlelad1881 Yes, but a nuke produces an emp pulse. Unless it's a mechanically injected diesel or carbereted gasoline engine the emp will disable it with out any physical damage unless it's close enough to the blast radius well..... most things will be destroyed. My point was nuclear energy yields huge amounts of potential energy and as of 2021 the only way that electricity is produced that would keep up with demand in a all electric world is nuclear. Electrical equipment such as water heaters and furnaces require more KWh than gallons of fuel/oil (or pounds of natral gas/coal) to match the same BTU output as a fossle fuel equivalent. This is why mostly small houses, apartments and manufactured homes use electric water heaters and furnaces but if the materials used to produce said electricity yielded more energy potential (provided there is a way to store spent nuclear material safely) it would matter less how how much energy/materials it took to produce x amout or BTUs of heat.
Very interesting. You should exclude the 4N of thrust from the compressed air in your calculation because, as you mentioned, the 400W microwave power consumption does not include power for compressing the air, so the energy balance is not right. Still a promising development after you factor that in though.
" ...a team of researchers from Wuhan University..." This is gonna be a hard sell.
The ones that got er laid off from a local lab found something to do...
"2020 The Sequel"
@@ThomasD1962 get ready
Probably developed by ex Stanford grads
I was thinking the same thing. As soon as I heard both China and Wuhan...I immediately thought...well...shit.
Decades ago the Army examined the potential of an "electro-thermal" in which plasma was introduced into the chamber to improve combustion of the conventional propellant. Sound speed of the gas limits the velocity of the projectile so the plasma "bootstraps" the process. I would suggest a microwave augmented system might improve combustion efficiency, reduce emissions and make the stored energy issue manageable
but... that's exactly what this is.
@@Dudeman9339 I was under the impression that the plasma was made of compressed air and not fuel
i remember a lot of talk about "beaming" energy with lasers across vast distances. it might be plausible to have something like a satellite network with the proper lasers. make them like a solar farm, maybe? its been years since i've looked at that tech, but if batt life is the underlying issue with airline distance, it might be useful to provide more energy to the system without stopping to charge. could probably get away with a ground based network of stations, as well. just plan new paths for the lines so they come within range to catch a batt boost.
The good thing about electric flight is you can use a form of KERS to recover the converted energy back from potential kinetic energy back to electricity during los of altitude.
Whatever is moving those 'Tic Tac' UFO's around... that's the propulsion system we need. 👽
Element 115
We probably have it in some top secret bunker lol
Tr3b
I'm guessing some form of Alcubierre drive. Once we discover how to produce exotic matter, the universe is practically ours. It can even be used to create wormholes.
The *[redacted]* element
wow this really intrested me sencee In working on a modle plasma jet engine
A breakthrough in battery technology is on the horizon with solid state batteries, this combined with enhancements to this ionisation process and hopefully optimisations with aircraft weight due to new nano materials being used will surely, one day, give us a truly environmentally friendly way of flying. Of course, it only takes one spanner in the works and we are still left with the old jet engines :(
That was a awesome veiw thanks for the efforts!
I just flew to China to check your story , my arms are really tired
Everyone: “suppressed tech blah bla blah” Me: thafucc is that flag above the jet tunnel?!
Literally read this comment as the flag popped up on screen and almost spit out my coffee 😂😂
says: 177th Fighter Wing
Finally someone noticed it too ahha
I'm going to put this in my fanfic
The engine isnt the problem of electric plane. Energy dencity of the battery is the problem. You can have all the power you want. But without good battery you go nowhere. Edit: we need hydrogen planes. Forget about the plasma thing, that is stupid for planes
they can already fly an electric plane using a series of laser beams for a power source, from the ground..
@@THOMASTHESAILORTruly? Riding on the wings of lasers. Skull and Shark playing in the background.
@@KF1 , No , Silly.. A powerful laser beam hits some kind of solar panel on the bottom of the plane and provides massive electrical power to the plane.. It's been done and tested already..
@@THOMASTHESAILOR yes I got that. Search "laserhawk" and you understand. It's motion turned to music.
@@KF1 , Unfortunately, I don't watch much Hollywood.. There is a real, genuine laser propulsion system invented a few years ago... A laser from the ground pointed at an aircraft.. It works..
Hmmm.. like so many other futuristic breakthroughs, this one seems dependent on the mythical power source that exceeds the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels while NOT also producing carbon emissions or other output that can be considered “dangerous”.
Graphene
Hat Kid 2.0, right. Graphene is another one of those promising technologies we’re still waiting for. So maybe you’ve got the answer there. In about 175-180 years from now, this will all be working.
@@thinkingoutloud6741 Graphene quality and pricing rapidly rapidly improve though. But yeah, graphene batteries currently don't store as much energy per kg, as fuel would.
/X/EN understood. First generation, and not capable of pushing an electric turbine jet. I’m not saying it’ll never happen. I’m just saying it’s a developing technology that’s been “developing” for a while and will be another long while before it develops enough to support an electric turbine.
/X/EN, I think that is realistic. Just consider the rate of technological advances since 1920. There were some advances that moved things forward in spurts of advancement, but as you get closer to today, you see advancements continuously slowing down. Researchers are focused on polishing the gems of past breakthroughs far more than they are pushing for new breakthroughs. I think it is way OVER optimistic to believe this will be a usable technology in less than 100 years.
Nicely explained. Thank you.
The power storage/generation technology absolutely exists. I was told about it by a person who worked for a company called TRW well over 20 years ago.
what we need is a space ship
We can barely get into the air and land accurately yet.
@@1skeeta4u ikr
@@1skeeta4u spaceships will be built on the Moon obviously.
It's not 1960 anymore, bigger better faster are not the foundation of 21st century technology, efficiency, cost and sustainability are, boring I know, but we get much better value out of it
No we need fusion reactors and small once at that
This is incredible! Now we just need full geapbene batteries and it's a go!
Very good explanation. I subscribed. Well done thank you see more of you soon.
They definitely need to tweak the flux capacitor.
Haha.they also need to fix those starboard power couplings. They're always failing.
Good Video. Like your thinking out the thrust vs weight to determine if this is any where in the range of feasibility. Haven't checked your numbers and process but the logic is clear. Additional critique of the original study: Innovative measurement but no proof of calibration in the paper. Device could be producing more thrust per power (or less). Something tells me it is not far off. Good opportunity to add to what the authors have started. Also, the shape of the tube and other adjustments may add efficiency, another opportunity to add value.
Thanks for your comment! I agree there was a lack of detail in parts of the paper! I also imagine there is a lot of room for improving the efficiency too, I will be interested to see what other researchers or industry players do with this!
The design looks simple enough though, so peer reviewing should be fairly straightforward as anyone can build this in a physics lab.
would adding an alternator to the engine be enough to power it?
@@jebeandiah No, the energy to power this will have to come from an external source. I'm still skeptical whether this will be more efficient than a ducted fan or compressor attached to a simple electric motor.
why will it have to come from an outside source?
Vanadium can be used to increase battery density hence increasing the capacity, step up transformers can be used to increase the output as well
Could you combine the outputs of both this electric plasma jet engine (EPJ) and a hydrogen gas engine from using water thus having a hybrid engine where the plasma also provides ignition for the hydrogen providing extra thrust? Might be too hard in practice.
This is cool I plan on becoming an aerospace engineer in the future can't wait to see what I'll be working on/with in the future
That sounds awesome, I think there will be a lot of interesting technologies over the next 25 years! I have a few videos on the future of aerospace planned for future videos!
Ziroth commercializing electric flight is one of my main priorities when I run for US Republican President in 2028. I want to make the US a carbon negative country and I can’t do it on my own. I am an environmentalist and conservationist. I am not tony stark.
Do not infringe upon the free source information that flows into your brain.the other way Tesla would have said it was the secret of the universe is 3 6 and 9
Doctor Sault .... are you ok?
@@DylanBegazo Sir DB? absolutely a hundred and 1% great if you don't understand look at some of the KZhead videos on Tesla. Also called the keys to the universe by Tesla
The discovery and use of plasma was man's greatest and most useful discovery. FIRE!
Isn't amazing what we can do now and gigantic future that lays ahead in the very neat future. Your video is great and thought provoking. Thanks
Well explained thank you. I feel pretty nervous about buckling myself to a giant battery pack in the air though. Hopefully we'll get something better than lithium soon.
The "electric plasma" is not new! It has been used for long as an electric plasma cutter, in services cutting iron and other hard metals.
I wonder why people panic just because it's China. It may be that the information was obtained by hacking into the PC of a Western researcher many years ago, but I wish they would stop their habit of unconditionally praising anything Chinese.
This is a propulsion engine, not a metal cutter. There's a difference.
@@SC-zq6cu : The idea itself has existed since the 70s. Nevertheless, it's a sub-par chinese derivative of plasma engine research. No one knows if or when it takes off, or not.
@@honyasenyou It most likely won't work due to the fact that batteries are heavy and will stay that way due to chemistry and physics
exactly
Maybe the work on "Aneutronic Nuclear Fusion" will come to fruition sooner rather than later. That would provide a perfect power source.
If you achieved that technology wouldn't you just use a jet of super heated air or steam rather than the extra step to generate electricity?
@@grantfrith9589 The whole point of Aneutroic Fusion is that it produces electricity directly.
@@lon3don Oops. My apologies. I'm not familiar with that technology. How do they perceive that they create a circuit? Or are you thinking the plasma could be directed straight from the reactor somehow?
@@grantfrith9589 The process of aneutronic fusion produces high energy charged particles which can be used directly for electrical energy generation. I personally think it is not possible to realize this in the next 100 years. The only options i see for a plausible system is a new process to generate power, that we are not aware of yet.
@@anti-fz9be Yeah, that was what Wikipedia said. What it didn't say was how to harness the radiation in a useful manner. Of course that is only a secondary issue to the sustained reaction problem.
Very nice and informative video 👍🏻👍🏻
this looks to me that they are igniting compressed air with high-frequency current in a waveguide. is the thrust coming from the compressed air, or from the ignition of that air?
Wuhan university hey? Hmmm. Gotta be honest, I wasn't a fan of the last world wide trend that came out of Wuhan 😅
from a virology lab nonetheless, hope it was an accident 😛
Comedic genius sir. Lets see the Universities funding records.
Yeah... they can keep it
@The Infidel You're a horrible sad person who will die alone and young while everyone else thrives, congrats 👏
The Infidel AKA natural selection
I can see this as being a supplemental energy source to jet airliners improving the efficiency. Interesting information. Plasma thrust certainly needs to be investigated more.
Thanks for the review 🙏
The most feasible way for this to work would be to array a series of these plasma “thrusters” in an annular form similar to how bypass jet engines use annular combustors to drive a series of turbines that in turn power a large fan and compressor. Therefore allowing the possibility to scale this technology more properly and requiring less energy to power such engine. Theoretically at least. Also maybe use an on board hydrogen fuel cell to provide the energy needed? Keep in mind the ambient air entering the engine has potential energy to power an additional generator for possibly extra power and range.
The question has been, for the 40 years this idea has bounced around, is where the electricity comes from.
You do realize that there's already a bunch of countries running at or almost 100% on renewable energy, right?
@@crazymarkmc You can't connect an aircraft to the power grid in flight, genius. Batteries are not a magic solution, their energy density sucks.
@@Morrigi192 why not microwave lasers? Basically using concentrated microwaves to wirelessly charge the plane while in flight. Of course for this to work we need orbital power satellites.
@Nathan They do it in part by burning wood chips from cutting American forests and rain forests. It is NOT economic suicide, it is ecological suicide. So called "renewable" energy is NOT always sustainable.
Where the electricity comes from is really not important. It is just very interesting research. When they build one with enough thrust for a real airplane, that's when it's time to start figuring out how to get some electricity.
Alriaght lets make a ssto that usses 3 nuclear nervas and 5 of these engines!
Now that’s a Kerbal moment
@@consumeobama5770 yeah for me its very kerball also i know KSP
Damn I thought you knew ksp, I was right :)
Stops working when the atmosphere is too thin. It's still an air breathing jet engine, just uses electricity instead of jet fuel for a heat source
Ye that’s what the 3 nervas are for, because they work best out of the atmosphere
It's going to be very difficult to make this efficient, especially since propellers are already the most efficient thing we have as long as the propellers are limited to subsonic speeds. If we could just eliminate the problem of wave drag, we could have fast efficient propeller planes. Also ionising air sounds like a great idea, but it actually isn't, because when it recombines, it will create NOx emissions.
Insignificant.
Turbofan engines have been breaking the sound barrier for decades. I might be confused but we already have "propellors" that can travel faster than the speed of sound
@@lasttruegamer9537 No, propellers rotating faster than the speed of sound is a bad thing because it causes vortices from the tips, creating very high drag, vibration and noise. We can easily get there, we just don't want to hahaha
the cannister of the ignition cycle has a static charge running through it of not normal electricity? an aspect of electricity? and when the particles get blasted by the thrust it wear's off but is sucked back by the static?
1:11 The fan is spinning backwards.
Nice one!! :DD
lol true
A nice leafblower
I seen that & checked the comments first too see if anyone else seen it !!! Cool, so I'm not crazzie !!!
I noticed that too lol. great engineering, they cant even get one of the most simple of physics correct.
4:36 Q:How to gain people trust? A: You need 400 Microwave
Good to see technology such as this coming through what needs to happen now is that it is use to advance humanity rather than ego and politics.
Would it be possible to make a hybrid plane like taking off we use electricity and flying with jet fuel or the opposite way around
The electrons thrust out of the engine tube with lightning speed, the plasma engine works just like a jet engine, using electrons instead of fuel. This type of future technology is fascinating!
If you think this is interesting research the nuclear powered ram jet that was supposed to go on The Flying Crowbar. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile
Very interesting indeed! Could this mean rockets of the future could do away with big boosters and take off like a conventional aircraft, switching to solid fuel only when the air is too thin to provide effective thrust?
Rockets mostly use liquid fuel mixed with oxidizer. Solid fuel is mostly used on 1st stages/boosters.
@@SFSAtlas That's what I ment, switch over to conventional rocket propulsion to get it into orbit. It will also allows for powered landings, to cover go-arounds and provide breaking thrust. All good stuff in my book, and brings commercial flights one step closer!
very intellectual video I had to provide examples and theory on any type of engine in my physics test and wrote about this I got 8 out of 10 thanks:)
If it were modeled small enough to put a star in an engine, would we extinguish the star first and then ignite itself to form a quasar?
One of the largest growing emissions causes and soon to rival aviation, is the electricity it takes to store information in the cloud.
I was hoping it would be more like a toaster instead of a microwave...
I already discussed this with a colleague of mine and ran some calculations years ago. With our current technology in battery efficiency and plasma generation technology, this is kind of flight technology is a child's dream. Dont get me wrong, all this is possible, but only in theory. To produce this for actual commercial flight or other applications is not really possible with our current technology and won't be possible for atleast another decade or so. Do you know how much energy you require to generate even a single digit percentage purity of plasma. Which mind you will be needed on a larger scale engine using this technology. And that does not even cover the energy required to run the compressor.
Well.. as any proof of concept you start somewhere with the concept and then you improve over time.. But of course, not all research makes it into production
How about Tokamak.
@@acasualviewer5861 I would first start with calculations before investing millions into a white elephant.
@@blameyourself4489 That's because you can't find the funding to, Chinese government is flush with money therefore the reason they built it.
@@madzihove Not really. Why would anyone invest in a technology that uses 40KW/N when conventional technology uses 450W/N?
the compression of the air might be done like it is done in a conventional jet: turbine compressor in the front, working turbine in the rear, connect both with a shaft...
How are they going to power the ionization of the air? Maybe a very long 0000 AWG extensioN cord..
Aliens: lol look at those primitive humans they just discovered plasma projection
..projection ?
@@666litium yes plasma projection look it up
First of all ALIEN KNOWS ENGLISH? WTF😂😂😂
Another alien : look at those even more primitive humans, they have not discovered it yet
@@monkeywantsmoney8895 its a joke dont take it seriously
"three times the emissions of a petrol car", yeah, but how many cars carry 100+ people? It's the emissions per passenger that's important, obviously a plane is going to produce more emissions than a car, but it produces far, FAR less per passenger. Ions engines have been around for decades so it's hardly science fiction but, as you point out, they are very low thrust. Any electric propulsion suffers from the problem of energy density. Batteries are very low energy density compared to chemical fuels such as gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, etc. This is the very reason why electric propulsion is only used for things like drones.
please show me those drones on electric propulsion! I have only seen satellites so far. Elon's ones have those thrusters for sure.
I'm pretty sure that the "three times the emissions of a petrol car" figure was per passenger mile.
It's probably already per passenger... I wouldn't call something between 3 to 5L/100 km "far far less per passenger" than a conventional ICE car.
@IncognitoTorpedo @@Bourinos02 Fuel consumption does not equal emission level. Also, using "per-km" is also not a good measurement as planes rarely are in a traffic jam (sometimes you may have to circle an airport a couple times before landing or sit on a taxiway before takeoff, but once in flight there are no obstructions) where as in a car travelling through an urban area, more time is spent accelerating/decelerating/idling at lights, traffic signals, etc. So a better measure would be "per passenger travel hour". When you take these real world factors into account as opposed to "idealized highway speed with a fully loaded car vs cruise speed of a grossly under loaded plane" (average occupancy rate of a car in the U.S is approximately 38.5% per vehicle per mile vs a planes approximate 85% occupancy per vehicle mile) then planes are a much better choice. Sources: youmatter.world/fr/embouteillage-pollution-air-conseils-21173/ www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1040-july-30-2018-average-vehicle-occupancy-remains-unchanged-2009-2017 www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load-factor-of-delta-air-lines/
One volcanic eruption tops all emissions in history combined
🔴 THANK YOU FOR THIS INFORMATION 👍👍
What do you think about recharge the battery during the fly?
Optimized to the microwave resonant frequency of N2, the monoatomic nitrogen's additional thrust could net an astounding increase in Newtons per watt....
Oh! Oh! I was just saying this my wife the other day ..... then she hit me SO hard ........
And hit the critical 1.21 GigaWatt level to activate the flux capacitor.. Great Scott ! but seriously, where does that much ionizing electrical energy come from ? Batteries ? There's not enough storage capacity yet..lower energy density , higher weight and cost..still, this could add extra afterburner type power to conventional liquid -fueled engines
thumbs up from me, Isaac Newton, thank you from Britain
Nice video!
Thank you!
I feel like with the use of a nuclear generator for lots of electricity and flying it at high speeds you would be able to use the high speed compressed air to help with thrust
You need charged guide stations on soil and space to produce precision propulsion in-between the two states(air as a dielectrics.
So I'm just some random college student but I potentially have a extremely efficient EDF concept, it would consume less power to spin a big fan, and have a crazy amount of torque to spin high angle of attack fans. Most of the efficiency comes from solid state magnetic bearings.
go pitch it to people with money!
emil rueh and miss out on using it as one of the flag ship products for a company of my own?
@@alexanderglass2057 bra that's what i'm saying no? how you gonna get any company big without investors?
emil rueh I might pitch it after I first get A patent and a prototype on the magnetic bearings. Get get some investments or something like that going on so I can make a production line and start selling the bearings to people, because magnetic bearings in and of themselves is a game changer in a lot of industry. By this point in time I would have a prototype and patent set up for the EDF, and start using the profits from selling bearings and licenses to use my Bearing design, (mainly to let companies integrate such a revolutionary thing much faster while still making a reasonable profit,) I will set up a production line for the EDF and start selling that. At this point the company hopefully has grown enough for me to start prototyping my own aircraft designs and experimenting with ionic propulsion skin for aircraft. And hopefully in the end, I end up starting my own aeronautics and aerospace company that mainly produces hybrid aircraft but also sport aircraft, space planes and the occasional tangent type product.
Keep studying... Do your research. Magnetic bearings are already patented in this way. Not to mention, there's other technologies than spinning fans that have come out recently which achieve better results. This report misses the mark on the latest air breathing ion engines.
*Reads comments* Me: "Apparently, the US has had this tech for around 40 years."
But never use it. Because america income is oil. If they implement this tech. That will reduce american gov income. That they won't allowed
@@Khelsenlei From what I've read, it's because it's terribly inefficient.
@@nocount7517 it's not efficient that trouble america...but lack support for scientist to develope this technologies from the goverment itself. Lack funding that make this technology still inperfect until now. I don't believe american scientist can't perfect it. Since there is many inventiont created in america. It's goverment to blame for lack support.
@@Khelsenlei Lol...are you special?
@@xbraac He's probably a foreigner, doofus.
I'm an MSc in electrical engineering and Nanotechnology, but had to return to my sinkhole country and currently not doing R&D. My idea worth spreading is; Since current battery tech is not sufficient enough for a plasma jet engine to take off, we could use plasma physics in another way, which could be called 'hybrid engine'. There's always a surplus electricity from the alternators of the hi-bypass engines of say Rolls Royce, and aerocrafts are designed with so many fancy unnecessary electronics to value that surplus electricity. An hybrid jet engine design is that which uses alternators' surplus electricity; 3-phase, 110v, 400hz, ~60A per engine at about 4000rpm, which approximates to 8kva at 400hz, (well above 0.4kW you mentioned), could be used as a range extender for current fosfofuel jet engines, so that added plasma thrust would increase the efficiency a great deal. I wish I had connections to discuss this but I like your channel and wanted to share here. Thank you Ziroth! Keep up the good work!
Sure did learn something new today.
Althoug my thinking is teplacing the combustion chamber with like a high temp electric coil thing
So, this makes it two. Both China and Germany have their own plasma jet engines. All we need is a power supply.
More likely this is just a Chinese recreation of the German project.
Atm only a nuclear fission reactor could provide enough power
@@nightofthunder5509 We tried that. It went Wuhan on us.
In science, often happens two independent teams or scientist in one or different countries do the same research (not each other work taken place), however one publish his research one day early that resulting a Nobel prize.
@@rolandlee6898 I don't think so. From what I've read both systems have different approaches.
initial thrust and compression could be achieved with conventional Jet engine then the ion microwave thrust could take over during flight reducing carbon emissions and increasing fuel economy without adding weight from batteries
Nice idea...... but where do you store el energy? Who does carry the weight of akkumulators?.......
The problem with electric planes is that the most effecient way to produce high thrust is to compress air heat it up and shoot it out the back. So the pressure out the back is the same as your compressor but the volume is much larger. So burning something is the most effecient way to produce heat. The only way we will get anything better is by using nuclear power to produce the heat. Any other form of using electricity to produce heat will never come close to burning. You don't have the benefits of a 95% effecient electric motor to compensate for the 90% energy density disadvantage.
What about more efficient fuel, like Hydrogen, to createa cleaner more effective burning plasma ?
@@AJCsr the problem with hydrogen is that it is difficult to store and manage. It is low density and needs to be stored at high pressure meaning large heavy tanks that can not be shaped like wings.
@@AJCsr It's my understanding that right now it takes more energy to produce hydrogen and compress it than the energy in the hydrogen itself.
Ah, easy, solved it like in KSP, MORE THRUSTERS!
More thrusters, and paint it red. Red means it goes fast. Also we need Dakka, lots and lots of Dakka.
Can this plasma be used for a magneto hydrodynamic jet? I'd assume the plasma could be accelerated out of the nozzle with a mag gun arrangement.
6:16 You would still need a fuel tank in order to use it in space. For the obvious reason that there's no ambient atmosphere for it to pull from.
1:19 the fan is spinning backwards.
Glad I'm not the only one that noticed.
Lol
Is it just me or is the compressor spinning backwards at 1:15?
Me too
It's actually the fan part of a turbofan, but yes, it is spinning the wrong way, or the blade angel is facing the wrong way.
@@mickmuzzmkmz1628 could also be ye
it's just you
Ya it is lol
The benefits of an electric motor is that it doesn't require air for combustion, so a plane could fly higher where there is less air friction and save energy. This type of jet I think still requires quite a lot of air hence not taking advantage the electric motor perks
Light Speed I see you.👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿
It's gonna take like 50 years before this is realized
You are making a linear projection. Technology grows exponentially. If it is possible, I expect progress would be much faster.
Not with Chinese
@@jhutsebaut This. We'll probably have this, powered by a small fusion reactor, on a commercial plane in 5-10 years.
@@jhutsebaut that is an oversimplification and doesnt hold the history test. It is not possible to tell if this technology ever will see practical use, and if it does it is not possible to tell when. It is a way to complex subject. Based on exponential growth in technology people in early 60s thought we would have flying cars and colonirs on mars by now.
I don't think it's about 'realized' tech, I think it's about finding out if it's possible, and then going from there. There's every chance in the world that the thing we end up getting out of this is more like a really nice space heater, or maybe a more efficient fuel based engine used for cargo ships on the ocean. Something that no one will ever notice, slowly incrementally working its way into everyday mundane tech making life better. I doubt anyone who designed the CMOS light sensors way back when, that eventually became digital cameras was thinking that the primary use of it would be taking pictures of our breakfast with our cell phones to share on Instagram. They were probably thinking hey.. this microchip can detect the horizon so rockets can steer themselves. That's how progress goes.