Forum: Technology

This engine wont go.

It takes a lot of energy to break a molecule, ionize/keep it ionize then accelerate it. Where as combustion simply react a molecule then gas pressure and energy release produces the gas expansion. Thermodynamically speaking it's like comparing climbing a big mountain just so one can say how easy the walk down is vs. down hill ski from the biggest cliff one can find. It's climbing to the top of mountain before the easy walk that cost a lot,

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This kind of technology is beyond us at present I think. The problems making this work remind me of issues in fusion reactor research and controlling plasma flows precisely. To do that, you need a LOT more equipment in your theoretical engine than you show, Diverter electrodes, toroidal magnets or similar control devices etc, and that's just at the front end. Power requirements may be vast to get the thrusties out of the back end.
That leads to another issue, to make a machine small enough and cheap enough to hang from an aircrafts wing. Keep imagining though, nothing wrong with that.

This "Ion wind turbine", new to me too, can you expand or provide a link? The only Generating turbines I know of that use magnetism are the maglev wind turbines that use maglev bearings instead of ballbearings in the moving bits and magnetic direct drive instead of gearboxes. I don`t see any tie in?

I've wondered if it could be done with plasma actuators.

Not an expert on this topic but I think that the primary flaw in the direction of the original proposal was that you are trying to take a very different propultion concept/form and stuffing it into the tube of a turbojet.
Not only that, but you are also trying to duplicate the purpose and normal application of a turbojet for high speed aircraft in the same effort.

It may be that to advance this concept, you need to rethink (or perhaps un-remember Wink

) what an engine looks like and what you want it to do.
It could be that this air moving device works better when not in the shape of a single cigar shaped cylinder.

With some practical experiments you could start to determine the best natural energy delivery shape that fits the concept, then later consider applications.
It appears to me as if you are working backwards from final application to concept.

With no rotating parts, an engine might be planer in shape, maybe inside a wing.

Perhaps this engine works best in a lower speed airflow than a turbojet.
Perhaps this engine works best when the ark heating takes place in many smaller tubes rather than a single large tube.
Smaller tubes would also help control the uniformity of the energy level of the incoming air.

Forum: Technology

Electromagnetic Technology in Jet Engines