Embracing the liquid nitrogen economy

Joined
Sep 29, 2012
Messages
3
Location
Hamilton Ontario
First off, a bit of an introduction. I have no experience with gyrocopters, but have long been interested in them. My field of expertise is glassblowing. Once in a while, a piece of glass starts "singing" while I am working on it. Known as Sondhauss oscillations, they were my introduction to thermoacoustics. To make a long story short, (just interrupt. No, wait...) liquid nitrogen production has gotten a whole lot cheaper, to the point it can be produced at home. The leaders in this technology are currently these folks:

http://www.qdrive.com/UI/Default.aspx

The idea I am toying with here is a gyrocopter powered by a dewar of nitrogen. There would be a drastic weight reduction compared to an internal combustion engine, but that would quickly be offset by needing to carry 5 to 10 times the volume of fuel.

:help:
 
interesting, roughly how would the propulsion system work, exact desctrption not needed , but are you thinking of propeller driven, jet driven, or tip jets ?. I also guess the tank weight would be considerable, you could end up saving "engine" weight but only substiture it with tank weight. Have you had a prototype propulsion system running on the ground yet ?

Good luck anything that helps economy is good
 
Just thoughts at this stage. I suspect any kind of jet system would need way more than 5 - 10 times the fuel. The obvious approach in my mind is to run a prop driven gyrocopter with a simple air motor/radiator setup. A dewar is like a big thermos bottle. Low pressure (or even unpressurized) means the tank can be lighter than you might expect, though admittedly still heavier than a gasoline tank. Just the fact that the liquid is cold and insulated is keeping it a liquid, and as soon as it is fed into a radiator you have your pressure.
 
I've wondered about such power plants before. There is a car that runs on compressed air, so the idea has some merit.

I've seen shops that use liquid oxygen and the radiators to gassify it are very large, and often have large amounts of ice built up. Could add a new icing problem to aircraft, might want the radiator behind the prop.

I wonder if a small turbine wouldn't be the ideal set up, just inject liquid nitrogen after the compressor. There it would have plenty of air to warm it up and create pressure. Now you just have to do the math on energy per pound of fuel.

And i was just hoping for a good joke about the economy :)

cory
 
Thermoacoustics is an interesting topic in and of itself. Standard refrigeration works through vapour compression, and what is a sound wave if not a fluctuating pressure wave? Any young math prodigies out there could do well with it, as much of the math was only formulated back in the 1980's. Another interesting use for the technology is in the third world:

http://www.score.uk.com/research/default.aspx

I posted this in the "Off Topic" forum because I don't see myself being able to build anything in the near future, but who knows...

"Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
 
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