Could this Thruster transform Aviation?
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Check out this later video where I run the Thruster up to faster RPMs:
• Rim Driven Coreless Th...
Take a look at the Raptor design that could potentially use this thruster for it's propulsion system:
• Raptor Aircraft Thrust...
When the patent is published on March 9th 2023 I will post the link here:
image-ppubs.us...
SimScale simulation link:
You can make a copy of this simulation and modify it yourself, or export the x_t CAD file to your own CFD software.
www.simscale.c...
Onshape Thruster Model:
cad.onshape.co...
Very interesting! But I'm wondering about two things really, the inside blade tips are going to want to diverge under compressive forces on the blade at high rpm, then add the blade pitch mechanism under high load, will probably induce more blade tip divergence which might cause flutter? Traditional blades under tension are slung out instead of compressed in, will be more stable as the outward tension on the blade adds stability to it. The other thing that worries me is all the bearings, thats a lot of moving parts at those high rpms. Have you consider doing a large thrust bearing with perhaps smaller number of sphere or roller bearings... but holly cows Peter, this is very forward thinking!
The speed of those bearings was my first thought also.
=BEARINGless SRMotors ?
Could add an inner ring to the design to tie all the blade tips together to strengthen/stabilize them if it was an issue. Connection points would be concentric with the variable pitch blades axes of rotation.
At around 41:43, you can observe the tip wobble when the reflected lights catch the tips. I find myself nervous about what that wobble will look like with an order of magnitude increase in RPM. I agree about those bearings; large thrust bearing seems like the way to go (also much more expensive). Also, the pitch control system seems to have a lot of opportunities for things to bind. For example, if the non-rotating swashplate ring warps in any way, the cam slots may bind, or the whole ring may bind against the housing. 49:11, the thrust-to-weight ratio should include the generator/APU/battery in order for it to be apples-to-apples against GE9X.
@@pterodaxx Yes this if lengthened could also reduce drag/central turbulance
Ah man, those swashplate engines have never been able to get past the prototype stage. I remember when Dyna-Cam engines were going to be the next big thing in aviation, and then they disappeared. Wobble engines have popped up, gathered interest, and then vanished numerous times over the decades, and none of them were able to sell a single engine to the public even as a novelty. I wouldn't go that route if you want your plane to progress beyond a prototype, as that company will likely go under before they even make a handful of engines.
I would definitely look into giving the blades enough pitch to go into beta. Not only will reverse thrust be useful in many situations, but it can also be used in conjunction with a computerized governor as a way to regeneratively brake in flight, probably a first in aviation if you don't consider heli auto-rotation regenerative braking. If you need to introduce drag to slow down, why not make it useful drag and charge batteries while you're at it?
Another suggestion, the blade pivot should be in a position where it just barely has enough force to return to fine pitch at speed, essentially just forward of center of pressure, rather than near the leading edge where there's a ton of aerodynamic pressure that the pitch controller will need to overcome. It's not something conventional propellers can really do without somewhat extreme blade designs, but it could be easily done with these. That'll reduce the force needed to change pitch, which means pitch changes can be fast and precise for dynamic conditions, and could even be manipulated by hand with mechanical controls in an emergency. In the right application, if you swapped out the single piece pitch ring for a movable swashplate, you could theoretically have limited thrust vectoring capability by changing the pitch on the blades in the same way that a rotor on a heli is controlled. I suppose having dynamically adjustable stator vanes could perform a similar function, or even combining the two for better effect, without the need or hassle that comes with a vectoring nozzle. A larger fan on a small aircraft could benefit substantially from that, perhaps with the ability to control two of the aircraft's axis in cruise flight without even moving control surfaces. Two fans with the right mixing could control yaw, pitch, and roll, entirely by thrust.
At least two of those engines were either used extensively or certified in the past, but coincidences happened as usual.
@@vitordelima Not buying into conspiracy theories, I have facts. Thanks for the offer though.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper You may want to look up the meaning of that phrase, you wrote out a great response then ruined your opinion with that stupidity. Only people who believe everything their government says, say "conspiracy theories".
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper Those are facts, they existed and vanished.
@@chabadlubavitch7303 There is plenty of space between believing everything is being suppressed and believing everything a government says. Speak in absolutes and you absolutely become an idiot.
Aeronautical engineering student here, this is a really cool and interesting design! I have a few questions and suggestions for improvement maybe: 1. Except for weight and complexity, what is the advantage of having a hole in the middle? If you connected the blades together by a core with bearings to allow them to still pitch, you would reduce tip vortices, improving efficiency, and take some load off the blades, since they can now pull on each other instead of purely compressing down into the foot. This is also good because tensile stress is often better in metals, because they tend have the same compressive and tensile strength, but can buckle and bend way before they reach their compressive strength, especially with long and thin blades. If you don‘t plan on making them out of concrete or glass or something, tensile stress is preferable to compressive stress here!
2. In real jet engines, the rotor disk where the blades are mounted is made out of steel instead of aluminium. This is because it doesn‘t fatigue as quickly. Aluminium is pretty prone to material fatigue, so it is generally avoided for things like drive shafts and such. I don‘t know if that is going to be a problem here, especially since the rpm is way lower than in a jet engine, but I suggest thinking about fatigue as well! Less maintenance is always better.
3. I want to compliment you on the maintenance part, this thruster seems very accessible and easy to inspect and repair 👍
4. I‘m not a huge fan of the idea of a piston engine with an electric transmission, I get it if you want to pivot the thruster but want the engine fixed in place for your vtol aircraft, but if not you‘re throwing a lot of efficiency out the window there and add mass for no reason. If you want to go with a combustion engine it would be way more efficient to replace the coils and magnets with teeth and drive the rotor directly with the engine and some gears.
5. I think that the efficiency claims on the fan by itself might be realistic, but I‘m having trouble believing your results in the comparison to a real turbofan engine. You claim a 4 times efficiency increase with your gasoline-electric setup over a typical turbofan engine: These engines typically have efficiency degrees of around 20% as far as I know. 4 times that would be 80%. I can believe 80% for the fan by itself, but for the whole propulsion system that is very unrealistic, since a typical piston engine has about 30% efficiency, and with a 90% generator and a 95% electric motor, you‘d be left with about 26% efficiency. Now if you want to get to 80% your thruster will have to do magic because it would need an efficiency degree of about 300%!!! That is a clear violation of the laws of thermodynamics! Please check again if your calculations are correct!
6. Just thought of this but the blades pivot along the leading edge, right? By pivoting them around their pressure point instead you could reduce the load on both blades and pitch actuator!
Very cool video! 👌
Okay. Tell me if I'm wrong with my thoughts on this. (I was never an aerospace engineering student, though I did want to be at one point.) In general, I think this is a very innovative idea. But I see problems. Like you, I believe the compressive forces on the blades are one. Solving that could be integrated into solutions for the other problems I see. Most of them relate to that gaping hole in the center. That unused space that, IMO, would negatively affect the airflow both entering and exiting the engine. Am I wrong in thinking that dark blue gap in the back of his airflow model is going to end up causing drag and turbulence? It also seemed in his airflow modelling that, even though it showed acceleration inside the engine, the airspeed seemed to drop back off considerably as it exits. Here's what I think could fix these things: 1) Connect the blades in the center with a cone like we see in jet engines. The blades could still have adjustable pitch with bearings here and would have protection from the compressive forces while the cone would direct air away from the dead center space and into the blades. 2) Behind that, to compress the airflow going into the vortex eliminating stators and then eliminate that airflow void at the back, a bulb that tapers into an aerospike. And, of course, the outer cowling extended around the aerospike to maximize its efficiency. End of those fixes. I'm also not sure how much extra efficiency would really be gained, compared to the added weight and complexity, by having the adjustable pitch on the blades. Besides, wouldn't that also throw off the effectiveness of the stator blades at some angles? I also wonder if maybe contrarotating blades in the same engine might be the way to go. (I definitely think engine pairs on most craft should counter rotate.) The other problems I see are just minor technical things like the really heavy gauge windings in his motor stator and that maybe even permanent magnets in a motor of this type are not the way to go. But I like the idea of this. I look at all these small VTOL/hoverbike designs on the internet with non-ducted props and just imagine people getting chewed to pieces. (I'm also annoyed with how many ignore simple physics and put the point of thrust in the same plane with the center of mass or even below it.) I believe ducted is always the way to go on these craft. What did impress me with this one, though it was only at 100 rpm, was how quiet it seemed. One advantage to an engine like this is that in the case of lost power there would be at least some inertial flywheel effect.
I agree about the central toroid core bridging the blades to moderate the outward pressure of the blade housing. Balance would have to be very specific, but that's not unusual. The blades would, as you mentioned, need to have a mounting flange (for lack of a better term) in order to allow rotation in line with the outer ring inner diameter.
My addition, and this is purely off intuition and would depend on modeling, but I imagine the central toroid having an electromagnet, perhaps provided energy by passively the rotation of the mechanism itself. Then, from the "back" of the engine channel there could be a rod that would extend up to the center of the inner toroid. That rod would have ridges of some height that would spin relative to the direction of motion and thrust and governed by the electromagnet of the central toroid. That probably doesn't make sense but essentially what it would do is keep the air flow into a vortex traveling further into the engine that would be calibrated to passively operate depending on the engine conditions. It would I believe accelerate the airflow and could modify the various pressures. That's the best I can describe it in a UA-cam comment lol
I'm a different kind of engineer so what I say might be ridiculous to an aerospace engineer. It's an intuitive idea in my head.
@@beastmastre You make a very good point that I didn‘t think about yet which are the aerodynamics of the hole: Wings (like the blades in this case) generate vortices at their tips when in motion. This is a result of pressure differentials and always happens. The vortices remain in the air for quite a while. In a regular propeller, these vortices are generated at the outer rim of the prop disk so they can‘t interfere with the blades. In this design however, these vortices will be generated in the middle of the engine, possibly hitting other blades or the stators which could lead to turbulence, reducing performance or in a worst case scenario stalling the airflow over the blades, causing sudden loss of thrust. There needs to be some wind tunnel testing to make sure this doesn‘t happen!
About your thought wether variable pitch blades are needed, they absolutely are. All modern propellers have this feature because it allows for greater top speeds while retaining efficiency across all airspeeds. A fixed blade propeller loses thrust as the plane goes faster, since the air comes in at a shallower angle relative to the moving blades. This means with low angle of attack blades that at a certain airspeed your prop just won‘t let you go faster. If you take a prop with higher angle of attack blades it can go faster but might stall at low speeds. Variable pitch is a necessity especially for a VTOL where you can‘t afford a thruster stalling and want precise control over your thrust!
Contra-rotating props tend to be more efficient aerodynamically because they cancel out the rotation of the air, but they can‘t fix this problem either! These sort of props always have variable pitch as well. I really love contra-rotating props, and they would actually be a lot easier to do on this engine, since it‘s rim driven you don‘t need two drive shafts etc to pass through each other, it‘d be as simple as adding another one of these thrusters right behind the first one. I don‘t know if that would be all that much better than having stators and just adding a second thruster somewhere else tho. Because that would certainly give more thrust. What contra-rotating props mainly do is cancel out the spin that the air has after the prop, causing it to go straight which gives you more thrust. This is also the point of the stators. Another problem with contra-rotating props is that they tend to be very noisy, tho there are workarounds and this is probably a pretty quiet thruster design.
There is one thing to be said about a hybrid electro-mechanical setup vs a traditional Combustion. Firstly running an engine at a designed optimized RPM over the course of its life, is far better than running a traditional engine at above 50% its total operating parameters. A lot of pilots I know cruise at 70%, Running a motor at near 3/4's its maximum for hours on end just invites wear and tear, so the Hybrid model, will result in much safer operations and reduce maintenance costs. Further, with batteries on board, there could always be a battery with roughly 30 minutes of operating time for an emergency power supply on a 3rd and completely separate circuit save for a trickle charge/balancing circuit. You would also be able to in theory run diesel generator for power vs AV/gas or traditional gasoline. My dad was a diesel mechanic and would tell me about semi's that had 750k miles on them without major issues, its largely due to the lower RPM operating ranges. I just don't know how well diesel does in thinner air, this also opens up the possibilities of Hydrogen fuel cells as well, (C'mon climate freaks) its your solution to noise and traditional pollution. The other change would be to suggest designing a Rotorplate to work on Axial flux vs its current state.
@@ltsky311 Good point, planes like the eGenius show that a diesel-electric system can make the propulsion more efficient, but most of that comes from being able to place the prop in a more advantageous spot for aerodynamics, since you don‘t have to pump any fuel there and electric motors are way smaller, so you can place it on the vertical stabilizer for example. I don‘t really see how the system would benefit because of reduced rpm tho, small generators typically need very high rpm for good power output, and engine load and rpm don’t change much during a regular flight. I‘m not an expert on that however.
Very interesting idea. I would like to see an actual smoke test next to prove out your modeling.
He won't because it would expose it as the nonsense it is. It's typical Musk style BS, reinventing well established technology and making it worse but fancy looking. Just another investment sinkhole conman.
Bingo!
I also thought about a fan like this some time ago. I don't think it can work for aviation, but I'm also glad someone gives it a more serious try. Someone should check me on this, but I feel like if you really want to spin this up to 5000 rpm then the outer supporting ring will have some crazy loads to deal with, making the whole thing heavier. Maybe carbon wrapping would help, but that would increase the distance of electric motor components (magnets and coils) which would decrease it's power to weight ratio and efficiency. The circular shape will want to deform according to where weights are placed making it more polygon like than circle. So it needs to be strengthended making it heavier. Having the electric motor and its magnets on the cirumference instead in a compact central motor makes the motor heavier. Also there is no obvious or intuitive explanation to why would this design offer any advatage over a regular ducted fan design. Having a bearing in the center, mitigates abrasion, this is what made the wheel such a great invention, but this fan design turns this on its head, unless somehow you can make the inner ring magnetically levitate, which would make things heavier. Blades being compressed instead of pulled is also a huge concern. Imagine a drinking straw being pulled or compressed. The straw will keep its geometry at larger loads when being pulled.
The clue is to use the air as the lubricant between the rim and rotor.
@@alexanderg-p3z I'm still not convinced. With air, there would be heat to deal with, probably crazy tight tolerances in wide range of temperatures. But maybe.
(c) UA-cam AI R&D
Seven large blades with increased angle of attack and a three point mounted inner ring, I believe, would allow higher thrust at lower RPM. The small blades require extremely high RPM to produce thrust capable of propelling a plane. Also, in the current configuration the blade shape would need to have an overall pyramidal design giving the blades much more support closer to the ring and minimizing the flutter at the center. This is an exciting departure from normal thruster design. Great Work!
An existing airframe with a new motor is appropriate. A beaver dehaviland with only change being an electric motor powered by Edison generators or battery powered dynamos to power the original props. The slightly higher HP and under amped motor. The new blades are added to the design to match the thrust. An appropriate design airplane needs to be located to handle the progressive improvement. Edison generators and dynamos power plants to power a turbo prop.
It does utilize pitched prop technology, Flight dynamics computer can take of that.
Very nice design ! I personally would ad an inner ring to stabilize the tips of the blades and avoid vibration due to resonance. It might make it more resilient in case of accidental bird intake. The inner ring support might help preventing blades braking badly and the engine self destruct.
I agree with that also. It would make less vibration and also cut down on wingtip vortices at the tip of each blade. Plus the inner ring could be made to conically widen or narrow the thrust for power vs speed as the case may be.
Might also make damage worse... with the current design one blade can go without taking them all - a solid connection at the "offset centre" could mean that a strike would pull a number or even all the blades out.
You can put more air through the engine if you eliminate the center race
@@phedders I think you will prefer to have damaged blades than ripped off blades. The later would create much more instability due to the imbalance and the engine will self destruct catastrophically. Having a central axis common support will allow the bird impact energy to be more evenly distributed on multiple blades, preventing a worse outcome.
At fan speed of 5000 rpm, those thrust rollers will be doing maybe 50000 rpm, so I would be worried about the bearings in those.
Good point. They would also have to deal with greater load as the RPM increases, and the centripetal force pushes the blade onto the bearing, with a force of many times the blades weight, when stationary. A conventional shaft, does not have that problem.
The bearings and the entire fan cage is wobbling even at 100 rpm. It needs a lot better balance control if it tries to have a chance at higher RPM. The design has a lot of potential, but I don't see it as a working design in the real world yet.
@@onebadwolf9123 One would have to do a material stretch analysis on the rim material to determine if centripetal force would cause effective loading on the bearings. I would be more worried about the lubrication and velocity of the bearing itself.
air bearings to the rescue!
@@narmale Magnetic levitation?
You have composed a work of Engineering fantasy and had it published by a patent office. It's quite remarkable really. Like breeding a unicorn.
That is what most patents are though, to be fair.
There is a nonzero chance that unicorns exist, so there.
@@dingdingdingdiiiiing I will build one.
Correct. Picture 5 sequential 2m diameter bearing surfaces contained by an aluminium lightweight frame running at 20000 rpm.
At small scale, this should probably work fine. Many have already expressed concerns with forces on the blades, causing vibrations. I see a lot of turbulence at the blade tips which will effectively reduce efficiency to the point of negating airflow gain through the middle. There is going to be added radial airflow mixing with the more axial flow around the edges. Neat concept though
I've been working on a similar engine for the past year. My benchmark was the GE-90 as well. Congratulations on patenting it before me.
Did he say he patented it? How much variation does a project need before its considered outside of the scope of the patent anyways?
Awww mate! Sorry to hear... there's always another idea... also if you aren't direct competitors, maybe he'd need someone who understands to get his project to the next phase...
@@drfill9210 Because jealous or bitter creative types have never added toxicity to the working relationship of a team developing a novel idea. That simply does not happen, and so I have to agree, I bet they would work great together, with no potential for hangups or self-sabotage whatsoever.
@@drfill9210 But your heart's in the right place. You have a success mindset. You're the type that adds cohesion to teams like that. So keep up the good work
@@daltanionwaves so is yours mate:) perhaps you have had a negative experience that drives you to this conclusion?
I like the fact you have a reflective attitude that self moderates. Deliver a truth, then ask yourself if that's the kindest way to do it...
So yes.. dealing with others always implies risk, and I've had experiences in which is gone both ways. Epic collaborations that have enriched everyone- toxic power mismatch in which I had no choice but to assist someone in plagiarising my own work..
If ppl have to do that, they are truly sad and tend to sabotage themselves in my experience. The world, sadly gives you what you deserve.
But there are enough things out there to keep you interested. Maybe you and I will collaborate on something in the future, you never know!
Thanks for showing all the mechanical parts so clearly. I love seeing how people solve problems like changing the pitch on moving blades.
I'd love to see a scale model of this 3D printed and flown as a drone. I think that would be a great next step. This truly is revolutionary.
Completely love the imagination, engineering and effort put into this, however there are several extremely similar patented and multi-patented units from 2008 - 2012 that have been designed, tested and modeled that you'll run into a wall trying to patent this unit. Still a great looking unit and great video detailing your process.
It’s so nice that you somehow have survived all of you flights in your Raptor aircraft. The good lord was looking out for you. Good luck on this new project, looks very interesting.
Very interesting design. As others have mentioned, maybe an inner ring that would capture the blade ends on their axis of rotation would add some stability to the blade tips, if necessary. The blades could also be tapered toward the ends, not sure if that would be helpful.
Inner ring fill would also eliminate edge vortex reverse flow also. It will be significant for efficiency.
@@galvanaut7119 You speak my brain! Similarly, blades could probably go shorter, relative to total diameter, to rely more heavily on a large entrainment cross-section - especially with that inner ring you mentioned, to *prevent the entrained air from being frothed* by wing-tip vortices!
With variable blade wouldn't work with Center support ring unless there were some type of bearing assembly that would allow the blades to rotate. The blades could be designed in a way that would force air flow toward the blade root.. he's only showing one stage of compression..
@@Pw-f100 Oh, I like that concept - sweeping the blade to push airflow in a gradient from rim to hub, thank you!
But at that point you could also put the motor in the inner part instead of the outer ring, which would give you a ducted fan where the duct spins with the fan. If you look at toroidal propellers, connecting the end of blades seems to be the new hot thing anyways.
I do wish Peter all the success in the world.
I do see a few issues though.
1) The fan blades will become shrapnel.
2) 100HP generates approximately 325 lbs of static thrust using a modern 80% efficient propellor. Generating 1500 lbs of thrust seems to violate some laws of physics.
Of course they may not be laws at all, just foolish suggestions. We shall see.
3) The proposed power generator is based on an engine design that has never worked, and even if it does will never approach the reliability and efficiency of a conventional piston or turbine engine.
Even a turbine APU such as used in my work aircraft would be insufficient for the task at hand. Despite burning 15 GPH it can only generate 400 AMPS continuous at 28 volts, or 11200 Watts of electricity, equivalent to approximately 15 BHP
I worked at a jet engine company in the 80’s in the engineering test lab where we did the many tests required for durability that basically attacks everything within the engine. That said, a blade-out test would be interesting not to mention the bird injestion that destroys portions of the engine and the engines must pass these FAA tests. Though your idea has merit I’m not sure how efficient it will be once the realities of what jet engines must endure, including water and ice injestion too. There’s a great deal of capability within aircraft engines and every aspect gets heavily tested. The costs moving forward are enormous even for small aircraft there are liabilities that are very high for propulsive units that lives depend on. I want to help but not sure how you should move forward.
Best suggestion is if you aren’t aware of FAA Type Certification that you need to pass, I recommend you do some research on it then revisit your design.
All I can see are all the different points of failure compared to a normal turbine, there may be applications for something lie this, but I doubt it's aviation.
@@volentimeh exactly my thoughts. The amount of small mechanisms required to just spin the ring of blades makes for a million points of failure. That combined with the possibility of blade flutter and flexing due to centrifugal forces and lack of support for the blades will probably cause a multitude of issues before it’s even capable of flight.
I would think that you could develop a center support ring for the blades… that would allow the blades support to rotate various pitches as needed…
... Yes sir. Absolutely agree. You are just reading my thoughts...
If you add a ring to the center you would add a ton of stability to the fins and you could keep a low aerodynamic profile on it to reduce turbulence.
then remove the outer ring because its dumb to have so much mass there.. oh.. wait..
@@MyrKnof LMFAO 😂
there isn't an interior ring because the blades are variable pitch
@@XerrolAvengerII Still possible
@@firstduckofwellington6889 more moving parts are so fun 😁😁
There would be a lot more friction from the bearings basically being multiple feet in diameter compared to a few inches in a normal engine. I also imagine vibration could be hard to keep under control. The small central bearing in the center of a typical engine just has so much advantage over this. plus as others have mentioned the blades being in compression instead of tension could be an issue. Would be awesome to see working though.
I think the design is marvelously impractical. It looks really cool but as you say, the friction and other issues make it impractical.
One application for this sort of propeller is for boats and subs. This sort of design allows boats and subs to operate in seaweed infested waters. Debris pass through the center of the drive rather than getting wrapped around a propeller.
They're called *rim-driven thrusters.*
The company Copenhagen Subsea makes a version called Electric Subsea Thruster.
There are applications where these make sense when used in water. Trying to propeller an aircraft with them is nonsensical.
As an engineer, I may suggest to secure the inner tips with a "foil" ring to control the harmonics and provide a smoother airflow through the center.
Stop the “as engineer” opinions and come forward with some solid engineering calculations, numbers, experiments, digital models with proof. Otherwise, stfUp.
@@annakquinn7084 for free? heh
As an aerospace enthusiast I agree
@@annakquinn7084 worthless comment
@AnnaKQuinn As another engineer kindly stop. Aviation design has well established a list of common problems and tried and true solutions. These design principles are often strikingly general and can be really useful when refining a new piece of tech. Also, why would they do all the things you suggested for free? The team in the video is already working on the problem, has a prototype, an appropriate workspace, a team, and likely funding.
great video, lots of work evident! some reflections:
1) tensile forces are better than compressive forces when it comes to structural weight efficiency.
2) imagine that instead of the support hardware being in the annulus it is in the center. material requirements grow as the square of the radius
3) so I would posit that this is heavier than a traditional ducted fan for the same performance.
4) the variable pitch is well implemented, and could prevent the rolloff of performance with speed that ducted fans are known for by lowering the drag.
5) so i would repeat this experiment with a turbine that has a center, but with variable pitch blades and compare the performance.
Hello Peter. While I can certainly understand why this concept seems attractive to you, I think there are many reasons why this solution is not as good as exiting, hub driven ducted fans.
1. weight - Your rim driven motor and all the additional bearings and magnets and windings (not even counting the variable pitch mechanism) has got to be much heavier than a simple hub driven motor design. You are uniquely aware of the tradeoff between weight and performance. More weight means more fuel (batteries) which means more weight which ultimately means you need more power which means more weight which means more fuel... and it never ends.
2. bearings - How many bearings support the rotating ring? 16? you have several small, permanently lubricated bearings. These are analogous to skateboard/scooter/inline skate bearings. These will be spinning at rotational velocities many times that of the fan itself. if your fan is 24" spinning at 5000rpm, and the delrin "pully" is 3" or 4", the bearing will be spinning at 6 or 7 times the rpm of the fan itself (30,000-35,000 rpm). No small, permanently lubricated bearing I am aware of could survive more than a few minutes in such an environment. These most certainly could not survive a 1000 hour TBO time frame.
3. TBO - Any aircraft propulsion system is expected to operate trouble free at high power settings for 1000's of hours. This is because human lives depend on it. Could you trust these small bearings to run at 5000 rpm even for 4 hours? 1 hour? Will you have to replace them after every "hop"? Why design any propulsion system that could not be certified for a 1000-2000 hour TBO?
4. Corrosion - In this design, the edge of the outer hub is effectively a bearing race. The hub and the small wheels that hold it need to remain as perfect throughout the unit's lifespan as the day they were new. When the aircraft is sitting idle, water moister, even from dew, will collect at all of the contact points between the hub and the little wheels. Note that ANY deterioration, corrosion, insect activity, FOD, at the contact area of the hub will result in degraded performance, create vibration, create stress risers, etc. and could easily lead to early failure.
5. blade rigidity - the outer most portion of the blades has the lowest angle of attack. This means the resistance to bending is lowest at this point versus the innermost portion of the blade where angle of attack is highest. Example: hold one end of a steel ruler flat on a table. It is easy to pick up the opposite end and flex the ruler. Now hold the ruler on edge at one end and try to pick up the other end. Even at low RPM, several commented on seeing "flutter" in your prototype. We realize that these aren't the final blade design, but... man.
6. Motor magnets - again, being at the outer edge of the spinning hub, the centrifugal force is huge. Magnets often break free even in very small diameter motors. I doubt you could find an adhesive that would guarantee these magnets won't separate at 5000 rpm. How could this even be inspected except during engine overhaul? If then.
7. tension versus compression - all of the metals you will work with are always stronger in tension than compression. FYI - even though your blades may be in compression, the outer hub is in tension. In compression, if one of your blades isn't tracking perfectly true, compression will tend to bend the blade more out of line; whereas, in tension (in a central hub driven application), centrifugal force would tend to force the blade more into the correct track.
8. Heat - as your hubless design runs under high power, the outer hub/motor will heat up and change shape. This could easily be catastrophic for an airplane motor running at 5000 rpm!
9. Efficiency - how and why would the hubless fan be any more efficient than a hub driven fan? They are both blades whirling around in a circle inside a duct. All you've eliminated are the "stators" that hold the motor in the center of the hub. But then, in your cad drawings, you add the stators back in. Certainly the design of high efficiency motors that could be used in a central hub application is well understood and very mature. Further, the hub driven motor can be built with only 2 large, robust bearings. We could even add a forced lubrication/cooling system; and, if desired, including a variable pitch mechanism in a central hub driven design is also very well understood and already employed in 1000's of aircraft.
10. a myriad of other considerations that must be accounted for such as heat soaking on a warm day, cold weather effects, rain, Ice, etc. These are "problems" so much more easily addressed on a central hub driven design. I put "problems" in quotes because these aren't really even problems for a central hub driven design.
I apologize for being a Debbie Downer about your project here. I am hoping you have considered all of the above and have solutions in mind. Please con't be a Stockton Rush and kill yourself over an ill conceived "innovation". As I see several gush over your engineering prowess, I felt the need to inject some reality. Creating a new propulsion system is VERY difficult. Aircraft propulsion must meet so many criteria and cannot be even the tiniest bit weak in any area.
I enjoy watching your videos.
Hi Peter, fabulous effort!
The high magnet count of the motor and it’s relatively large diameter will make it very hard to run at a high speed because of excessive voltage requirement and very high frequency of the current needed (over 3300Hz at 5600 RPM ) this will result in fairly hi losses due to eddy currents and skin effect in the coils at higher torque values.
Although it is not an optimum configuration for any motor, you may be able to get your rig to run at higher speeds by wiring coming phase coils in parallel to reduce the back EMF totals, but this will result in a slightly reduced efficiency due to errors in magnet placements but may allow you to run at a higher speed with the same electrical drive system for experimental purposes.
This will not change the frequency requirement but will reduce the phase voltage required at a given speed, the current requirement at a given torque will naturally increase by the same ratio that the voltage requirement reduces.
That should have read Common not coming.
Little note for the simulation part: There is quite big gap between rotor and stator blades, where I would expect the air to swirl more, hence producing more losses. This is not visible in the simulations, because your MRF region is too wide. I bet if you limit the MRF just at close proximity of the rotating blades and for the rest of the outer ring you apply only rotating wall, you will get way different results. I would also advice to make the outlet far more further downstream, to see how the flow field will develop.
Ditto
Also, the inlet pressure boundary isn't even one or one half diameter away, and the side walls seem a bit close as well for any precise design tweaking.
Peter, I love the 24" prototype. With 18 blades and 24 inches of diameter you don't need much horsepower to create 1,500 pounds of static thrust with 1-degree flat pitch, but you do need almost 6,000 RPM. It's been a while since I last crunched the numbers. Outrunner brushless motors produce incredible torque however the mass of the motor system you've engineered will take a few tricks I've learned since 2015 to get just halfway to the RPM you want and need. I was told with my prototype that is 36 slots and 48 poles that there was no way to achieve 4,000 RPM on my 15-inch prototype. I found the solution by accident. That being said with your prototype design I don't believe my solution for the 15" would solve it. You have my mind willing to see if my modification can be adapted to get you close. Amperage and high frequency won't alone solve the problem. You've created a high torque slow RPM motor. I can provide a better solution for your 24" prototype that will keep most of it intact if you're interested. Hint your facilitating 50,000 RPM bearing contact points and not taking advantage of the leverage! Smaller high-speed motors 50K ~100K RPM will prove to be the solution you need. Low mass high RPM. Bonus they will be less expensive to produce, more reliable from heat buildup at altitude, lighter weight, redundant backup. Best wishes and have a blessed day.
I like it. Thanks for the suggestion.
Peter, after reasoning solutions last night in my dreamworld sleep. I've deduced that what you have created are similar to 18 sails. For 1.5K thrust total, the divided thrust load is 83.333... pounds of thrust each. Correct? Employing the solution of propulsion from a sail we need a keel for counterweight reactance moments. 18 sails need 18 keel sail magnets. In this vane of thinking these sails can and probably should articulate. A little flapping like bird wings. The propulsion then could facilitate design similar to a "C" circle track railgun cannon concept. Every time something new is prototyped the entire world advances. In my humble opinion your concept is innovative and worth collaborations. The actual material at commodity pricing needed is less than $100.00 US per thruster. Your works are appreciated and respected. Best wishes and have a blessed day.
Peter, I like what you've achieved. I appreciate your contributions to the aviation community.
What do you think about rewiring the 54 coils into 9 groups of 6 and wiring them in parallel to the controller instead of a single series as they are now? There would only be 2 coils in each phase and they could be narrower gauge and more turns given that everything is in parallel. Then it would appear to be just like nine 8 pole motors wired in parallel. Right?
Peter, Series facilitates higher voltage. Parallel facilitates amperage. 90 hp is about 67.5KW. In my constant Amp brushless motor controller designs I would look at 20 Amps and 3,375 Volts then design the motor accordingly for RPM. The problem that you've got with your current prototype is to obtain higher rpm you need to be able to move the stator field to reduce the back EMF. Amperage is torque voltage is speed. Moving the magnetic field of the stator transitions the angle of advancement that facilitates what I term as pinching the pumpkin seed.
Innovative, out of the box design. Looks very promising. Brilliant!
Dear Peter, congratulations for this marvelous setup! It looks to be a new view on aerodynamic action on vehicles in general!
I will be interested to see how your patent progresses. As a former aircraft engineer, I tried to patent this idea of a hubless "Maglev" electromagnetic linear driven Turbofan back in ~2010 in the UK. My patent lawyer told me there was too much prior art for it to hold any weight, in the UK/EU at any rate. My blade design was different to yours as the compressive forces acting on the blades make a huge difference to what you can do over normal blade designs.
F Bonger
Maglev in combination with this hubless design should be patentable I’d think. Using a maglev technique will help reduce the number of bearings and high rpm friction in this design
@@Meatball2022 core.ac.uk/download/pdf/10535771.pdf
15 years ago at the largest boat show in Europe (Boote Düsseldorf) I saw the same drive for ships. The stator blades were missing in the 2nd row and there were no brushless motors at that time.
Are you positive you are not thinking of a Voith-Schneider Propeller?
Brushless motors have been around since the 60s. Not so common until the last 20 years, granted...
@@YodaWhat No Voith-Schneider Propeller, i am shure. Ist was into 2000 or 2001 where i have see this for a Boat. It was absolute new, so i can remember.
For boats, this solution can be quite useful, especially for internal thrusters.
I love this out-of-the-box thinking Peter, what a cool design! I am no mechanical engineer, but it seems you would have a lot of mechanical advantage driving from the outside of the ring. I will be eagerly following the potential and progress with these ideas!!
That is VERY interesting, I sure hope I can see the full build.. I’ve watched you build the other aircraft from scratch.. you do great work !!
Don't stress about the comments, u did amazing just use the right metal for each material. Well done 🎉🎉
I'm very glad people like you share their inventions, truly a marvel
I love the idea, but I can see a problem with it passing the frozen chicken test. With all the blades not having a central ring for support, accidental bird ingestion could be catastrophic (as if it isn't anyway).
Hmmm a internal ring could also act as a nother mounting surface for more blades or cones.
...absolutely agree with you
Love the idea...I think you might have just designed a ducted wind turbine!
If it's wired to use 3 phase already, it would be interesting to put it into a wind tunnel and see how much power it can generate.
To maintain laminar flow as a generator, perhaps a couple of concentric toroidal foils could replace those of the thruster design.
Without the blade tip vortices of a conventional HAWT wind turbine I could see this being much quieter, possibly allowing for domestic use with simple vane steering.
Just a thought... possible alternative income stream from the basic design 🤔
This is some brilliant stuff ~ I can see why there's no need for any hub in the middle. Amazing to think some small bird could squeek through there somehow. Variable pitch and all that is beyond clever ~ Awesome ~ Great stuff
This is fantastic to see as I designed something very similar to this. I've been working with this kind of idea for a few years and ultimately decided to tackle it with a hybrid design of blades being on an outside and inside ring. This helped with stability and compression and I tried keeping it all electric. This design really made me tackle a lot of new concepts and forced me to learn a lot. I'm not the best with CAD so I don't have anything as nice as your model but I do have quite a few blueprints drawn up. The idea of a hollow jet engine has always been a dream of mine to make
I’ve been fantisizing about this design for years now: Finally someone picking up on it 🤣
Holy crap you got it to work! I've been designing these things on napkins for ages. I wanted to make a higher efficiency flying motorcycle. I kept running into problems with the calculations I couldn't solve. I was going to buy a 3d printer to test some of the ideas. One design has the blades in an S curve so that they can reach almost all the way to the center. I'm really glad someone got the design to work. If we can get this to work well enough I have hundreds of designs to connect it with.
Keep at it, but try using electrical magnetic repulsion to center the fan blades for bearing longevity. Also invest in a 3D to tweek your design in small scale modeling. Hope you continue.
Diameter of 24 inches, 5,600 rpm, your bearings are rolling at 643 km/h. You will need an air bearing or magnetic levitation. Regular bearing will not roll that fast.
Yes, but if you incorporate the bearings into the rotor and not the stationary housing you halve or more the rotational speed of the bearings
@@go6369 How do you figure that?
Current prototypes for electric propellers and similar research in the past aim(ed) at 2500 RPM
If it doesn't work large scale, definitely see how it applies on smaller scale and pivot if necessary (rc plane, house room fan, etc). Keep up the good work!
I've thought of this exact same concept when I was a kid. Im so happy you brought this to life!
blades do pretty well in tension, even a string can stay taught under tension. Compression failure actually comes sooner. Also, shafts can be great, they're a great way to avoid circulation around blade tips. You already have stators, so there is no reason to not just make this all conventional. I would be lighter and more reliable.
Why not extend the blades so that they all meet in the middle? You can’t circulate around a blade tip that doesn’t exist.
Wow, I have to give it to you, thinking out of the box. I will follow you with great expectations. The original Little Aussie Battler.👍🏻
Reminds me of the Exoskeletal Engine concept where they turn a jet engine inside out and use drum rotors instead. The idea was that they could use ceramic blades if the blade was subjected to compressive loads instead of tensile.
Problem is that ceramic does not fail gracefully, it breaks, shatters. Metal bends, fractures.
My concern is how to keep all surfaces that move against each other lubricated. Also as mentioned by another post, without a center ring to give more strength, bird strikes would likely create much more damage. Just a thought.
Have you thought about adding a support ring to the tips of the blades so that when the blades deform due to heat and pressure, they all deform together uniformly, spreading the load across all the blades? Also, what about adding 4-5 rows of the blades in alternating directions to allow for some compression behind them? A little ignition never hurt anyone 😂😂
I once had an idea very, very similar to this back in the early 2000’s, but didn’t have access to what I needed to prototype anything. Very nice work, love what you’ve done 🍻
This is electric so there will be no heat around blade tips.
This grate place to get good ideas for a better moter .sometimes inventer is unable to see the forest through the trees. Fantastic concept .
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time…good work on getting a patent. I’d thought about at stacking them in decreasing circumference, alternating the direction and angle of the fins to avoid the need for stators. I had intended to use for marine use / water propulsion. I had also assumed hydraulic motors rather than electric motors :)
It is an interesting idea, but my opinion is that, it has to many moving parts (the electric motor part) and those many moving parts need to be machined to very tight tolerances , that cost a lot and as you have seen , not many can do it right, so tight tolerances, in order not vibrate and work correctly at high rpm. only 3grams at that diameter at 5000rpm will vibrate like crazy, a wobbly outer case of the rotor will damage bearings from vibrations, i know it. (experience).
A outrunner at that diameter needs to have verry verry precise positioned coils and magnets, because only 0,05 mechanical degrees out will throw many electrical degrees out of alignment the rotor with regard to stator, and also i know that for sure (experience), search for electrical degrees and mechanical degrees in brushless motors PMSM.
Might be a better solution , from fabrication stand point at least , and reliability stand point to make the motor in the center and have only 2 bearings that support the rotor assembly.
Another problem in your design is that you have way to large single copper wire in the coils (so it looks) you need to have many stranded thin wires to avoid skin effect.
The high frequency for that large and many poles rotor may cause some heating problems at high power. Electric motor design is a complex task.
I know this stuff, because a built my electric aircraft and electric propulsion system completely from zero, many years of learning an d building. I have some videos on my channel about this.
Nice work wish you great success! All the best Mihai.
I mean... do you know the types of tolerances and materials required for turbine engines?
@@damnsong8675309 It's way more than some eletric propulsion for a small 300 kts airplane (which is still a lot).
To be fair a conventional gas turbine is highly complex
@@damnsong8675309 i work in a industry with microns of tolerance, and yes an out of round tolerance for a turbine disc is between +/-20 microns at about 1 meter in diameter, and that is no simple task nor cheap to achieve.
@@Cherub1m7 yes they are, but, none of the successful gas turbine power plants was designed and built by a single person, not even a small group of people, thy ware designed, buit and tested by very big companies with 100's of specialized personnel, and non the less with huge budget at expense. I am not saying that is not possible to be done by a single person, but that will require a lifetime and enormous amout of money. There is no need to over complicate what can be built much more simple, just remember the problems that user had with his redrive on audi engine, that even resulted in a crash landing.
Have you considered using a magnetic bearing system vs mechanical bearings? A lot of energy is lost in friction and heat. Overall great concept. I have a similar concept with a completely different design.
I was wondering why so many moving parts too :)
also all the extra parts and weight, but the part that gets me is waste heat is thrust, and you use it to push all the many blades :)
there is no form of thrust more powerful than liquid and solid fuels which is why we use them and the fact that as you burn them you lose weight reducing how much you need to use :)
if you could recharge the energy spent with the motion and get more that way then it might compensate a bit..
I thing for the CFD simulation you need to have more space between the active part and the boundary, otherwise they might influence each other and screw the results
You took my idea! Glad to have it validated! As an aerospace engineer/electronic tech. I can see the wiring coils are a bit mismatched. Been awhile since I've worked in that field...
I wonder if you could add a second rotor to the outside, with a common stator.
Then these would make perfect wheels for a transforming flying motorcycle.
Hahahahahha, or he should build a monorail using the raptors fuselage as the cabin.
Lol. Yeah nevermind the bending of the apparatus on the first pothole. Tight tolerances and all.
3 times the efficiency of a propeller that is 80+% efficient? That's some great math right there. I think what you've discovered is a way to trick software into giving you numbers that aren't possible. Well done on that front. Btw, a divergent duct in the back of a ducted fan is a great way to throw away energy. If you fix that maybe you can hit 4x
Lol
He is a master of tricking the software into producing him his wanted numbers.
There needs to be a forum somewhere to discuss Peter’s endeavors without hurting his feelings. Also to catalog his fallacies.
@@navion1946 There is. Homebuilt airplane forum
@@stevec7596 Thanks Steve. Joined and read up. I feel so much better now. This sweet fantasy needed a good examination and it got its proper tail handed to it there.
What's the gyroscopic effect of so much mass so far from the center of rotation?
That was one of my thoughts as well, and how much more mass does this have? That motor is huge.
Because the force held is outward, i can imagine using carbon fiber or later carbon nanotubes. Probably no need for steel or titanium.
In the worst case it can become a contra-rotating thruster to minimize the torque effects (which could simplify the electric motor design a little).
Thinking of a turbo fan engine on say a 737 or 777 jet. I wouldn't think the gyro effect would be much different, lots of turbo fans have fully included fan that the ring turns with the blades...
@@jasonbrown3632 The outer ring with its motors, blade tilting, chubby blades... is relatively much heavier compared to just a static outer ring.
Very cool! Next someone is going to invent a smokeless ashtray!
Aeronautical Engineer that worked 20 yrs. for main commercial and military generator manufacture, Sundstrand Aerospace now part of UTC. built a 270 KVA 3 phase induction motor running at about 1000 Hz. Weight of the magnetic component about 60 lbs. And I package the inverter where power came from 400VDC batteries. One person could carry each one. That was in about 1982.
First issue is that source of electricity is needed and if created by combustion on the airplane, any method adds weigh.
Second issue, the large number of poles means the motor to run at a a high speed requires high frequency. Extremely high frequency results in higher lose in the steel or other flux conductor and in the wire since the current is concentrated at the surface of the wire. We paid for low weight with high iron losses and requiring litz wire. Spray oil cooling was required to remove heat. This motor with a counter rotating stator fit into a 20 target torpedo hull. The stator and gearbox housing directly drove a propeller and a counter propeller was drive through a gearbox.
The simplest solution is to reduce the number of poles. I assume three PMs create a single three phase pole thus 72 PM result in 24 effective poles for 3 phase. Use two PMs for each phase pole results in 12 effective poles and use 4 PMs cut in half again to 6 effective poles. Also affecting efficiency is the lack of a back iron to connect the PM flux paths so the only time flux is in are is at the gaps between parts with relative motion. I may have missed this in the scrolling through the video.
Free 2D magnetic software is www.femm.info/wiki/HomePage which has been around so may examples and videos exist to show you how to deal with motion etc.
I swear this idea is in my mind for more than a year!
Fantastic work!
And yes, it will change the electric planes forever.
Am like you was thinking of it ,but i still believe it is not complete yet.
Me too, since I was an aerospace engineering student at Georgia Tech, but Peter actually built it.
Cute 🤓
Will get then get into anything with it at the time because it's a completely dumb idea. This is the equivalent of taking something that works, and turning it into something that can't work. Like you don't see someone looking at a tire and saying what if I put the rims on the outside and the rubber in the inside. Lol or flipping streetlamps around to face the sky LOL.
@@patman0250 stop the sarcasm, smart!
If you mean the tips of the blades, and the wheels that give the whole fan it's stability, then you might be a bit myopic! Those can be mended simply by an axix that hold the fan in place.
Moreover, Rolls-Royce is building an engine with a very similar idea using I think an axial flux motor, the advantage is: 1- you use a far more efficient motor hidden in the flesh of the fan duct.
2- the axial motor has more torque as it pushes the fan by its tips instead of a conventional motor which will push the axis much closer to the central axis.
3- there maybe some wight reduction and less drag.
I think peter wanted only to demonstrate the general idea.
Variable pitch exists also in standard motors mostly to reverse thrust on combustion engines. The main issue I see is the lack of gains due to weight and frictions. You do get rid of the engine bell and use the ducts as a bell. The main efficiency gain should be from the better ducks seal, but getting tight motor tolerances is now harder and those have huge perforce consequences. Lastly, this motor will not like to change direction (like a bike wheel at 90°).
You are going to have severe harmonic issues with those unsupported blades in compression. I am certain you will need to add a ring at the tips to damp the harmonics, hopefully this will not have negative effects on the efficiency, but I don’t think it will.
You may be right, but software analysis can be used to determine the speeds that are worst and the better speeds may be ok 🤷
@@jsbrads1 simulations are like masturbating to p0rn - it's nice but it's not the real thing.
Real life performance is what counts.
@@ryanthomas2472 no it doesn't. The blades still rotate around a certain point. There just needs to be a pivot at that point where they meet the centre ring
@@nathanchalecki4842 Yes it will work as you say but only if the bottom and top pivot points are in line but in this case it can not since bottom pivot point looks off centre.
Then an inner set of blades mounted to the ring at the base and connected to a ball in the center (I don’t know anything about this)
Add the ring in the center, to support of the other ends of the blades. Looking good, great idea.
You could stop supporting from the other end! Just spin them from the middle!
Super interesting configuration. There's a colossal mountain of challenges to summit before any aviation authority would certify it tho. In a previous life I was an aerospace fan and turbine blade design & development engineer; I can see a whole tonne of issues that'll need looking at both early on and later. Early problems include vibrational fatigue and creep leading to failure and fan-blade-off. There is a massive challenge to keep the blade tips stable under radially compressive loading. Later problems will be bird strike and containment as the engine sheds a blade and goes out of balance. I was on the team that tested GE's CF34-8C bird strike and blade off performance. The destruction was staggering to behold.
So. Much. Rotational Inertia.
While this might be an interesting option as a forward thruster, it'd be incredibly difficult to use this as a vertical lift thruster and maintain controlability.
Also I'd recommend a number of stators/rotors that's a non integral ratio. Otherwise you'll get resonance issues and it'll be loud as hell.
There's a lot of interesting ideas you have here but you're gonna have a lot of challenges to overcome.
I wish you the best of luck
Interesting. It has a lot of rotational inertia, but it also has a lot of leverage on that inertia.
Can you explain what the issue is a little bit more? I'm not sure it's any different than how a helicopter works. The back engines would need to maintain a slight angle though to provide that force vector.
@@nathanchalecki4842 And the rotating mass can be "easily" decreased with better materials and mechanisms (specially the pitch control).
I have had this type of design in my head for years now, and it is wonderful to see it realized in CAD and in your prototype! Would love to see what this design will provide in terms of real-life thrust.
Brilliant. I think the key to this getting off the ground (pun intended) is to get somebody as brilliant electronically as you are mechanically to work out the motor design and get them to optimal power/efficiency. Great work.
Pushing a non-Camilfo plane with a hot toxic stream, a cold laminar flow is much more reliable! You did it, my respect !!! Thank you !!! I would like to see a working model of the aircraft as soon as possible !!!
Very ingenious idea and what's better is your commitment and follow through. You have really pushed the limits. KEEP GOING!
bad advice.
All i know is that large diameter, high precision bearings are extremely expensive, and thermal expansion issues are just that. Issues.
Along with things like rotational speeds.
This is a non solution for a problem that doesnt exist.
Not that I would know, but in a normal turbo fan the bearings take the load on their face, but your bearings take the load on the edge. What do you expect the wear to be?
Amazing work, anyone working on novel ideas are the real leaders in the industry.
Very interesting design! I'm curious why you went with 18 blade, and a 2 to 1 ratio with the 9 stators. I love the inversion, though I am curious if the magnetic decentralization decreases efficiency, even given the gains with blade pitch variability. I'm also curious how much the open core might increase air-through, and how the intake compression ratio curve compares to standard axial engines. Presumably it's optimized here for cruising speed
That is fantastic!! It will definitely change flying both from a commercial airliner standpoint and from an EVTOL standpoint and everything in between!!!
Impressive work Mr. Muller. I am an electronics engineer - not mechanical, so I cannot comment on your design or the points raised by various folks.
The one thing that just did not 'feel' right to me however was the flappity-doodle vulnerability of the blades. Reckon "BootsnFlies" suggestion is worth a detailed look.
Well done - so far - Sir. Best of fortunes with this design.
Love the novelty but the weight was my first concern and comparison to the GE9x. The engine wet is 21K it makes about 134,000 LBS but more over it provides much more than just thrust. Bleed air for anti-icing and cabin pressure, electricity 90KVA, and 300hp of hydraulic power to power all the control surfaces. You need to keep those in mind. Additionally I would look at the friction of your system vs a GE9x and the loss of both systems. Smaller bearings (shaft) will have a lower coefficient of friction than the large race bearings and wheels you are using. Good stuff can't weight for version 2 to address some of those.
Yes great point. Those outer wheels will be running at very high rates while bearing the full thrust load. Seems high friction losses are likely.
I would suggest having all the blade tips connect to foiled ring at the center (like a miniature duct) which would act as a hub, they could be connected at bushings/bearings, to allow for changes of pitch at the periphery.
Besides that, I think it's impractical to have all that mass so far out from the axis of rotation, but I'm excited to see it work.
He didn't learn a single thing from any of the mistakes he made with Raptor 1.
When you can set your ego aside and analyze the how and why that got you to this point (in a cornfield) then you have the opportunity to be humbled and address those issues without your ego getting in the way of success.
Does Peter sound like a man that was humbled by those mistakes? Or does he sound like someone that is convinced that the only mistakes he made was that he didn't go BIG enough nor was it COMPLEX enough?
So, I'll be here. Eating my popcorn. Watching. Waiting for the slow moving train wreck right into a tanker truck stuck on the tracks.
He should have have insisted on the original prototype at least as a testbed. I know you just want attention and don't care about the project, but he is also trying to integrate too many changes at once in the design and this will cause a complete chaos soon.
Cool !
Now do another one with counter rotating blades and get rid of the stator assembly.
Nice work Peter. Agree with your FEA that the tips wont flex much. My background is air handling and not power plant and airframe. My desire is to see the fabulous airflows generated by modern turbofan engines duplicated by lower temperature engines and you are working in that direction. If I can suggest, rim or hub driven, the airflow in the center will always be less than at the periphery. This is highly disruptive to good airflow. Both the bell mouth inlet and it's corresponding opposite, the bullet shaped hub (both upstream and down stream), help give more uniform performance and they don't need to rotate.
I am very much looking forward to seeing this on a real world test, full thrust power and blade pitch. I like it, I get the engineering behind it, and it's fairly exciting to see this new design.
I do have my concerns about the design, but I'm not nearly engineer enough to know if mine are founded. I will just look forward to the testing and see what happens! Good on ya!
If you get the engineering behind it, please tell me what the case is for this design. I gave up on the video.
@@kylenolan3138 The case is thus:
Propellers and hub based fans have issues with supersonic tips (high drag) as well as hub strength. They are also susceptible to hub/blade failure due to manufacturing processes coupled with a large amount of outward force being put upon the blade hub and hub itself. Both are in danger of FOD or bird strike causing them to fail. And when they fail, the blades swing outward from the hub, and that can be... fun. Sioux City DC-10 for example. Hub failure, plane crashed. Not all hub/blade failures are contained.
This design, all the force is put on the outer ring. This is a stronger design due to the containment already happening on the ring. There cannot be any blades flung outwards, worst case is it is flung backwards if a blade assembly fails. Further, there cannot be any supersonic drag of the tips, as the tips are on the inside, spinning slower than the base of the blade as it runs around the ring. This improves efficiency of the blade.
Further efficiency of the blades are found by variable pitch, which you do not see in High Bypass Turbofans. You do see them on props, but it's a somewhat problematic solution which not all aircraft have. These blades will be pitched automatically, so you run the 'engine' at the same speed, but can produce variable, speed appropriate thrust. This is therefore akin to a CVT transmission in a car: Car runs 3500 RPM, but still accelerates at a constant speed, the transmission changing its ratio to produce peak power for the car's speed needs.
Finally, it's akin to a 'diesel electric train' idea. Diesel electric trains have diesel engines, but they are not running the train. The engines are used to generate the electricity, and then that electricity runs the motors on the wheels. This is the same thing: small, efficient engine to generate enough power to electrically run the fans. Less fuel used by far than directly running the props/fan.
It's quite the idea. Not so much the electric side of it, the fan design moreso, but the whole thing. It's rather innovative and striking, and IF (because it's an IF at this point, of course) this pans out, it could be revolutionary in the aviation world.
As far as the SVTOL idea... That should work as well, but I think that'll be best done after proof of concept on the system in general. Straight out flight first, then add the SVTOL part.
Will it actually work and/or be a revolution? Well, they didn't think that rockets could be reused until about, what, 7 years ago? All it takes it one person at the right time with the right means to try and see, and Peter is the person of this moment.
@@mikeybhoutex the blades definitely can be thrown out sideways. They still have essentially all the axial force they do in turbofan engines, and with the lack of support to the blade tips the flexure will cause major fatigue cracking over time leading to them breaking off and being launched outwards into the hub.
The root of the blades will also still be going supersonic, it’s irrelevant wether it’s the tips of the blades or not, a part of it is going to be supersonic.
The ring holding the blades is also going to be under immense forces due to the g-loading from the centrifugal forces from the rotational speed along with the torsion from the blades.
There are more issues with this design than there are positives.
I don't think you need mechanical bearings, it seems to me maglev would work better, especially at the speeds you are contemplating. Also, I think the shape of the blades can be optimized. At the rotational speeds you are planning there is going to be tremendous centrifugal force, so air is going to be moving outward from the center at considerable velocity. If airspeed is slow this is more of a centrifugal compressor than an axial fan; in fact, I think you have to be moving pretty fast before axial vectors overcome centrifugal vectors. The blades (or cowling) need to redirect that airflow to the rear, or you are going to waste a lot of energy as heat, which will cause the rim or cowling to heat up. If you are using permanent magnets in the motor you have to worry about them reaching their Curie temperature, at which point they will lose magnetism. Neodymium magnets have Curie temps in the 300-400 C range, which isn't really all that high in this context.
It's an interesting idea, with some advantages coming from putting the drive on outside rather than in the center. I wonder if it might be more useful to use to provide downward thrust for vertical lift, rather than just forward thrust.
Looking forward to see your progress.
As this is intended to produce a ton of thrust you will want to have thrust bearings in place to take the punishment. And once you have that you might just as well ut some roller bearings in place to take any side load that might develop in case of a bird strike taking out one or more of the blades and unbalancing the whole thing.
Pete it looks like you will have issues with blade warping under high centrifugal load. Have you looked at a center support ring to tie the blade tips together and support the pitching movement. The ring could be supported by the static fins and a nose cone or more blades added to the center whole
Would also solve the compressive load issue... they would be under tension with an inner hub.
You'd lose variable pitch that way, no?
@Name no you could design in a bearing leaver system similar to the outer ring without the actuator. Like a slide guide. More complex though it would seem to solve a lot of the obvious issues that will arise when you get into the higher RPM ranges. I would think the side roller's bearing system would need to be oil fed / lubricated for longevity. That would mean a whole rethink and add massive cost to manufacture. Pete is pretty clever so I doubt it's beyond him.
@@Name-ot3xw if you can put it in the outer ring, why not the inner as well?
@@johnmurray3834 Or eletrodynamic/magnetic levitation, which can come as part of the motor itself.
In your comparison near 48:00 you compare a complete engine + turbofan with just your turbofan and no engine. It should at least include the weight of any engine that can produce the power required plus a generator. Preferably an existing off the shelf engine and generator.
Thanks for the expose!! Seems to be solid!!! Hope it flies in the sense that the concept is well received!!
It's really hard to adlib without a script - you're really underselling your great knowledge and brilliant graphics. It sounds hesitant, like you haven't really thought about it too much. Come on this is really amazingly exciting. It deservers to be talked about with some passion.
It’s a great concept. Seems to me that one of the major concerns would be component wear and longevity around the outer bearings, due to the pressure created by centrifugal forces. Also, what about the effect of dynamic g forces on the rotor? That said, I wish you the best of luck; it has a lot of potential.
My thoughts too. Interesting project but likely RPM limited so the tradeoff would have to be calculated. Perhaps useful in other applications / air pumps where an RPM overhead is less of a problem. Certainly there could be no tight sealing surfaces at the outer rim. The surface velocity would be too high for most typical sealing materials.
Labyrinth seals?
Bearing wear is where my mind went first, too. Not only are they under compression, but they have to traverse the entire outer rim of the rotor each rotation: a much larger circumference than a traditional hub. Further, the design is intended to operate at a much higher RPM than conventional designs, so the individual rotations of each bearing per rotor rotation would have to be orders of magnitude higher than a conventional design, and that effect would multiply with the radius of the thruster. I'm no mechanical engineer and am not terribly clear on what bearings can be expected to stand up to, but my instinct is that's going to be a problem.
I like the idea, however, it seems like a complicated ducted fan.
Maaan, I wanted to build this 7 years ago, but couldn't find the money. THIS IS indeed the future of aviation. The only thing it need is better Switched reluctance motor, that I developed in parallel
congrats on the patent, i can imagine 4 of these on a vtol vehicle.
lol just finished the vid, true innovation
Have you considered broadening the blades at their base, and tapering them to their ends?
I think that a cold fusion reactor for the power source is about as likely as this working.
Tip speed is still a problem, you don’t want sonic shocks at the leading edge of the outer point of the fan blade that is exposed to the air.
I’m a tiny bit concerned about the open design to the screws, I think that should be closed and smooth to reduce drag effects 🤔
I do know a bit about the intake to jet engines and would be glad to discuss if you want. The entrance to a jet engine is very carefully designed with smooth curves (Google photos) to try to cause as little disruption to the air flow as possible.
Peter is doing such a wonderful job for a greener world. How about we all help him by subscribing and supporting him with positive feedback. Rome was not built in a day.
Huh, so I guess I’m not the only one to have thought of this. Pretty typical occurrence in the world of engineering.
Only difference is that you’ve actually went and built one while I didn’t bother to even go that far.
I also came up with it but for different reasons. It was thought up with the intention of noise and turbulence reduction for drone props. By design, ducted propellers has increase thrust while also decreased noise due to a funnels path for turbulent air low to go through. Then at least for me getting rid of the shaft in the center would also further reduce turbulent flow.
Only reason I didn’t bother to pursue further was because you could get a similar effect with inverted ducted propellers where the shaft does not interfere with the turbulent path: only the inlet will be obstructed by the arm.
Further reasoning to find design less preferable is the amount of moving parts on the main body where the blades will be experiencing compressive load created by centripetal forces. It’s a body vs shaft design.
I like the idea for Ariel platforms like drones, but never considered it for traditional propped or jet aircraft.
Maybe consider a conical shaped dual ring design. It will make the blades more stable while increasing blade surface area to interact with the airflow. Idk, to me that would be the next step to try.
As many have said, lots of bearings and moving parts. Have you thought about a connected manipulation of blade pitch? Just thinking of bad situations, like flat spins, etc, where aerodynamic pressure would be coming backwards, or highly turbulent air, like the jet exhaust from another aircraft, that would play havoc with this free or unconnected cam design.
Negative/reverse thrust, as others have said, would be useful….
What about a second stage, rotating the opposite direction, with a swashplate like control between them?
The blades look very symmetrical, why not vary the cord, profile, etc to vary from the root on the outer towards the center?
Have you created any scale working models/prototypes, even a low speed 3D printed design might reveal some insights. Take a look at all the 3D printed takes that drone operators have done based on the MIT blade design (looks like a bunch of ellipses).
Definitely high torque, but air at lower speeds would not require that much torque, and at higher RPMs/speeds… I just do not know.
I definitely hope this works and is very efficient.
I think a more active cooling system might be needed to keep your bearings and motor cool… but I have been wrong before!
There is a russian experimental fiberglass airplane that looks like a jet and uses a car engine, they spent a lot of effort designing a ducted fan for it and their latest blades have a 'twist' on them too.
@@vitordelima
=DREAMER JPII...
Neat concept! I see you compared this with a propeller and a GE9X but I'm wondering how this engine compares to a traditional motor-in-hub ducted fan? I assume you'd also have to worry about designing the blades to not buckle under high rpm and all the drag caused by the motor and pitch adjustment mechanism rotating in a confined space at high velocity, not to mention the high tolerance that would need to be achieved to reduce vibration with such a large rotating mass distribution. What advantage does this engine have over a normal ducted fan?
Seems that having a central ring would help with a lot of that. But idk how that'd effect performance
Advantage number one: it looks cooler.
@@nathanchalecki4842 You can easily produce a lot of torque for something driven by a giant motor in its its outer surface, tip vortices don't matter, blades can have better shapes since they are supported by a large base surface, ...
Im not an expert on this stuff Peter but as an ATPL/IR rated pilot of 30 years it certainly looks very interesting - I dont know if you have invented the next great idea but I do wish you well for trying - I am currently building an RV10 and this looks like my next purchase if you can make it work as you say - which I do hope to see!!!
Ignore the naysayers - keep going - I hope to be one of your satisfied customers in a few years 🙂
Peter, Amazing CAD work. I know it’s late but don’t patent this. The improvements needed to make the rpm you are suggesting would make the motor so different that the patent documentation you submitted would be unenforceable. I am not sure if you are being a patent troll or are literally out of ideas to make it work. I am not an engineer but there are 5 changes I can think of that would make this a more than an expensive fan for your office. First one being Delrin has a Rockwell hardness of 30 and aluminum is 108. Under-load that will create heat and those wheels will melt or get chewed up before anything novel happens. 2 the magnets are mounted on the fan. No wonder there is a lot of emf. Magnets should not be spinning. It would interfere with avionics or a pace maker that a passenger was wearing. 3 your blades are too thin at the base and too fat at the tips. Take the mass out of the tips to reduce flutter. Less mass at the end of a lever the less vibration. If you can do those then 4 and 5 will be obvious.
Great work Pete,
How to deal with low center air mass flow... change the centre radius dimension by using an intake cone forcing airflow past static vanes to outer blade area. Redesign blade shape to allow for increased chord angle air flow and maintain laminar flow.
You could consider two rows of blades for 40% thrust improvement for 20% more weight 👍
Angle the coils away from perpendicular
Also kim Electricity can be generated from air passing across copper in-between your double static vanes behind blades...ooh yeah.
Keep going with this Pete, your on a winner.
🐰
Tip flutter?