Ionic Propulsion

tonycondon

tonycondon

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My cousin wants to make an ionic propulsion model for a 4-H project. I dont know anything about it. From about a half hour of research this morning it seems like its going to be tough because some serious high voltage is required. Im thinking that perhaps it would be better to come up with a good demonstration of newtons 3rd law, and explain the physics behind ion propulsion. thoughts?
 
tonycondon said:
My cousin wants to make an ionic propulsion model for a 4-H project. I dont know anything about it. From about a half hour of research this morning it seems like its going to be tough because some serious high voltage is required. Im thinking that perhaps it would be better to come up with a good demonstration of newtons 3rd law, and explain the physics behind ion propulsion. ?
Click to expand...

A good friend of mine that I haven't seen for years worked on NASA's first ION propulsion drive for satellite
stationkeeping. Among other things I learned about that from him was that they used mercury as the propellant mass (probably not a good idea here on earth given the toxicity), the solar panels produced a few amps of current at several KV, and that they had to connect the panels together in total darkness to avoid electrocution.

I also remember seeing some sort of kit or plans for a device that was supposed to shield gravity that turned out to be an ion drive with air as the propellant mass. I might have seen this on mythbusters, but IIRC it looked like a 1 ft square device that resembled a miniature boxing ring connected to a high voltage supply (10 KV?).

That kind of voltage can be achieved a few different ways. One is to use the anode supply from a TV although sometimes those involve the horizontal deflection circuit and coil and the 15 KHz frequency is high enough to cause RF burns if your body gets too near to the coil. Another is to use a neon sign transformer (typically 10-15KV) and a "stack" of solid state diodes with balancing resistors. And a third would be to start with a transformer putting out 500-1000v and apply that to a voltage multiplier (a network of diodes and capacitors). Of course, that's all assuming you don't just purchase a high voltage DC supply (they can cost quite a bit).
 
Just buy an ionic breeze from Sharper Image & use the guts from that...
 
You might have him make a magnetohydrodynamic drive rather than a magnetoplasmadynamic drive (ion). They work on the same principle, except you don't have to deal with that pesky plasma stuff ;)

I wrote a paper on MHD and built a little MHD engine for my physics class. The highest voltage you need is a 9v battery (of course I went overboard and used a transformer).
 
care to share any details?

msupples1 said:
I wrote a paper on MHD and built a little MHD engine for my physics class. The highest voltage you need is a 9v battery (of course I went overboard and used a transformer).
Click to expand...
 
tonycondon said:
care to share any details?
Click to expand...

Honestly the paper was pretty bad because all of the math was over my head. I have the math skills to do it now though. What year is your cousin in regarding math? If he has started multi-variable calculus he can probably grasp the basic concepts, but to be able to solve it requires higher level differential equation classes and advanced numerical analysis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamics

There is your wikipedia on it. I can give a better description of how to build the drive and how it works later tonight probably.
 
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my cousin is ~ 10 so diff eq is going to be above his head. however id love to know a little more about the construction so i can forward it along. ill be out of town tonight and tomorrow, but shoot me an email. abcondon@gmail.com

thanks!
 
michael, just checking back in to see about how to build the MHD dealio. thanks!
 
Ah...oops

I got caught up in work and forgot to email the stuff to you Tony. I dug through my computer to find my original paper and found my source for making my MHD drive,

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php?story=SimpleMHD

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php?story=MHDCraft

The first explains the science and the second describes how to make a propulsion device.

I'm working on a presentation for next week on MHD. Most of what I have is explained in the link. My class isn't just engineering majors, so I'm having to break down the math into very simple equations, but I still haven't finished yet. I'll let you know when I've got basic functions.
 
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