View Single Post
Old 02-27-2010, 01:58 PM   #2 (permalink)
aerohead
Master EcoModder
 
aerohead's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Sanger,Texas,U.S.A.
Posts: 16,306
Thanks: 24,436
Thanked 7,384 Times in 4,782 Posts
no-go?

I think that in automotive applications,this would be a solution waiting on a problem.
No properly designed auto would generate the type of vorticity this tech would suppress.
Tip velocities of a large rotor can approach sonic speeds with compressible effects which interact with incompressible effects occuring closer to the the rotor blade root, with velocities only fractional in comparison.
The tip also experiences spanwise bleeding as the pressure differential between the top and bottom of the aerofoil causes air to seek the lower pressure created by lift and momentum.Again,a properly designed auto aft-body can solve this problem.
The technology is cool,it looks like an outgrowth of the Q-Tip propeller which I believe originated in a classified US Army single-place aircraft used in Vietnam in the 1970s which could fly overhead at 100-feet,undetected.
  Reply With Quote