Plasma drag reduction

[teoman]

Tuft testing?

[kach22i]

Plasma is such a drag.


Ayaks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaks

Plasma sheath

As altitude increases, the electrical resistance of air decreases according to Paschen's law. The air at the nose of Ayaks is ionized. Besides e-beams and HF pulse discharges, a high voltage is produced by the Hall effect in the MHD generator that allows a planar glow discharge to be emitted from the sharp nose of the aircraft and the thin leading edges of its wings, by a St. Elmo's fire effect. Such a plasma cushion in front and around the aircraft offers several advantages:[35][36][2]

The ionized air becomes electrically conductive, which allows the MHD generator to work and decelerate the flow down to the air-breathing jet engines.

The MHD-controlled inlet ramp allows to vector the flow as a shock-on-lip without physical inlet cones.

Electric charges mixed with the fuel increase the combustion effectiveness.

The bow shock wave is detached further ahead of the aircraft, the energy deposition in this region acting as a virtual blunted nose, although the nose stays physically very sharp. This minimizes the heat flux on materials.[35]

The temperature gradient in the air is locally modified, hence the speed of sound value, which mitigates and softens the shock wave. This lowers thermal effects on materials further, as well as the wave drag.[37][38][35]

The plasma cocoon surrounding the whole aircraft gives plasma stealth. Combined with hypersonic speeds and maneuverability, such a platform would be very difficult to detect, track and target.

Magnetohydrodynamics?

[Piotrsko]

Feng sui is indistinguishable from fluid dynamics.

[freebeard]

teoman — Don't forget to post about any results. I've identified an opportunity myself. I'm holding a low reservation number for one of these:

I want to substitute a steel VW wheel for the two fronts so that I can used Moon disks. Then I want to bend a circular strip of dielectric material into a conic section and attach it to the outer rear edge of the front fender. With a thick copper wire bent into a serpentine on the outside leading edge and the other behind the trailing edge.

Best case it would blow a sheet of air against the main body, to re-attach the turbulence coming from the A-arm suspension.

It's an electric vehicle, so power supply is no problem.

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by freebeard

It's an electric vehicle, so power supply is no problem.

The power supply will promise to be annoying and inefficient. I do have concerns about plasma and the general public being in close proximity.

[redpoint5]

I looked at that website and understand the concept, but is it really plasma? Seemed to be ionized air, which doesn't fit the definition of plasma. I'd expect ionizing air to be less energy intensive as creating plasma.

[freebeard]

The gating factor would be whether the aero improvement would pay for itself and not reduce range.

It would be inefficient to switch it on below 25mph. Above 25mph there would be other concerns.

edit: No true plasma fallacy

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Plasma - physics
Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, and was first described by chemist Irving Langmuir in the 1920s. It consists of a gas of ions, atoms which have some of their orbital electrons removed, and free electrons.

A gas of plasma is poor wording.

[freebeard]

Speaking of plasma:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa8EeTa2x7c

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

The power supply will promise to be annoying and inefficient. I do have concerns about plasma and the general public being in close proximity.

OEM parts FTW. One electrode is buried behind the dielectric. I doubt touching it would do anything. Maybe inhale a little ozone?

Anyway 50Kvolts would be enough to experiment with active aerodynamics.

[AeroMcAeroFace]

If you are driving a car with high voltage on it near a dusty diesel fume polluted road surface aren't you essentially making an electrostatic precipitator? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electr...c_precipitator

Surely your car then becomes a near literal dust magnet attracting all the carcinogenic soot particles from nearby cars.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Plasma is such a drag.


Ayaks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaks



Magnetohydrodynamics?

Again, this is ballistic flow, not germane to road vehicles.
For it to be magnetohydrodynamics, we'd be introducing an electric potential, to accelerate the air itself to create jet thrust. I can't imagine that the mechanical efficiency could exceed that of an electric traction motor. It's a second law of thermodynamics fail.