Airship design

From Wikiversity

This article is about making a private airship to be used for travel purposes.

[edit] Usage

Just like a normal camper, the vehicle is to be used by people in the developed world with a nomadic lifestyle. It would be similar to Lieven Standaert's Aeromodeller 2. With the overpopulation, traffic is expected to increase (which may lead to saturation, depending on how the urban design evolves. Ever-clogging cities/streets, may be the result and air traffic (with personal air vehicles) is expected to increase anyhow. Real life examples to this is the PAV (personal air vehicles) challenge, which is contest to design the most efficient personal air vehicle. Other air vehicles (including human powered air vehicles) have also been made. Aldough the evolution of these vehicles is not certain to succeed on the market at present, an aerial version of a camper is certain to have much more potential of having market-success. In addition, it might allow benefits to globalisation and international travel/trade.

The use of wind turbines may also be included into the ship (to be used when stationary). The turbines may use the increased efficiency of the air flow prevailent at the higher altitudes the ship reaches. Either airborne generators/aerogenerators (which have higher efficiency) may be used (aldough this may not be so practical) or stationary ones (less efficient but more easy to deploy when a stand-still is initiated). The power generated may be used for energy-intensive applications (eg cooking, battery recharging, ...)

[edit] Features

It is to become :

The hybrid airship design

a hybrid airship (with 2 or 4 large bags located at 2 dual wings and propellers between the dual wings; it would resemble a wright flyer where the tail swapped is swapped with the same wing used in front. Propulsion would be either by the passive or pulse jet solar heating design (which would have again small design variations; it would mean that eather 2 large or 4 large bags are to be used better of more central placed on the wings; the same is true with the food production system used; see below). A problem of this airship, namely the increased space required for landing and the fact that hydrogen needs to be released for this landing when picking up or delivering passengers could be avoided by implementing a radio-controlled winch. This winch could roll down by using the remote control and winch the passenger up. For accasional repairs, the ship can be landed without loss of hydrogen by pumping it slowly into a city-based stationary boom connected to a underground cavity. The ship may also be fitted with a rigid structure going along the entire length of the balloon (fitted untop of the balloon) with a movable winch; this would serve for emergency repairs (in-flight). An option for the airship would be the ability to land on water (useful in case of emergency)

The airplane-airship design

-or-

more of a airplane with 4 small bags located at 2 foldable wings, and a twin boom with tail propellor. The propulsion would be done by one of following possibilities:
best would be a hydrogen internal combustion engine (by w:quasiturbine) with 80% energy recovery by stirling engine (this would increase speed as there is less aerodynamical drag than the alternative presented below)

The alternative would be:

the use of a hybrid system using fuel cells/solar panels (for electric battery recharging) and a electric battery. See the Ford Edge HySeries Drive
or the use of combination of lighter-than-air gas balloons and a propeller propulsion system (with no downward engines unlike the microdrone; instead the gas itself is inserted and released upon leave and arrival to attain the correct altitude) and 2 trusting propellers.

The motorglider-airship design

-or-

as a third possibility might be the use of a powered motorglider-type set-up with 4 small bags and pedals (for electricity recharging). The glider is to make use of a inflatable hydrogen/helium kite and could be foreseen of a board underneath the cabin to make advantage of the ground effect in aircraft; note that the propeller should thus be able to tilt.

It is to use hydrogen either as a gas to assist the air vehicle in taking off (relying on wings and back-rear propeller to fly; hereby thus being more of an airplane) or use hydrogen or passive solar (trough the hydrogen envelope idea with hydrogen cracking found below or trough direct fuel cell recharging with PV solar panels) or direct solar heating balloons (passive solar technique). If sufficient lifting gas is injected, the craft should be able to hover continuously at some 3m (eliminating most obstacles and battering from roads), and use the propeller to increase height if needed. Passive solar techniques may be regular passive solar balloons or the "passive heated solar pulse jet"-technique noted again in the links below. Perhaps that human powered generation (trough pedals) may also be used in conjunction. All described techniques are environmentally friendly.

The hydrogen cracking idea (where water is transformed to hydrogen) may be used in the airship to generate hydrogen (or possibly oxyhydrogen). This (oxi)hydrogen is then used to power the engines or to provide additional lift (gas is then only generated when an altitude gain is required). The (oxi)hydrogen itself can simply be taken from the balloon rather than implementing a seperate hydrogen container to power the engines. See this wikipedia article for more information. Water may be collected trough a "gutter" hanging under the airship to collect water dripping down the canvas of the balloon/hull. Also, water may be generated by extracting it from the air (eg by Humid air water extraction devices. At high altitudes (cloud zone) there is much more available water to extract from the air. With regular electrolysis hydrogen production, more energy is still needed than what is obtained in amounts of hydrogen. This problem however may be solved with additional energy generators such as airborne wind turbines and PV solar panels (eg fixed to the balloon). Perhaps electric refueling stations may also be an option for smaller airships (to reduce their cost, weighing off against a limited range).

Fuel cell systems for the hybrid airship could include the HydrogenSolar Tandem cell. This is a useful system as is it is more efficient (uses principle of a greatzel cell) and cheaper (direct generation of hydrogen in 1 unit). A few tandem cells (thus not the entire balloon could be placed at the top. Water from the rain gutter below can be pumped up and used inmediatelly in the cell to produce hydrogen (which is vented inmediatelly within the balloon's canvas.

PV-solar power and or supplemented with stationary (on-ship) wind turbines or airborne wind turbines may be used (depending on design); also flywheel energy storage may be used instead of regular batteries (depending again on design). electric ducted fan engines are to be included based on Skycat (water-floating capability) it is to use an all-glass-cockpit ( several US WW2 bombers had this feature; eg the Flying Fortress, StratoFortress, ...), aswell as present Russian airplanes and the new SpaceShipOne/SpaceShipTwo of Virgin Galactic. Depending on how large the air vehicle is to be constructed, the glass, bowl-shaped cockpit may be large and feature several chairs for several pilots (just behind the glass). It is also to feature foldable wings (as implemented into many of todays jets aswell as cruise missiles as the Tomahawk land attack missile (the wings are to slide over each other however rather than fold together). The wings will only be used to increase the range and reduce drag (not to really do the heavy lifting). it is to use fly-by-wire/control pad and new flying controls (see own CAD-model). Finally, the balloons themselves which hold the hot air gas (filled trough the passive solar technique) is to be imbedded to the plane in 4 bags, 2 by 2 on the wind (above and below the wings. When wings are folded, the balloons rest on a frame (flaps are to slide together within/under the frame. The entire airship will look like a plane (very similar to the fighters portraied in the fictional movie "Lost in space"). the propeller is to be located at the tail rather than at the nose (aswell already well implemented into certain airplanes sold today). system of rapid deflation/ HULA-improvements (give-off of gas; transport to buildings; eg idea Empire State Building) it is to include ECLSS (constant food production/recycling system); so the camper may be used as a "house" and embarking/disembarking my be limited