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Gonna be interesting to see how they dispose of all that heat. On surface examination of their claim it seems to defy physics. Yeah it's claimed to be a great new heat exchanger but what is it exchanging the heat with?
I am a tad leery of grandiose claims, but this could be one of those game-changers in a way that has some very profound repercussions.
Not field tested yet, but intriguing.
British company claims biggest engine advance since the jet
http://news.yahoo.com/british-compan...--finance.html..LONDON (Reuters) - A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology.
Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on Earth to no more than four hours away.
That ambition was given a boost on Wednesday by ESA, which has acted as an independent auditor on the Sabre test program.
"ESA are satisfied that the tests demonstrate the technology required for the Sabre engine development," the agency's head of propulsion engineering Mark Ford told a news conference.
"One of the major obstacles to a re-usable vehicle has been removed," he said. "The gateway is now open to move beyond the jet age."
The space plane, dubbed Skylon, only exists on paper. What the company has right now is a remarkable heat exchanger that is able to cool air sucked into the engine at high speed from 1,000 degrees Celsius to minus 150 degrees in one hundredth of a second.
This core piece of technology solves one of the constraints that limit jet engines to a top speed of about 2.5 times the speed of sound, which Reaction Engines believes it could double.
SHROUDED IN SECRECY
With the Sabre engine in jet mode, the air has to be compressed before being injected into the engine's combustion chambers. Without pre-cooling, the heat generated by compression would make the air hot enough to melt the engine.
The challenge for the engineers was to find a way to cool the air quickly without frost forming on the heat exchanger, which would clog it up and stop it working.
Using a nest of fine pipes that resemble a large wire coil, the engineers have managed to get round this fatal problem that would normally follow from such rapid cooling of the moisture in atmospheric air.
They are tight-lipped on exactly how they managed to do it.
"We are not going to tell you how this works," said the company's chief designer Richard Varvill, who started his career at the military engine division of Rolls-Royce. "It is our most closely guarded secret."
The company has deliberately avoided filing patents on its heat exchanger technology to avoid details of how it works - particularly the method for preventing the build-up of frost - becoming public.
The Sabre engine could take a plane to five times the speed of sound and an al ude of 25 km, about 20 percent of the speed and al ude needed to reach orbit. For space access, the engines would then switch to rocket mode to do the remaining 80 percent.
IT COULD EVEN MAKE THE TEA
Reaction Engines believes Sabre is the only engine of its kind in development and the company now needs to raise about 250 million pounds ($400 million) to fund the next three-year development phase in which it plans to build a small-scale version of the complete engine.
Chief executive Tim Hayter believes the company could have an operational engine ready for sale within 10 years if it can raise the development funding.
The company reckons the engine technology could win a healthy chunk of four key markets together worth $112 billion a year, including space access, hypersonic air travel, and modified jet engines that use the heat exchanger to save fuel.
The fourth market is unrelated to aerospace. Reaction Engines believes the technology could also be used to raise the efficiency of so-called multistage flash desalination plants by 15 percent. These plants, largely in the Middle East, use heat exchangers to distil water by flash heating sea water into steam in multiple stages.
The firm has so far received 90 percent of its funding from private sources, mainly rich individuals including chairman Nigel McNair Scott, the former mining industry executive who also chairs property developer Helical Bar.
Chief executive Tim Hayter told Reuters he would welcome government investment in the company, mainly because of the credibility that would add to the project.
But the focus will be on raising the majority of the 250 million pounds it needs now from a mix of ins utional investors, high net worth individuals and possibly potential partners in the aerospace industry.
STANDING START
Sabre produces thrust by burning hydrogen and oxygen, but inside the atmosphere it would take that oxygen from the air, reducing the amount it would have to carry in fuel tanks for rocket mode, cutting weight and allowing Skylon to go into orbit in one stage.
Scramjets on test vehicles like the U.S. Air Force Waverider also use atmospheric air to create thrust but they have to be accelerated to their operating speed by normal jet engines or rockets before they kick in. The Sabre engine can operate from a standing start.
If the developers are successful, Sabre would be the first engine in history to send a vehicle into space without using disposable, multi-stage rockets.
Skylon is years away, but in the meantime the technology is attracting interest from the global aerospace industry and governments because it effectively doubles the technical limits of current jet engines and could cut the cost of space access.
The heat exchanger technology could also be incorporated into a new jet engine design that could cut 5 to 10 percent - or $10-20 billion - off airline fuel bills.
That would be significant in an industry where incremental efficiency gains of one percent or so, from improvements in wing design for instance, are big news.
A lot of smart people with a lot of money are eyeing space development and cheap launch technologies. Opening up space means opening up the entire solar system.
Gonna be interesting to see how they dispose of all that heat. On surface examination of their claim it seems to defy physics. Yeah it's claimed to be a great new heat exchanger but what is it exchanging the heat with?
This is the cool invention thread?
I saw another invention last week where nano-particles in water or other liquid absorbed fantastic amts of sunlight, enough to boil the water into steam quickly. HUGE implications for purification, desalination, turbine electrication, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8DkmzIcDeA
, I should know better than to click a Boutons link.
They said the air has to be compressed when you take compressed air and let it expand dropping pressure then it drops in temperature. The whole ideal gas law thing. They don't tell you the cycle so I question at which point the gas is 1000 degrees. The stratosphere is freezing for the most part. When you go higher its much hotter as its the part that absorbs all the radiation we don't want but it's so sparse that it's not suitable for combustion. Perhaps that is where the compression occurs.
Rocket propulsion requires an propellant. So perhaps the compression is required to store the propellant prior to leaving the atmosphere.
It could be a chemistry solution that combines with nitrogen, changing the temperature.
Yes, but they can't compress it until after they drop the temperature.
That assumes that the air is that hot when it is intaken. That was my point. Do I speak in code or something?
When you compress a gas the temperature increases. Where the air is of sufficient density to use for jet propulsion and assumably collect for use as a propellant it is not going to start off that hot. We don't know the mechanics of it but if compressed air is being used that means its not available from the environment. If it's compressed on the ground then you can dissipate the heat on the ground..
And 'combining with nitrogen' is going to be combustion which releases energy, tropospheric combustion boy.
My Giod. I thought Dodo birds were extinct.
Yes.
If you call your incomprehensible blabber code, then yes.
No Sherlock. I think most people here know that, and it does say that in the article.
Are you lying or are you a moron?
They are talking about the al udes where there is almost no air, but the temperatures are about 500C to 600C. The initial thrust into the nozzle probably takes it to the 1000C.
We?
Do you have a mouse in your pocket? I know how the engine works. I don't know the proprietary specs, but I know the theory.
You really are ignorant in the ways of chemistry, aren't you. Some chemical reactions require energy from their surroundings to occur, cooling their surroundings. You fell for my bait hook line and sinker. That isn't how the SABRE engine works though. It uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel and helium as the coolant. The helium is in the precooler, which cools the incoming air and is recirculated, kept cold with the liquid hydrogen that is used as fuel.
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Last edited by Wild Cobra; 11-29-2012 at 05:43 AM.
This isn't real new to the science world.
Fell for your bait? You claiming that you didn't mean what you wrote is a tired line from you.
I'm not arguing with your 20 minute google search of knowledge. Instead we will demonstrate your ignorance.
I have a few questions:
1) What are the two elements that make up over 95% of the atmosphere?
2) 'Combining nitrogen' with the element from the answer above not nitrogen is called what?
3) is 1000 degrees enough to trigger the reaction from question 2?
4) Is the reaction from question 2 endothermic or exothermic?
And you found it on youtube.
You are such a toolbag.
Fuzzy Troll...
You may feel you have to prove yourself to others, but I am not insecure like you.
Somehow not everyone is so excited about this new breakthrough.
You miss the point. The video is 4 months old. I already knew of this.
What are you talking about? Proving myself to others? You should be insecure, ffs.
You are asking me to prove myself. Seems to me part of your psyche that this is how you view life. If not, then you are just out on a trollhunt as usual. You have this deep seated desire to get back at me for all the times I showed your ineptness. I can answer your four silly questions, but I prefer to infuriate you.
Of course you did. Just like I fell into your trap of you saying more ignorant .
You want to talk to me about proving MYSELF when you try the above line...
tool
bag
I have a tool bag. I don't need another one. Thanks but no thanks. Afterall, I am a parts changer.
I am not asking you to prove anything. I have substantial 'proof' of your methods and your capacity accrued over time.
What I want you to do is to quit acting like such an idiot all the time. Just stop, that's all I want.
You know, it really is annoying when you speak into the mirror.
I also think it's pathetic how you chronically bully others without reason. Why can't you stay on topic in a thread?
There you go. Back on topic.
LOL...
Really?
At best, a tangent. My problem is not knowing if that reaction will take place at 1/1,000th and less standard atmospheres.
Last edited by Wild Cobra; 11-29-2012 at 08:58 AM.
-dp-
Last edited by Wild Cobra; 11-29-2012 at 08:58 AM.
Remember when you and I worked together on this project and how you were the one who actually suggested to use NO2?
ah good times
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