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PaxAeternum — Full Zeppelin Lift Control
Published: 2013-04-02 02:52:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 907; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 10
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For Mike Hopp and Matt, Principally. 8)This is an Idea I came up with when I was ten years old, and why it has not been used I will never understand. In my opinion it is FAR better than the drop weight/vent gas idiocy.
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Comments: 57
That is why you do not use steel. These days you can make pressure vessels out of other materials and have them tension-ringed, etc.
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But today is today... I thought we talking abot zeppelin's days of glory? Or not? Perhaps I spent too much time on developing our steampunk setting X)
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No, I was talking today with modern materials engineering. Steampunk to me is invalid, a fetish and not a fashion or an era. There is a great deal of difference between steam punk and real engineering, and I hate associating at all with the former. Plus, in the golden days of steam, many things were possible and done that we in this era do not remember or believe when we are told.
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Alas, no new ideas under the sun. The compressors and the thick walled storage cylinders to withstand the pressure simply weigh too much for the airship to have any sort of useful lift...and the chillers and insulation for liquid storage aren't any better. Even the much lighter condensers used to recover water from engine exhaust to minimize the need to release helium were heavy enough that their installation was not universal.
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This idea was never tested until recently, and it is working from what I understand.
Compressors, like steam engines, can be made very efficient and light, with high volumetric efficiency for multiple stages. A small compressor can be made up for by cranking it at a very fast speed, for instance. Storage cylinders can be thinner with the addition of tension rings and longitudinal staybolts, as well as by being made of just higher quality metals. If cylinderical shapes will not suffice, spheroidal shapes tend to be better.
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And I have to add that I'm very jealous of someone who actually gets to play with steam engines.
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I would like to think I am doing more than just playing with them. XD
I was recently a part of a semi-legal venture to save a large Corliss stationary from scrap
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Not to mention, remember. The larger the ship, the more practical she becomes for lifting her own weight and additional weight. Weight of an airship increases by the square of the size, whereas lift increases by the cube of the size. This system could be very easily integrated with a ship 1500+ feet long. Further improvements could be made by integrating the compressor systems to the ships engines, simply attatching the compressor element to the shaft. Cooling of the compressed gas pre-reservoir could be taken care of, if not adequately with air heat exchangers, by small frion systems. One would not need to warm the gas being re-bled to the cells if it was done slowly enough.
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Yes, and here is a ship being developed using that system, with the full knowledge of that math. [link]
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Two different maths: I was discussing pure airships (as was the book I linked), i.e. lift only from lifting gas, the aerocraft is a hybrid airship that augments its lift with an lifting body shape and vectored thrust from the propellers. It has more weight to play with (40% more according to their website). Economically it's a moot point anyway: Airship Ventures had to shutdown it's much smaller airship due to the rising cost and declining availability of helium. I had to buy some for the lab I work at and they were only able to supply half the order. A fleet of the massive cargo airships would be cost prohibitive. And I'm someone who would love to see it. Without the greater lift and lower cost of hydrogen, the economics just don't favor it. The military is using a number of drone aerostats and airships for their long loiter time in surveillance, but they have bigger budgets. And when the Navy was operating its rigid airships, they only ever had enough helium to keep one of theirs in the air at a time--the other one transferred the helium and underwent maintenance during that time.
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That is right, helium is getting very expensive. There is only a finite supply, and synthisizing it would take quite alot of energy.
I still think it is quite possible, if the ship were big enough, to use this system as a full aerostat. to fit a ship like hindenburg with this system would basically occupy the weight of her passenger capacity, leaving her able to operate but not able to take on any passengers. Build a 2000 foot long ship, and you could very easily use it. Also remember that great strides have been made with engineering light and strong pressure vessels.
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Fascinating. 
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a rather interesting system , one i like the principles of, conservation of helium s good
i have some similar systems of my own design, but too over complicated, this is a much more elegant solution
my own systems use negative pressures and some helium breeders , but i would be interested in using this design of yours, if this is okay with you
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Helium Breeders? Do you mean bleeders?
And sure, just give me the patent name and use it any ship you can come up with!
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nah, chemical breeders, similar principles to lithium breeders used in Fusion reactors, the idea is to convert a reactor by product into useful material
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that would take more equipment than a zeppelin could lift.....
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well its not strictly speaking for a zeppelin, but for a much larger structure, more of a stationary larger platform to act as docking stattion for other craft
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meanwhile, I sneaked to the patents office, no your right, not protected, well wasn't, still rang Richard, Branson that is, he was very interested, was round within the hour with enormous trunk, straight deal one for t'other, he's flying high, me, well I'm getting bored with counting £1,132,675, £1,132,676, £1,123677...... not even halfway LOL I didn't realise how much paper money compressed beneath each other, £1,132,678
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Gahaahahaha "DAMN YOU RICHARD"
I should have filed the blasted patent XD
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I applied for one once cost me megga!
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The Good Year blimp uses a balonette, which is a bag inside a bag. When the blimp needs to rise, the balonette, which is filled with normal air, is drained. The normal air, being heavier than helium, keeps the blimp low. But once the normal air is pumped out, the helium takes over and up you go. When it's time to descent, outside air is pumped into the balonette, offsetting the helium lift, and you go down. As I understand it, no helium is ever lost.
Actually the balonette system isn't far removed from what you have here. Instead of adding outside air to a separate bag to compress the helium (and negate it's lifting ability), you're using a vacuum to pull the helium into a smaller space. The common idea is using normal air (Nitrogen-Oxygen) as ballast.
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The goodyear blimp system has no direct control over the helium, sadly, which is what I wanted. This system provides a far greater degree of lift variation than a ballonet system, also since any fabric or plastic helium cell is permiable by the gas, you are always losing some all the time. In this system, when all the gas is in the reservoirs, you are truly losing none.
My system is also meant to be directly supplimented with the already established water ballast system, shiftable of course via pumps and pipes
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Isn't that the basic principle of submarines?
I'm a complete layman but I guess there are several engineering challenges - it is probably quite hard to suck the helium from the enormous cells. In a submarine the water forces the air out of the ballast tanks, but in an airship you can't use air to replace helium because they mix.
Also there is the problem of heat and cold when compressing/decompressing gas.
Again, I'm a layman, what I say may be horribly wrong.
But it definitely sounds better than the "conventional" approach.
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A compressor will draw a more than adequate suction head on the atmospheric cells, how do you think air compressors work? The pipes also intake from the top of the cells because helium does rise after all, the air pushing on the bottom of the gas cell trying to lift the ship is enough to keep helium near the suction head end of the pipe. Because we are working with atmospheric temperature gas, and not say steam, a small heat exchanger would be needed on the compressor, made of a copper pipe matrix. Cooling of the gas when bleeding would be negligable and could be further offset by simply doing it slowly.
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Alright, and I guess i you could use some smaller cells to achieve quicker reaction.
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Well, yes and no, because smaller cells would mean there would need to be more cells, so you would be dealing with the same volume within the ship, just within more chambers.
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Sure, but to control the ascent you only vary a small percentage of the gas volume since the majority of it is just there to neutralize the ship structure + payload. So it is sensible to have several smaller cells that can be manipulated and few huge ones you basically leave untouched.
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That would result in a lack of full control. This system is designed to be incorporated into a ship that if she needs to, can make far more lift than she would ever have to. Lets say a 2000 foot frame. A ship that could do some heavy lifting for freight work. Remember, weight increases with the square of the size, whereas lift increases with the cube. THe larger your airship, the more it can lift on a safe and practical basis. I never liked the idea of "auxiliary" anything when you can just do it to the main cells. The only advantage of having more cells would be if there were a failure in one, there are more there to keep it aloft. This is good within reason, but I say still control all of them
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OMG good minds think alike!
I never made any sense to me why American ship's like Akron and Macon vented precious helium the same way for ballast trim as would hydrogen lifted ships? 
It's not like American reserves of HE were endless... Why not re-compress and filter the helium and use it again for crying out loud? =/
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Thats what I said
That and I know my system will work because I've tested it to some degree with a shauddily built test model. I want to some day build a jack-clemens scale Graf Zeppelin and use this system
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Awesome design, man. One question though: In storage mode, what keeps the airframe from collapsing in on itself without the helium to support it? I assume it is reinforced, but how would this be done without adding extra wieght?
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Zeppelins are fully rigid and remain their own shape wether there is gas in their cells or not. How do you think the frames were built?
[link]
A rigid airship is a strong and non-changeable shape entity, which is why I love them. Truly ships of the air, which only contain the malliable cells.
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Ah, yes, I understand now. I suppose I was getting my ideas mixed up.
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Yes, whereas this idea would not work in an inferior nonrigid.
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Hey! They're not completely inferior! They're portable...and....good for....advertising....Yeah, I suppose they're pretty much inferior.
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never liked the damn things. I have designed many dumont sized airships with rigid frames
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They're fragile things, aren't they? Always like the sturdiness of a dirigible better.
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I would think the framework is designed to support itself and whatever lies within the superstructure at all times. Tis not a balloon, but rather a rigid frame airship.
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I am aware. I suppose my question stems from this zeppelin-themed novel I read once. In it, there was a downed rigid hull airship that was leaking its lift gas, and the engineers were worried that if it lost too much, the airframe would collapse under its own weight. I was wondering if that principle applied here, or if perhaps the airframe could support its weight even without the helium.
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That's odd. The gas is used for flight only, not maintaining the ship's shape. Generally you'd want to engineer something that won't self destruct from its own mass.
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precisely nick. It would be awfully awkward to have to erect a frame with a falsework to prevent it from collapse before the gas was inside it. You want a truly self sustaining vessel that can be in any state, with or without gas, and maintain her integrity
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AH! Actually, dear Alex, this idea is being implemented in Igor Pasternak's Aeroscraft. So far, it has been working very well in stationary in-hangar trials. Aeroscraft is waiting for FAA certification to begin real flight testing of their rigid ship. Don't fret, this idea has been around for a rather long time and is now finally getting it's proper attention!!!
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goodness gracious, finally!
'
I must say that aeroscraft thing is not very pretty, I much prefer the dynalifter. What in the WORLD happened to them!
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I believe Dynalifter has had various financial troubles, although a quick search indicates they are still out there in some form.
The Aeroscraft may not entirely be "pretty", although you must remember that the current ship is a half-sized prototype. Then again, an airship need not exactly be "pretty" to be functional and efficient!
Actually, my biggest gripe is the slightly flattened shape as opposed to the traditional "cigar" or "teardrop" hull forms. The flattened shape seems to sacrifice gas capacity that the traditional shape does not. Alas, all that talk of dynamic lift and such, I guess.
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Yes, I agree. It is a lifting-body for forward motion.
And although I do agree for function over form, the true zeppelins were beautiful BECAUSE they were functional, which is why I want to see the aeroscraft stick to the original designs.
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Indeed. Studies have also shown that the dynamic lift form isn't really as efficient as what they say it is. But, if I recall correctly, the Dynalifter also had a similar hull form. The Skycat or LEMV (or whatever they call it now) does too. Seems to be the fashionable design these days...
I couldn't agree more. However, I suppose we should just be happy enough that there is a true rigid airship in prototype stage at all. Pasternak has gotten farther than most anybody since the 1940s in that regard. And while I'd hope the full size model (they're projecting a completion by 2015 or so) would be slightly less "flattened", I will not argue against anyone wanting to build a 500 ft. ship these days. On the contrary, I would hope there is some success in their aims as the world will need airships again. Sooner than we may think...
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