Airplane
lovers concerned about the use of Fossil Fuels by airplanes, I’ve got some
great news for y’all!
A
team of researchers from Boeing and Cambridge University have successfully
tested an airplane with a Range Extender Technology as stated in the article “Forget
hybrid cars, hybrid airplanes are the next big thing”, published January
20, 2015 9:25 PM PST by Michelle Starr, CNET
News.
The
Team tested their design at Sywell Aerodrome, near Northampton in the UK,
testing the plane's ability to hop along the runway as well as takeoff and
landing capabilities. They then followed up with a set of flights in a bid to
test the plane's ceiling and endurance level.
This
plane was designed effectively as a counter-point research to that done by
Airbus in developing the Twin-Engine Airbus E-Fan All-Electric Airplane as
described in my blog
article entitled “Airbus
Group and the E-Fan – EU's Flightpath 2050 heralds All-Electric Aircraft as
Fischer–Tropsch Process makes Kerosene Renewable”.
The
aim of their design was to address the ineffectiveness of using Li-Ion
Batteries for powering Commercial aircraft, as they are basically too heavy.
Through
experimentation, they have designed a Ranger Extender version of the engine use
in the 2012 Chevy Volt All-Electric Vehicle and possibly the 2016 Chevy Bolt
that uses a Gasoline Powered Generator to recharge it's Li-ion Batteries as
explained in my blog
article entitled “US$30,000
2016 Chevrolet Bolt - How GM plans to innovate All-Electric Vehicles to avoid
Tesla and Nissan beating them”.
Thus,
the airplane still flies on conventional fossil fuels such as Kerosene and Gasoline,
but uses a lot less fuel, mainly during take-off stored electricity in the Li-Ion
Polymer Batteries to keep plane's Propellers running in stable flight.
Design of the hybrid
Airplane - How Airplanes can fly on a Motor, Generator and Li-Ion Batteries
Their
engine is a 7 kW four-stroke piston Honda engine with a 10 kW Electric Motor
coupled with an Electric Generator and a bank of 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries.
The 7 kW four-stroke piston Honda engine is coupled via a one drive pulley to
spin the propeller; in this configuration it uses 30% less fuel than a petrol
engine in an aeroplane of the same size, as shown below.
Overall
the plane weighs just 140 kilograms (309 lb) sans the pilot or fuel and includes some 16 Li-Ion Polymer
Batteries. It has a total weight including pilot and fuel of 450 kilograms (992
lb), as the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries doesn’t add significantly to the weight
of the aircraft.
It
also has a ceiling of 460 metres (1,500 ft), which the team recorded during
tests of their design.
The
way the design works is that the plane initially takes off under the power of
the gasoline Powered Engine that drives the Propeller. This also drives an
Electric Generator which charges the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries, making it the
first airplane to do so in flight as noted in the article “Watts
up - aeroplanes go hybrid-electric”, published December 23 2014, the University of Cambridge.
Those
16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries then powers an Electric Motor, which then switches
the entire Hybrid Engine to a Motor Assist Mode, minimizing the Gasoline usage.
During
stable flight, the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries powering the Electric Motor can
take over, with the Gasoline Powered Engine being shut off completely and the
Electric Motor flying the plane totally on the power from the 16 Li-Ion Polymer
Batteries.
However,
the minute the power level in the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries falls below a
preset safety level, the Gasoline Powered Engine comes back on and the Electric
Generator chips in, recharging the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries in the process.
Hybrid Planes are the
future - Sunfire GmbH
Power to Liquid Technology to make refueling unnecessary
This
switching back and forth between the Electric Motor powered by the 16 Li-Ion Polymer
Batteries and the Gasoline Powered Engine that powers the Electric Generator
occurs mostly during stable flights.
Otherwise,
during take-off and climb, the heavy-lifting is done by the Gasoline Power
Engine, which in turns acts as the Generator, charging the 16 Li-Ion Polymer
Batteries.
Combined
this ingenious idea with the ability to make the fuel onboard the aircraft
using Sunfire
GmbH, whose Power to
Liquid Technology that uses the well-known Fischer–Tropsch
Process to produce Kerosene Fuel from Water (H20(l))
and Carbon Dioxide (CO2(g)) as detailed in my blog article
entitled “Sunfire
GmbH Power to Liquid Technology produces Synthetic Diesel, Kerosene and
Gasoline - SOEC Hydrogen Reduction SynGas for Fischer–Tropsch Process”,
this plane can effectively be self-recharging and self-refueling, basically
flying forever.
This
concept developed by Boeing and Cambridge University can potentially be scaled
up to larger commercial Turbo-prop Engines and eventually Jet Engine Commercial
Aircraft. Soon, aircraft may no longer need to refueled at all; they can simply
make their fuel during flight and use less fuel during flight overall thanks to
the research of Boeing and the University of Cambridge.
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