Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36) thread

[tphuang]

a fundamental difference is an EV does not use a heat engine. a battery is not a heat engine. the output of the motor goes mostly to the motion of the wheels, not accounting for small losses in transmission.

however, all energy on a plane, including the generator, derives from the engines. jet engines are heat engines and subject to thermodynamic efficiency. The generator is powered from a heat engine. Thus, 1 MW worth of sustained electricity being generated also means on the order of ~1 MW of sustained heat being dumped too.

I only link to give everyone else the numbers as a reference. Since you seem to think that's unnecessary, I'll not do it. easier for me anyways.

As others have said. You are conflating the electricity generation portion with power consumption portion. The former is a basically dealt with the same way that you would when turbofan engine generates power for movement. Only a small portion of energy from combustion is used for electronics.

 

[AssassinsMace]

Newbie member and SDF getting some cred…

 

[sevrent]

Bit tangential to the thread but, its not as complicated as you make it out to be, like most systems fighter jets can only dissipate as much heat as it was originally designed for. From the little reading I've done, the F-35 electronics cooling system was initially estimated and subsequently designed for a 14kw load, but in reality Block 3F were putting out upwards of 30kw of heat. That's twice the original design. They're estimating future upgrades will get the load up to 80kw, that's over 5x the original design estimate. With the rest of the jet already "solidified" so to speak, it's difficult to integrate a beefier system. Especially when there are crucial space, structural integrity and weight constraints, and more importantly there are loads of jets that would need to be torn down to upgrade those systems.
Its more down to design oversight than any inherent difficulty of cooling a few hundred kilowatts.

I’m going off my gut. Hearing and seeing all the shenanigans fighters have to do for cooling, fuel as heat sink, using engine bypass, bleed air etc. and all of that adds up to a measly 80kw while an average car is hundreds of Kw of cooling capacity? This is not just for the F-35, this Is almost every modern fighter. Something is off here.

if cooling was this trivial I don’t think there’d be this much effort/research into expanding it this much for 6th gen.

 

[Steven D]

As an aero engineering graduate and EV enthusiast I'd like to point out the thermal management problem of EVs are significantly different from any "stuffs flying at mach 1+". For EVs the cooling of power simiconductors (most significantly the motors) is actually relatively trivial and the KEY tech is the thermal management of batterypack. The Chinese EV technology leading is mostly in the latter and if that can be transfered to airframes is a huge question mark. So basically, these two engineering problems have an indirect link at most.

 

[kurutoga]

As an aero engineering graduate and EV enthusiast I'd like to point out the thermal management problem of EVs are significantly different from any "stuffs flying at mach 1+". For EVs the cooling of power simiconductors (most significantly the motors) is actually relatively trivial and the KEY tech is the thermal management of batterypack. The Chinese EV technology leading is mostly in the latter and if that can be transfered to airframes is a huge question mark. So basically, these two engineering problems have an indirect link at most.

I don't think anyone is saying the two are the same.

OTOH a high end EV like the ones being discussed here can have max motor power exceeding 800kW. The cooling requirement on battery, motor, and the generator isn't the same as an ICE car or a low end EV. To me, the following analogy makes a lot of sense, and it is meant to demonstrate the major change in system design:

High-end Performance EV : old ICE car = CHAD : old fighter jets

Not that engineers 20 years ago can't achieve the same solution, they were, at the time, presented with a different task, a system designed based on the old mindset.

 

[Steven D]

To me, the following analogy makes a lot of sense, and it is meant to demonstrate the major change in system design:

High-end Performance EV : old ICE car = CHAD : old fighter jets

Not that engineers 20 years ago can't achieve the same solution, they were, at the time, presented with a different task, a system designed based on the old mindset.

Yeah totally agreed, and I think this can be a way what "having an indirect link" means. It's just I saw a lot of discussions on how Chinese EV industry leading can be transfered to 6th gen fighter development to some extent and I felt obligated to say it's a lot harder than it sounds.

 

[antwerpery]

I have always told angry Americans and Russians that they should be happy that China is copying, or at least appears to be copying their stuff. That they don’t want China to have caught up enough to start innovating and coming up with radically new technologies and designs of their own. And it’s already happening with how insanely mad people are over these 6th gen. America and Americans will soon wish to go back to the days when they could claim that Chinese copied everything.

 

[tphuang]

As an aero engineering graduate and EV enthusiast I'd like to point out the thermal management problem of EVs are significantly different from any "stuffs flying at mach 1+". For EVs the cooling of power simiconductors (most significantly the motors) is actually relatively trivial and the KEY tech is the thermal management of batterypack. The Chinese EV technology leading is mostly in the latter and if that can be transfered to airframes is a huge question mark. So basically, these two engineering problems have an indirect link at most.

China has successfully adapted liquid cooling for data centers, 5G base stations, Phone RF, satellites RF, eDriveTrain, fast chargers, batteries and more.

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From this, I fundamentally don't see how this is different in concept from doing it on a Mate 60 phone. You are ultimately using liquid to cycle excessive heat across your "device"/aircraft to even out the heat and then maybe release some of that into your engine.

The ShiLao folks talked about the work done in J-35 to spread out the heat. It was designed to accommodate greater power consumption in electronics and that will just be ramped up further in J-36.

 

[stoa1984]

no_name

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Yesterday at 8:08 PM

Intercepting 7th gen and even 6th gen plane is pretty much impossible. This means countries that have those planes no longer need do develop actual ICBM to have credible nuclear deterrence, as long as they have a deliverable nuclear payload, even in the form of a bomb.

I wonder if there will eventually be an equivalent of 6th gen and above aircraft anti-proliferation treaty.
In short I don't think anything 6th gen and above will be for export.
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Stoa1984's Commentary

6th gen and even 7th gen plane will retain a great deterrence capability against all those minor powers without Starlink satellites.
Look at the total despair in the Indian media these last days for example.

But for the two Chinese and US superpowers, that will possess together some 100'000 Starlinks within a decade:

• with over one thousand phased array antennas orbiting over every single points on earth (above 50 degree elevation over the horizon) at the exception of the polar regions, stealth fighter planes that presents a maximum reflectivity as seen from the nadir of the said orbital satellites will no longer be undetected, thus giving the 2 superpower the GOD'S EYE VIEW capability. (read: stealth is obsolete vs China and the US)

• ICBM will not only be made obsolete because launches will always be detected by the 100'000 Starlinks, but furthermore because 1'000 satellites overhead (above 50 degree elevation over the horizon) means over a MW of steerable microwave beam energy that could in theory be concentrated at focus point well above the 100 W/square centimeter threshold necessary to destroy any ICBM.

Thus the greatest uneasiness reported in the Indian media lately.

 

[BillRamengod]

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no_name

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Yesterday at 8:08 PM​

​

Intercepting 7th gen and even 6th gen plane is pretty much impossible. This means countries that have those planes no longer need do develop actual ICBM to have credible nuclear deterrence, as long as they have a deliverable nuclear payload, even in the form of a bomb.​

​

I wonder if there will eventually be an equivalent of 6th gen and above aircraft anti-proliferation treaty.​

In short I don't think anything 6th gen and above will be for export.​

​

Stoa1984's Commentary

6th gen and even 7th gen plane will retain a great deterrence capability against all those minor powers without Starlink satellites.
Look at the total despair in the Indian media these last days for example.

But for the two Chinese and US superpowers, that will possess together some 100'000 Starlinks within a decade:

• with over one thousand phased array antennas orbiting over every single points on earth (above 50 degree elevation over the horizon) at the exception of the polar regions, stealth fighter planes that presents a maximum reflectivity as seen from the nadir of the said orbital satellites will no longer be undetected, thus giving the 2 superpower the GOD'S EYE VIEW capability. (read: stealth is obsolete vs China and the US)

• ICBM will not only be made obsolete because launches will always be detected by the 100'000 Starlinks, but furthermore because 1'000 satellites overhead (above 50 degree elevation over the horizon) means over a MW of steerable microwave beam energy that could in theory be concentrated at focus point well above the 100 W/square centimeter threshold necessary to destroy any ICBM.

Thus the greatest uneasiness reported in the Indian media lately.

Turns out we live in starwar`s world. LOL