General ship propulsion
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
bladerunner
Banned Idiot
whoops I meant liquid hydrogen
To be frank, I don't have much faith that Liquid Hydrogen will be the 'next' great thing in propulsion and fuel.
Its too difficult to handle (unstable, volatile, cryogenic) and much easier to handle alternatives are readily available.
Liquid hydrogen has 12 times the volume of kerosene for the same amount of energy... requiring enormous storage and transportation tanks.
A good example of an simple alternative would be methanol, a very easily handled fuel, which by heating with a catalyst forms a mixture of gaseous hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
It would be far easier to transport your hydrogen that way rather than as a liquefied gas.
Its too difficult to handle (unstable, volatile, cryogenic) and much easier to handle alternatives are readily available.
Liquid hydrogen has 12 times the volume of kerosene for the same amount of energy... requiring enormous storage and transportation tanks.
A good example of an simple alternative would be methanol, a very easily handled fuel, which by heating with a catalyst forms a mixture of gaseous hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
It would be far easier to transport your hydrogen that way rather than as a liquefied gas.
I suggested LH2/electric as an alternative for nuclear power in large fast merchantmen. It also needs gas turbines with heat exchangers or, perhaps, fuel cells. This would save a lot of weight for the ship. How would you produce methanol, how would you use it?
I think sail power can play a large role in the future. After all the wind is free. But the wind was also free a century ago when sailing vessels were fast being replaced by ( larger ) steam powered vessels that compared with current ships were remarkably inefficient. To better the current diesel powered merchant fleet, even assuming that fuel will become much more expensive, will demand much more than modernized schooners.
Let's consider a statistic from Lloyd's list: the averaged speed of the merchant sailing vessels in European waters was in 1904 2.5 KTS or 4.6 km/h. I assume this means from port to port and doesn't take account of time waiting in port until the wind turns to allow a vessel to depart. It happened that ships accumulated near the Sont or Dover Straight, sometimes for weeks, until the wind allowed them to pass through. They then all made sail together, sometimes 300 to 400 vessels, and collisions were not uncommon. Next many were bound for the same ports and arrived there in a bunch, necessitating long waits before they could be unloaded and loaded again.
Conclusion: any sailing system must allow ships to sail much closer to the wind than is possible with classical sails. We need wing sails. And that is what I am working on.
I think sail power can play a large role in the future. After all the wind is free. But the wind was also free a century ago when sailing vessels were fast being replaced by ( larger ) steam powered vessels that compared with current ships were remarkably inefficient. To better the current diesel powered merchant fleet, even assuming that fuel will become much more expensive, will demand much more than modernized schooners.
Let's consider a statistic from Lloyd's list: the averaged speed of the merchant sailing vessels in European waters was in 1904 2.5 KTS or 4.6 km/h. I assume this means from port to port and doesn't take account of time waiting in port until the wind turns to allow a vessel to depart. It happened that ships accumulated near the Sont or Dover Straight, sometimes for weeks, until the wind allowed them to pass through. They then all made sail together, sometimes 300 to 400 vessels, and collisions were not uncommon. Next many were bound for the same ports and arrived there in a bunch, necessitating long waits before they could be unloaded and loaded again.
Conclusion: any sailing system must allow ships to sail much closer to the wind than is possible with classical sails. We need wing sails. And that is what I am working on.
bladerunner
Banned Idiot
Im a little lost with what you mean exactly because wing sails have been around for decades,speed sailing lovers use them. In fact Dirty Den used one in betting the NZ boat in a Americas Cup Race in 1988.
Interesting idea. You model the sea currents near Antarctica and look whether an iceberg of several million tons comes near a place where a small nudge will move it in a north going current, then look whether your sails ( of the kite type, how may hectares of them? ) will be able to give that nudge given the predicted wind direction and speed. You then can fly your kite(s), probably launch then using hydrogen or helium for the process. target to be South Africa, Australia, Saudi Arabia.
I'm not convinced.
It has also been proposed, long ago, to use nuclear powered tugs to pull ice bergs from the Antarctic to California, taking about six months for the journey.