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Is hydrogen completely out of the question if these airships are unmanned? Doesn't it generate more lift? With today's technology, could an fleet of smaller, "d
by piker 11y ago
Is hydrogen completely out of the question if these airships are unmanned? Doesn't it generate more lift? With today's technology, could an fleet of smaller, "drone" hydrogen airships be effective or is it just too difficult to prevent disaster dealing with hydrogen gas? Honest questions.
- kirrent 11y agoI don't know about the safety questions but hydrogen doesn't provide too much more lift than helium. Compared to the density of air being displaced the difference between hydrogen and helium is pretty small. It goes from a mass fraction of about 25% to around 6%. Certainly an improvement, but there's only a 25% increase in buoyancy from helium to hydrogen.
- Retric 11y agoThe difference is more than your suggesting as you care about lifting the ship's cargo not just the ship's total mass. AKA if the air can lift 20 tons, and the ship masses 10 tons then increasing that to 25 tons is a 50% increase in cargo capacity (25-10) = 1.5 x (20-10) not a 25% increase.
- aaron695 11y agoHydrogen can lift ~10% more than Helium. Hydrogen can escape easier so I'd imagine heaver material would need to be used. Hydrogen rocks cause it's cheap. Helium is pretty expensive. Hydrogen has a PR problem. But we drive around on top of a flammable fuel quite happy so that might change.
- mikepurvis 11y agoBut you can make hydrogen from water and electricity.
- mannykannot 11y agoAt some point, I thought about hydrogen-helium mixes, but it seems that you don't need all that much hydrogen to have an inflammable mix. To address your drone question, I would have thought hydrogen would be OK for them, but I believe helium is generally used in weather balloons, suggesting that just the risks of ground handling make hydrogen more trouble than it is worth.