4 ms·
A big reason that jet turbines are useful for supersonic aircraft is that their exhaust speed is (pretty much) constant regardless of airspeed; this allows a je
by skykooler 6y ago
A big reason that jet turbines are useful for supersonic aircraft is that their exhaust speed is (pretty much) constant regardless of airspeed; this allows a jet to continue accelerating until the drag force exceeds its thrust. An electric fan could perform similarly if it could provide enough static pressure to achieve supersonic flow through a de Laval nozzle. If that could be done (whether it can is something I'd love to see data on!), the best electric power source would probably have what looks like a regular jet engine intake on the front, a subsonic fan, and a de Laval nozzle in the back like a rocket engine.
- bob1029 6y agoCouldn't you just use an electrically-driven turbo compressor to produce a source of hot, high-pressure gasses? Not saying the efficiency or mechanics would play out at scale, but hypothetically you should be able to generate any arbitrary source flow required to feed through this type of nozzle.
- larrydag 6y agoI think this sounds like a ramjet or something similar
- ben_w 6y agoI thought ramjets didn’t have any turbines, they relied on ram compression? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet
- TylerE 6y agoIn theory? Maybe, but the motor would probably weight more than the whole plane does now. A typical jet engine is producing the equivalent of tens of thousands of horsepower.
- WalterBright 6y agoThe only reason that jet turbines work for supersonic flight is the inlets to the turbines slow the air to subsonic.