<snip>
> >Consider a rocket, say 200 seconds; mounted on an arm pivoting >on a
> central spindle. The propellant enters the rocket along a tube up >the
> central spindle, goes through a frictionless coupling and then >follows
> the tube along to the rocket tip.
>
> The energy imparted to the fuel by the pumping process is 1/2 m v^2
> where both the m and the v are the same as the exhaust velocity, by
> design of the experiment. Then we add the chemical energy, and get a
> higher temperature than we would have otherwise had. This causes higher
> disassociation.
>
So we are generating thrust by the centrifugal pumping action alone, then
heating the fuel? In the original problem statement, there was no additional
heating step, and it was assumed that the tip speed of the rotor was equal to
the exhaust velocity at the nozzle. This implies that no additional energy is
being imparted to the fuel, since the pressure rise resulting from the pivoting
arm rotation at a given tip speed v, and energy required, is equal to the
pressure (and energy) needed to accelerate the fuel out of the nozzle at the
same speed v, assuming the speed of the fuel entering the spindle is small
compared to v.
Therefore the exiting stream of fuel exerts a torque on the pivoting arm, which
continues the pumping action, and ends up outside the rotor at a low speed
relative to the central spindle, all without burning the fuel. So the "rocket"
tip is simply a nozzle, the "fuel" passes through without being burned, contrary
to the statement
>> And yet the rocket clearly isn't accelerating and we have burnt all this
>> fuel, which has liberated energy. Conservation of energy is the law!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
and energy is conserved, in accordance with the law.
stumpy <at> ugcs.caltech.edu
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