On Feb 24, 2011, at 7:01 AM, Roarty, Francis X wrote:
On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:24: Horace Heffner wrote
[snip] The following 1993 article includes my quantitative
treatment of this approach:
http://mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ZPE-CasimirThrust.pdf
Horace,
I was able to follow your paper and agree with your
results but have some questions/suggestions regarding the physical
limitations you mention to scale this effect to practical levels.
You keep redirect ing your gas to snake up and then down while
alternating the geometry to unbalance the momentum transfer to the
cavity walls. Since molecules oppose change in energy density vs
atoms they transfer momentum to the walls using energy supplied by
the pump to force the continued circulation through this
opposition. My suggestion is to forgo this “mechanical” Up/Down
design in favor of a self assembled “across and back” tubing where
the bottom tube is filled with nano powder but the top – return
tube is not.
Note that the concept doesn't work unless sub micron dimensions are
used. In other words the structures have to be nano-sized to begin
with. There is no "room" for nano powder. Second, nano-powder itself
would provide a huge resistance to gas flow. Third, the effect is
based on centrifugal force. This requires a high gas speed and small
turn radius.
The nano-pendulum version of the idea (pp. 4 ff) of
http://mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ZPE-CasimirThrust.pdf
looks to be orders of magnitude better.
Also, the fully solid state method proposed on page 4 looks vastly
superior, and requires no flowing gas t all: "There is a superior
method available for implementing the principle of applying
anisotropic centrifugal force to Casimir cavity influenced inertial
masses. This method consists of building up alternate layers of
material, thin layers of conducting or super-conducting material,
i.e. casimir cavity boundary layer material, while sandwiching
between them layers of readily compressible material which is to be
used as the inertial mass altering material. The method further
consists of accelerating this material in one direction while
compressed, and the other direction while not compressed. Compressing
reduces the size of the Casimir cavities, thus increasing the effect
and reducing the mass of the compressible material sandwiched between
the plates."
"A fully solid state design is feasible. This design uses piezo
crystals in two axes. The thrust material is compressed in the x axis
for inertial mass reduction, and the much larger oscillated motion is
produced by piezo action in the y axis. The thrust is developed in
the y axis due to the reduced inertial mass on one half of the y axis
cycle, caused by compression of the thrust material in the x axis
direction during that half of the y axis cycle."
Such a design is based on resonant motion, so the only lost energy is
that which does into heat, which should be comparatively small.
Instead of accumulating a differential between cavity pairs this
would increase the inertia of gas atoms traveling “across” but not
“back” and allow you to accumulate the momentum transfer in bulk.
I agree you have to keep changing the energy density like your up/
down arrangement to keep the molecules “sticky” / opposing change
but am suggesting that the lateral motion of the gas through the
powder can accumulate a transfer of momen tum to the walls of the
powder filled tubing that will not be mirrored in the return path.
The words you are using above don't seem to apply to the concepts I
proposed. See notes below regarding torque.
I should also mention that placing a resistance to gas or liquid flow
anywhere in a closed loop isolated system does not, in itself result
in either a net momentum or angular momentum contribution to the
overall system. The forces and torques all balance to to zero. Only
*asymmetric* interaction with the ZPF itself permits a net
accumulation of torque or momentum. This asymmetry does not exist
due to flow (diffusion) of gas through a nano-powder.
This method doesn’t require the careful alignment of alternating
nano geometry to the vertical axis, instead it exploits the
opposition of random packing geometry
Gas flow through a randomly organized nano-powder would only increase
energy requirements.
To the lateral flow of the gas in one direction. A second loop
would be needed to cancel any rotational torque but would be a
bargain trade off considering the additional suppression and
fabrication savings.
Regards
Fran
I would not expect a torque, or Casimir related energy drain, from
the designs I proposed. As I noted: "Any energy required or obtained
entering the cavity due to Casimir forces is offset by the effect of
opposite forces upon exiting the cavity."
In any case, if some component of any design produced torque, a
mirror image component could be used to generate counter-torque while
producing aligned thrust.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
