Plasma cushion levitation cars

[KipIngram]

Yes, true. But those devices put a lot of power into a very small beam. So let me clarify - even though I'm skeptical of the video, I'm not going to totally rule out the possibility of that sort of levitation. But I feel sure the power consumption is staggering. That would be the first hard data I tried to chase down, if I were chasing this thing.

 

I still don't see why you have such an aversion to wheels. I see so many other things to work on first (in the business of improving our ground vehicles). Like just developing a really usable, effective all-electric drive train. There you don't have efficiency and so on working against you - you have an opportunity to wind up with something much more efficient than internal combustion. I know you also didn't seem too enthused about that new battery technology UT Austin announced recently, and I do agree there are other potential energy storage mechanisms. But hey, if they manage to make those batteries work then they will get us there.

 

I'd absolutely love to see the vast majority of cars be electric in a couple of decades. Such a nice thing to do for the planet.

[Moreno]

I still don't see why you have such an aversion to wheels.

 

 

Levitation would potentially make obsolete not only wheels, but also all the suspension system, hydraulic brakes,

mechanical steering, drive shaft, etc. So, you got much cheaper, low maintenance car. It will increase comfort of driving

even on gravel roads. Very smooth and quiet ride on any kind of a road. Potentially safety may be increased as the skid

problem may be eliminated. There is also global problems with old tires disposal and road construction. The wheels is the main

reason for the road get wore out. If vehicles would levitate instead, road construction and maintenance costs reduced a few times.

I think levitation is a far future technology. The first cars of that kind may appear in 22 cen. only. In 21 cen. plug-in hybrids will be a mainstream. The one doesn't make problem to the other. A car can be all-electric and levitating in the same time.

 

I think some technologies which still sound as sci-fi may be very helpful. For example a "reactionless drive", if the secret of ball

lightning will be discovered. Therefore I think it is a far future technology.

[KipIngram]

Reactionless drive is a violation of basic physical law - that will never happen. No matter how we do it there will be a reaction against something.

[Moreno]

Reactionless drive is a violation of basic physical law - that will never happen. No matter how we do it there will be a reaction against something.

 

I do not claim that violation of basic physical laws is possible. But according to many observations a ball lightning is

capable to do an amazing things. One of them is:

Another outstanding BL feature [19,23,25] is its capability to drag heavy objects, such as metallic roofs

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:98kNU5YTMnYJ:www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9783642255687-c1.pdf%3FSGWID%3D0-0-45-1331684-p174267783+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

Edited June 8, 2017 by Moreno

[John Cuthber]

 

I do not claim that violation of basic physical laws is possible. But according to many observations a ball lightning is

capable to do an amazing things. One of them is:

Data <> plural of anecdote.

[studiot]

 

quiet ride on any kind of a road.

 

As quiet as a hovercraft no doubt.

[Moreno]

 

As quiet as a hovercraft no doubt.

 

No, there is a doubt, because not a fact it will operate like a usual hovercraft. It may be as quiet as a maglev train.

Ultrasonic beam is either pretty silent too. People just can't hear it. Quite interesting that the first crushless flight

a human ever made, they did on the device which can be described as a "noiseless hovercraft". This is a montgolfière.

[Manticore]

Potentially safety may be increased as the skid problem may be eliminated.

 

Unless you're using rails, you will be skidding all the time. It's the contact with the road that stops this happening.

Imagine you have spherical wheels that can rotate freely in any direction - that is what it would be like.

[studiot]

 

No, there is a doubt, because not a fact it will operate like a usual hovercraft. It may be as quiet as a maglev train.

Ultrasonic beam is either pretty silent too. People just can't hear it. Quite interesting that the first crushless flight

a human ever made, they did on the device which can be described as a "noiseless hovercraft". This is a montgolfière.

 

But maglev requires a dedicated track.

 

That is the whole point.

 

No one system is perfect and the best one deopends upon a tradeoff of benefits and disbenefits.

[Moreno]

 

Unless you're using rails, you will be skidding all the time. It's the contact with the road that stops this happening.

Imagine you have spherical wheels that can rotate freely in any direction - that is what it would be like.

If rubber-made regular automotive tires would be completely flat, you would skid most of time too. What prevents them to

skid is the bulges on tire surface. Is it proved we can't create the same type of bulges and irregularities in magnetic or sonic field

underneath the car to create traction?

[Manticore]

If rubber-made regular automotive tires would be completely flat, you would skid most of time too. What prevents them to

skid is the bulges on tire surface. Is it proved we can't create the same type of bulges and irregularities in magnetic or sonic field

underneath the car to create traction?

 

Not at all true - the tread on tyres exists to carry away water on wet roads in order to delay the onset of aquaplaning (plus giving better grip on soft ground where the tread can dig in.

 

In any case, anything you could do like that (if it was possible - which I very much doubt) would necessarily put exactly the same loads on the road that tyres do - thus making your earlier statement that "The wheels is the main reason for the road get wore out. If vehicles would levitate instead, road construction and maintenance costs reduced a few times." completely invalid.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Manticore

[Bender]

Ultrasonic levitation is great to bend paper or shoot up small pieces of foam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyUHoAT0x9A

 

You can even feel a slight sensation when you put your hand over it.

 

You cannot lift a car with it.

Suppose you lift a car of 800 kg with an array of ultrasound generators with an area of 8 square meters (in other words, all the area under the car needs to be used effectively). You now need 1000 N/m² or 1000 Pa of air pressure (very conservative simplification). This is almost twice the pressure a jet engine squirts out at a distance of 1 m, and equates to more than 150 dB. Anything above 140 dB can cause instant nerve damage in your ears, and I doubt not being able to actually hear it is going to change that much.

On top of all that, you cannot recuperate the energy blasted out. It is all pure loss, and you're not even moving yet, only hovering. Because of the conservative oversimplification of how ultrasound can exert forces, the actual situation will be much worse.

 

 

It is also a mystery to me how you would go about creating, maintaining and containing a plasma powerful enough to levitate on without it damaging the car or the road. High energy plasma is in general not very friendly to its environment.

(To be honest, I have no clue how you would go about creating, maintaining and containing the plasma at all, but that issue has already been raised by others).

Edited June 9, 2017 by Bender

[Moreno]

 

Not at all true - the tread on tyres exists to carry away water on wet roads in order to delay the onset of aquaplaning (plus giving better grip on soft ground where the tread can dig in.

 

In any case, anything you could do like that (if it was possible - which I very much doubt) would necessarily put exactly the same loads on the road that tyres do - thus making your earlier statement that "The wheels is the main reason for the road get wore out. If vehicles would levitate instead, road construction and maintenance costs reduced a few times." completely invalid.

 

Theoretically, pressure which creates levitating car on a road may be spread more evenly on a larger surface than pressure

created by the wheels.

[Moreno]

...On top of all that, you cannot recuperate the energy blasted out. It is all pure loss, and you're not even moving yet, only hovering. Because of the conservative oversimplification of how ultrasound can exert forces, the actual situation will be much worse.

 

 

It is also a mystery to me how you would go about creating, maintaining and containing a plasma powerful enough to levitate on without it damaging the car or the road. High energy plasma is in general not very friendly to its environment.

(To be honest, I have no clue how you would go about creating, maintaining and containing the plasma at all, but that issue has already been raised by others).

I didn't personally said anything about "hot plasma".

 

Regarding energy looses there exist a few possibilities. I didn't say it is a near future technology, therefore:

1) We may wait for some powerful and unexhausted energy source similar to "cold fusion" been invented. Then energy looses wouldn't be a big deal.

​2) We may try to reduce energy looses. For example, do modern hovercrafts use huge amount of energy? I'm not sure. Would ultrasonic standing waves blast out lot of energy?

Edited June 10, 2017 by Moreno

[Moreno]

Principally, we can add Iron to any road we build, Iron is inexpensive.

Cars can switch from wheels to magnetic levitation mode and contra when needed.