Invisible Boat

what about the propulsion??? I can't believe that that is masked. That's where watercraft is usually identified by.

Harken back to WWII in the Pacific theatre. The battle of Midway is taking place, and you, a Japanese torpedo bomber pilot are out there over the blue waters of the deep, searching and searching for the USS Enterprise, and other carriers of the US fleet.

If the US Navy had acquired this technology (never mind they did not have the nuke power to drive it), it is highly doubtful any Japanese pilot would have or could have seen any carrier (the largest wake produced by any vessel in fleet at the time).

the photo (from Wikipedia on the Battle of Midway) at left reveals just how visible the wake is from the air, in contrast to the ocean, and a carrier flight deck. If drag and wake are minimized two things happen: (1) the fleet moves faster for the same amount of applied power at the screws, and (2) the fleet is much harder to identify from distance against the background.

True, this has little or no effect on SONAR.

Or how Jim Lovell was able to find his carrier due to phosphorescent algae. (Third point)

a little more on Jim Lovell (for extra credit)

yes, the algae glow wake. That is really an incredible story. Isn't bio-luminescence wonderful? I suppose future generation will implant a gene for that, maybe even different colors depending on the mood, maybe red for "I am available"?

Blue fingertips to serve as mini-flashlights?

Green for sleepy right now??

Who knows the limits of that....

If the water is being moved around the hull, won't that also result in propulsion?

Uh-huh.

It will never work for the sixth fleet, since not all the vessels in fleet are nuclear, and have sufficient surplus power for the wake and drag cloaking device.

It may add speed...

Yes, but it still takes the kind of power a nuke reactor puts out to drive this thing.

Yes, but it still takes the kind of power a nuke reactor puts out to drive this thing.

OK,... Well, they have to power down the rail gun for awhile... problem solved... cuz that's what I do...

Radar, IR and Acoustics don't need any "wakes" for targeting.

Yes, I really don't see this as any game changer, although if it were to improve propulsion efficiency, it could be a boon, but they need to reduce power input by orders of magnitude, and that just isn't going to happen any time soon, or maybe ever.

I'm assuming, although it wasn't explicitly stated, that water is deflected around the front of the vessel using magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion, where an electric current flows perpendicular to a magnetic field causing a force on a conducting fluid (saltwater) in a direction perpendicular to both the electric and magnetic fields.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive

This principle has been proposed for silent submarine propulsion and the Japanese have actually built a ship which uses it, Yamato I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1

It will be interesting to see if the energy required for the "cloaking device" is less than that saved by reduced drag, and whether the device's electromagnetic fields would make the vessel more detectable by MAD. (Magnetic Anomaly Detectors).

Interesting.... Sounds like with a little adjustment, it could be a catapilar drive propulsion for a nuclear submarine...

You and I typically rely on similar search terms.

F= I•(L X B), if I recall the equation correctly for MHD force. This equation mandates maximization of I, L and B, in order to capitalize on the effect, exploit the full benefit thereof.

I would not pretend to know the math intimately, but I sure many of you could school me on it.

I am interested in Faraday disc generator as a particularly high current device.

Red Oktober used a caterpilar drive (in the movie) that was only a propeller driven tunnel jet system. Not the same thing, although they ginned it up as MHD in the movie.

I want to make a lighter-than-air craft, called the Floki II, and re-discover Iceland, The Land of the Gods, with it. I suppose that if one used a very long length MHD shaft, that will enhance the MHD thrust. Having superconducting high field magnets would not hurt anything, and ionization of the air would have to be worked on. As to getting more current at low power requirement, I wonder if Faraday generator would be of any use?

Evans Unified Field considerations and Faraday disc paper

I do believe this might explain why Faraday disc works whether magnet is in stationary reference, or is mounted on the disc. The production of a torsion field in space-time seems necessary.

I understand it was a Magnetohydrodynamic drive unit, not a propeller/impellar drive system.

Like a tube on a RAM jet....

And being a Magnetohydrodynamic drive, no mechanical cavitation,... but there still be a sound generated from the current required... imo. plus of what rixter pointed out.

The picture shows the electrode plates for the drive.

for me, I just saw a relationship between this and the topic.

Is this the optimal configuration? I suppose the terms are all mutually perpendicular, so it must be true.

Is this the optimal configuration?

That information is above my pay scale...

The info to the picture is; "View of the inside of one of the drive tubes on the magnetohydrodynamic drive fitted to the Japanese research vessel Yamato 1. The electrode plates are visible top and bottom."

A Faraday generator will generate high current but very low voltage, so to have high current, the "load" must be very low resistance. You might be able to drive very low resistance electromagnets.

MHD requires a highly conductive fluid to be efficient. Otherwise, I²R losses will be excessive. It's not as efficient as conventional propulsion in salt water. I would be surprised if you could get much action with ionized air. However, if you return to the "Land of the Gods" in a flying machine spouting fire, you might impress the locals.

The MHD (best case) force can be calculated:

F= I•(L X B). 1 amp flowing a distance of 1 meter at right angles to a 1 Tesla field will generate 1 Newton of force, (about .225 lb in American). Scale up distance, current, or field to increase force, but with increased power consumption, hence the need for minimum resistivity in the fluid.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a221088.pdf

I do believe this might explain why Faraday disc works whether magnet is in stationary reference, or is mounted on the disc.

Here is an explanation of the Faraday Disk Paradox which I ran across, which takes into account the complete circuit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_paradox

I am going to venture that it is already installed on a submarine. This is a game changer under water. That cat and mouse game just changed drastically if this works as advertised. Detection in the silent service is all about "hearing" the opponent passively so they can't "hear" you. This could possibly create a "silent" sub that would require going active on sonar to detect.

Unless you can levitate the boat out of the water, there will be a wake.

When did he (Levi tate) pass away?

Groans.... that is about the worst I have in a joke.

That's what I was wondering. To float the boat, water is displaced; when the boat moves on, the water comes back together--it can't remain a groove where the boat passed. Wouldn't this produce some sort of detectable signature?

The ionised field prevents the water outside the field being moved by any movement within the field.

If it works, and the propulsion mechanism (propeller/water jet however derived) is located within the field the ionisation prevents any power from exiting, so the vessel will not move. We could name this a Schrodinger Drive because no one would ever know if it was operating.

If the propulsion mechanism is located outside the field the vessel moves but creates a wake.

The point is so obvious that the average 12 year old could see it. I find it incredible that professors actually get paid to come up with this rubbish. I challenge anyone from Duke to publish a solution to this particular dilemma or failing that to publish a retraction of their spurious claims.

How you explain it, it sounds like it’s a closed loop system (within a bubble). I don’t see how a propulsion can actually work, because you essentially removed Newton’s third law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

You are correct in reasoning that the cloaking and the propulsion cannot work together.

The theory of decoupling of the water within the field and outside the field would appear to work by reducing the viscosity to almost zero using ionisation. Operating within the field would be the equivalent of turning a propeller in a vacuum. If there is a physicist's 100% efficiency (zero viscosity) no water is moved by the propeller. If there is an engineer's "nearly" 100% efficiency, any low viscosity water passing through the propeller simply slips back around the edges to be passed through the propeller again, heating up on each pass until the prop is moving much lower viscosity steam. i.e the efficiency of the system tends towards 100%. No thrust is developed and so there is minimal energy input to the propeller all of which would be turned into heat created in the bearings, the seals and the engine losses. As there is no action there can be no reaction and Newton's third law remains intact (unused).

Interestingly explained in terms to a laymen, thanks.

What about a catamaran with a center drive?

Back in the early 90’s, the shipyard I was work at, we did 1 of 3 Proto-type of the MARK V Special Operation Craft (fast boat for the Navy Seals deployment) was a 70’ Catamaran type of craft with Twin 3,000 horsepower MTU Marine Deisel engines. The boat itself was designed by Cougar Limited out of the U.K. (Preferred choice of boats used by drug runners)

The Center Drive would be difficult for engine mounting where the engine would be mounted too high, where you’d need a offset transfer case to connect to the engine.... too much weight. Then you’d have a weight distribution problem.

Btw,... it was an open cockpit design (held 20 Seals with a crew of 5j and the seats that the navy seals had, were the same that was install in a F15 Eagle Jet Fighter... Navy Seals had to be strapped in, otherwise, they get ejected out, from the boats proformance.

Maybe a trimaran...?

We lost the first phase of the contract of the Mark V to Halter Marine, the third design entry was an Israeli entry.

The the LCS have different issues and more then one... that Trimaran build by a Australian own company down south, That is the Independence Class, It's sister design LCS is the Freedom Class mono hull, build in Marinette, Wisconsin.... each with its own set of problems, from poor maintenance on the weak transmission, to poor and failed weaponry on the Freedom class, to the ship hull actually dissolving in the salt waters on the Independence Class.

hmmmm, Freedom and Independence... that's where I heard it before... @2:15 into the flick

My general premise still applies provided the system works at 100%. If the field envelopes both hulls and the space in between then no power gets out therefore no forward drive. If the fields are local to each hull then the drive is outside the field and creates a tell tail wake.

If the system works at a lower efficiency then the wake may be reduced but so will the power exiting the field. The same outcome could be achieved by saving the cost and energy that goes into generating the field and the high power drive needed so at least some power can exit the field and replacing with a lower power drive. A very slow vessel does not create as much of a wake making it less visible.

After disseminating hype and rumors about the new "silent and invisible" boats, leave them in the harbor and send out small autonomous drones which give off electrical and sound energies specifically engineered to titillate and confuse the enemy.

OMG! Shades of the "Philadelphia Experiment".

155 lbs, 15 gallons of gas, 15k feet altitude, for 5 days....

https://www.rdmag.com/article/2017/12/engineer-game-changing-drone-warren-woody-hoburg-named-2017-innovator-year