Post by swamprat on Jul 19, 2017 8:56:15 GMT -6
EM Drive Approaches Reality
After months of speculation and leaked documents, NASA’s long-awaited EM Drive paper has finally been peer-reviewed and published. And it shows that the ‘impossible’ propulsion system really does appear to work. The NASA Eagleworks Laboratory team even put forward a hypothesis for how the EM Drive could produce thrust – something that seems impossible according to our current understanding of the laws of physics.
The EM Drive, or Electromagnetic Drive, is a propulsion system first proposed by British inventor Roger Shawyer back in 1999. Instead of using heavy, inefficient rocket fuel, it bounces microwaves back and forth inside a cone-shaped metal cavity to generate thrust. According to Shawyer’s calculations, the EM Drive could be so efficient that it could power us to Mars in just 70 days.
But, there’s a not-small problem with the system. It defies Newton’s third law, which states that everything must have an equal and opposite reaction. According to the law, for a system to produce thrust, it has to push something out the other way. The EM Drive doesn’t do this. Yet in test after test it continues to work Laboratory team got their hands on an EM Drive to try to figure out once and for all what was going on. And now we finally have those results.
The new paper is titled “Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum“, published online in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)’s Journal of Propulsion and Power. Thrust data from forward, reverse, and null suggested that the system was consistently performing at 1.2 ± 0.1 mN/kW. It’s likely that the EM Drive can get a lot more efficient.
“The supporting physics model used to derive a force based on operating conditions in the test article can be categorized as a nonlocal hidden-variable theory, or pilot-wave theory for short.”But in recent years, the pilot-wave theory has been increasing in popularity, and the NASA team suggests that it could help explain how the EM Drive produces thrust without appearing to propel anything in the other direction. “If a medium is capable of supporting acoustic oscillations, this means that the internal constituents were capable of interacting and exchanging momentum,” “If the vacuum is indeed mutable and degradable as was explored, then it might be possible to do/extract work on/from the vacuum, and thereby be possible to push off of the quantum vacuum and preserve the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum.” The next step for the EM Drive is for it to be tested in space, which is scheduled to happen in the coming months. If it produces thrust there, the scientific community will need to sit up and take note.
Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio-Frequency Cavity in Vacuum
Harold White, Paul March, James Lawrence, Jerry Vera, Andre Sylvester, David Brady, Paul Bailey
NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058
Advanced Propulsion Theme Lead and Principal Investigator, Eagleworks Laboratories, EP4, 2101 NASA Parkway. Member AIAA.
Principal Engineer, Eagleworks Laboratories, 2101 NASA Parkway, EP4. Senior Member AIAA.
Electrical Engineer, Eagleworks Laboratories, 2101 NASA Parkway, EP5.
Mechanical Engineer and COMSOL Multiphysics Analyst, Eagleworks Laboratories, 2101 NASA Parkway, EP4.
Project Manager, Eagleworks Laboratories, 2101 NASA Parkway.
Aerospace Engineer, Eagleworks Laboratories, 2101 NASA Parkway.
Scientist, Eagleworks Laboratories, 2101 NASA Parkway.
Publication Date (online): November 17, 2016
ABSTRACT
A vacuum test campaign evaluating the impulsive thrust performance of a tapered radio-frequency test article excited in the transverse magnitude 212 mode at 1937 MHz has been completed. The test campaign consisted of a forward thrust phase and reverse thrust phase at less than 8×10−6 torr.
I. Introduction
It was previously reported that radio-frequency (RF) resonant cavities generated anomalous thrust on a low-thrust torsion pendulum [1,2] in spite of the apparent lack of a propellant or other medium with which to exchange momentum. It is shown here that a dielectrically loaded, tapered RF test article excited in the transverse magnetic 212 (TM212) mode (see Fig. 1) at 1937 MHz is capable of consistently generating force at a thrust-to-power level of 1.2±0.1 mN/kW
Read more, much more: arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B36120
III. Conclusions
A vacuum test campaign that used an updated integrated test article and optimized torsion pendulum layout was completed. The test campaign consisted of a forward thrust element that included performing testing at ambient pressure to establish and confirm good tuning, as well as subsequent power scans at 40, 60, and 80 W, with three thrust runs performed at each power setting for a total of nine runs at vacuum. The test campaign consisted of a reverse thrust element that mirrored the forward thrust element. The test campaign included a null thrust test effort of three tests performed at vacuum at 80 W to try and identify any mundane sources of impulsive thrust; none were identified. Thrust data from forward, reverse, and null suggested that the system was consistently performing at 1.2±0.1 mN/kW.
Thanks to George Filer for finding this report! www.nationalufocenter.com/