Get on the fusion boat

[Warwick]

Get on the lulz boat … preferably not one powered by a pop tart though … a fusion boat.

I really want to make a fusion boat. If anyone says it’s not going to work, I’m not going to believe it. I want to design a boat and I want it to be a better boat for freight and passengers than anything else going.

I’ve been torn for a while about whether it should have elegant paddle wheels or just those horrible noisy screw propellers. With energy readily available, maybe the slight extra efficiency of a screw is not needed. Paddle wheels are better because they make for a shallow draft vessel. But then supposedly if the boat rocks, one wheel can come up out of the water which is a bit rubbish.

So I had a different thought OK. You have a screw propeller but not a rubbishy external one at the back. Instead you have tubes underneath with helical screws inside them. The base of the boat is so wide that it isn’t jostled by waves, and instead of resting a large hold on the water, it keeps further afloat than that, with some buoyancy materials in a frame with the propulsion tunnels. Large springs provide some suspension for the hold itself by helping to counteract fluctuations of upthrust. With the propulsion underwater, the noise created should be minimal. It might mince up a few denizens of the sea though, best to keep the tube diameter small as possible. Like a propulsion raft.

Just considering.

[zapkitty]

Warwick wrote: Get on the lulz boat … preferably not one powered by a pop tart though … a fusion boat.

Actually, marine craft are more easily adapted to fusion than other modes of transportation because of the inherent cooling advantage of a waterborne craft.

1: Don’t worry about the fusion aspect.

2: Design the best possible ship for your desired purpose.

3: Drop enough FF units in the hull to power your design.

4: Profit! 🙂

[Warwick]

Thanks. The fusion aspect does play a role though – up until now, design has been to do with availability of energy. With a plentiful supply, there are two differences. Firstly, the design can focus on other aspects such as comfort and minimising noise. Secondly, higher speeds may be possible. If it could do 200+ mph and was comfortable, many people would favour it over aircraft for passenger journeys.

[zapkitty]

Warwick wrote: Thanks. The fusion aspect does play a role though – up until now, design has been to do with availability of energy. With a plentiful supply, there are two differences. Firstly, the design can focus on other aspects such as comfort and minimising noise. Secondly, higher speeds may be possible. If it could do 200+ mph and was comfortable, many people would favour it over aircraft for passenger journeys.

… uh-oh… sounds like you’re going to try to cut in on my market for fusion-powered airships…

Let the first fusion-powered trade war commence! 😉

[Warwick]

zapkitty wrote:

Thanks. The fusion aspect does play a role though – up until now, design has been to do with availability of energy. With a plentiful supply, there are two differences. Firstly, the design can focus on other aspects such as comfort and minimising noise. Secondly, higher speeds may be possible. If it could do 200+ mph and was comfortable, many people would favour it over aircraft for passenger journeys.

… uh-oh… sounds like you’re going to try to cut in on my market for fusion-powered airships…

Let the first fusion-powered trade war commence! 😉

Yeah I much favour marine transport over air transport. It’s a lot more aesthetic. And I hate flying. Would a fusion powered airship be feasible? (Are there battery-powered electric motor-driven aircraft of any description at present?)

[zapkitty]

Warwick wrote:

… uh-oh… sounds like you’re going to try to cut in on my market for fusion-powered airships… Let the first fusion-powered trade war commence! 😉

Yeah I much favour marine transport over air transport. It’s a lot more aesthetic. And I hate flying. Would a fusion powered airship be feasible? (Are there battery-powered electric motor-driven aircraft of any description at present?)

Yes and yes… manned aircraft have flown propelled by solar, by fuel cell and even by AA batteries 🙂

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_aircraft

This thread has a lot of relevant comments and speculation about fusion-powered aircraft, even when sidetracked by the seemingly inevitable digression in fusion-powered spaceflight…

https://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/560/

(note to self: start thread on fusion-powered tunneling machine and record time until first comment about its potential as a launch vehicle..)

(… I never did get back to that thread… got distracted by a claim that the waste heat from an FF plant would limit its distribution in urban environments… which turned out to be a non-issue when the FF unit was allowed to spare 3 or 4 dozen kilowatts for heat dissipation…)

It turns out that basic 5 MWe FF units would do nicely as substitute power sources for a variety of turboprops and turbofans, but volume constraints in tube-and-wing aircraft designs are a bit of a pain. Airships would not have those constraints.

As for air ship vs ocean ship…

The first thing that leaps out is your assumption of ship speed: 200 mph would be 173 knots. That’s in comparison to the U.S. Navy’s fastest admitted speed of “above 50 knots” for an experimental ship. Now the [em]actual[/em] top Navy speed may well be in excess of 70 knots… 80.5 mph… but at 173 knots that’s not a ship anymore, that’s a loitering ekranoplane 🙂

The primary historical drawback of airships, their vulnerability in the air/ground interface, has been mitigated by modern design techniques that essentially turn them into heavier-than-air ships during takeoff and landing while still allowing them to keep their VTOL capabilities. With these modern design features a variety of large airships have been proposed that exceed speeds of 115 knots and altitudes in excess of 30,000 feet… and that’s before factoring fusion power plants into the designs and fusion would be be especially helpful here with its power availability and no fuel constraints.

So with that in mind I think that fusion-powered airships would beat fusion-powered ocean ships for passenger travel. The airships would be both faster and more comfortable with no swaying decks and the ability to fly above most inclement weather. They would not be limited to coastal ports and could land and take off almost anywhere. And if the weather was good they could sail 50 feet above the ocean surface and get the whole cruse ship vibe going… without seasickness 🙂

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