(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Creating a Multi-Stage Ionic Thruster [1]

['Gareth Branwyn']

Date: 2022-09-22  

Inspired by a MIT's 2018 ionic thrust airplane, Jay of the Plasma Channel wanted to see if he could create a next-generation design for an ionic thruster. Ionic thrust, aka electrohydrodynamic thrust, is the result of ionic wind, which is basically airflow forming around a DC electric field. The MIT design was based on the well-established ionic lifter.

Jay wanted to know what the next generation of such thrust tech might be, so he created a multi-stage ionic thruster where the spacing between thrusters could be adjusted to see if that impacted the thrust dynamics. His preliminary results, with a simple device he put together, look very promising.



Come for the science, stay for the gorgeous plasma photos he takes towards the end.

Thumbnail: Screengrab, Plasma Channel.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2022/09/22/creating-a-multi-stage-ionic-thruster.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/