Not using a magnetron. I have test equipment. I can find the resonant frequency if we can calculate geometry close enough. The question is, in your opinion, is the math there to make an exact calculation yet?
Break:@ Paul March, thank you for chiming in. All of us are chomping at the bit for ANY news whatsoever. Maybe Eagleworks could leverage its social media presence (https://www.facebook.com/eagleworksnasa) to keep the public engaged. As far as the lack of $$$ and resources go, I understand that Eagleworks works on a shoestring budget. Wish we could help. It probably isn't acceptable for us to try and crowdfund a government agency. Hopefully you achieve results that will turn heads. Godspeed.
Quote from: Star One on 02/04/2015 06:38 pmQuote from: DIYFAN on 02/04/2015 06:11 pmQuote from: saucyjack on 02/04/2015 05:46 pmFor people more familiar with NASA, is that common? Does NASA as a civilian agency have a history (or policy?) of suppressing experimental results that, like this, may have military applications? In other words, can the lack of any news at all one way or the other, be taken as a sign that there might be something to this? Or is that just conspiratorial nonsense?Rockets have military applications, but NASA does not suppress experimental results of rockets. To the contrary, they partner with companies such as SpaceX and share information for the advancement of space exploration. I'm not convinced there is a black out for EM drive technology. There appears to be a delay, which could have many causes. If there are people in the administration advocating for a black out, I think it is a mistake, and probably too late given the amount of information already in the public domain.To be fair to NASA if this does work it's such a revolutionary technology that the reporting of it is not something to be rushed into. No doubt every result is having to be checked, checked again & then checked again etc etc which no doubt slows down the release of information. Especially if on top of that there are national security implications that have to be considered as well.Folks:The Eagleworks Lab is still working on the copper frustum thruster that was reported on last summer at the AIAA/JPC. We have now confirmed that there is a thrust signature in a hard vacuum (~5.0x10^-6 Torr) in both the forward direction, (approx. +50 micro-Newton (uN) with 50W at 1,937.115 MHz), and the reversed direction, (up to -16uN with a failing RF amp), when the thruster is rotated 180 degrees on the torque pendulum. However we continue to fight through RF amplifier failures brought on by having to operate them in a hard vacuum with few $$$ resources to fix them when they break, so the desired data is coming along very slowly. We are still working on obtaining enough data though that will allow us to go to Glenn Research Center (GRC) for a replication effort in the next few months. However that will only happen if we can make the thrust signature large enough since the GRC thrust stand can only measure down to ~50uN, so we have to get the thrust signature up to at least 100uN before we can go to GRC. As to the theoretical side of Q-Thrusters, Dr. White has just developed the first cut at a quantum vacuum (QV) based plasma code written in C+ under Windows/Unix and VMD visualization software that utilizes the COMSOL E&M derived field data for a given thruster geometry that allows one to track the movement and velocity of a subset of the QV's electron/positron neutral plasma pairs in the thruster over time as they respond to the applied time varying RF E&M fields in the copper frustum resonant cavity and to each other. This package also allows one to calculate the expected thrust for a given input power and quality factor of the frustum resonant cavity based of standard plasma rocket physics. So far the estimated thrust verses experimental observations are within 2% for the first experimental data run I compared it to, but we still have a long, long road ahead of us of experimental validation before we have any real confidence in this very new Q-Thruster design tool.Best, Paul March
Quote from: DIYFAN on 02/04/2015 06:11 pmQuote from: saucyjack on 02/04/2015 05:46 pmFor people more familiar with NASA, is that common? Does NASA as a civilian agency have a history (or policy?) of suppressing experimental results that, like this, may have military applications? In other words, can the lack of any news at all one way or the other, be taken as a sign that there might be something to this? Or is that just conspiratorial nonsense?Rockets have military applications, but NASA does not suppress experimental results of rockets. To the contrary, they partner with companies such as SpaceX and share information for the advancement of space exploration. I'm not convinced there is a black out for EM drive technology. There appears to be a delay, which could have many causes. If there are people in the administration advocating for a black out, I think it is a mistake, and probably too late given the amount of information already in the public domain.To be fair to NASA if this does work it's such a revolutionary technology that the reporting of it is not something to be rushed into. No doubt every result is having to be checked, checked again & then checked again etc etc which no doubt slows down the release of information. Especially if on top of that there are national security implications that have to be considered as well.
Quote from: saucyjack on 02/04/2015 05:46 pmFor people more familiar with NASA, is that common? Does NASA as a civilian agency have a history (or policy?) of suppressing experimental results that, like this, may have military applications? In other words, can the lack of any news at all one way or the other, be taken as a sign that there might be something to this? Or is that just conspiratorial nonsense?Rockets have military applications, but NASA does not suppress experimental results of rockets. To the contrary, they partner with companies such as SpaceX and share information for the advancement of space exploration. I'm not convinced there is a black out for EM drive technology. There appears to be a delay, which could have many causes. If there are people in the administration advocating for a black out, I think it is a mistake, and probably too late given the amount of information already in the public domain.
For people more familiar with NASA, is that common? Does NASA as a civilian agency have a history (or policy?) of suppressing experimental results that, like this, may have military applications? In other words, can the lack of any news at all one way or the other, be taken as a sign that there might be something to this? Or is that just conspiratorial nonsense?
I don't think funding discussions necessarily belong in this thread. Theory, potential application, and research results are one thing - figuring out how to pay for research on something that is not yet proven to create thrust (via the process of peer review and outside verification) is drifting dangerously close to territory that will earn a surefire thread closure.
Quote from: Star-Drive on 02/06/2015 12:58 pm..Folks:The Eagleworks Lab is still working on the copper frustum thruster that was reported on last summer at the AIAA/JPC. We have now confirmed that there is a thrust signature in a hard vacuum (~5.0x10^-6 Torr) in both the forward direction, (approx. +50 micro-Newton (uN) with 50W at 1,937.115 MHz), and the reversed direction, (up to -16uN with a failing RF amp), when the thruster is rotated 180 degrees on the torque pendulum. However we continue to fight through RF amplifier failures brought on by having to operate them in a hard vacuum with few $$$ resources to fix them when they break, so the desired data is coming along very slowly. We are still working on obtaining enough data though that will allow us to go to Glenn Research Center (GRC) for a replication effort in the next few months. However that will only happen if we can make the thrust signature large enough since the GRC thrust stand can only measure down to ~50uN, so we have to get the thrust signature up to at least 100uN before we can go to GRC. As to the theoretical side of Q-Thrusters, Dr. White has just developed the first cut at a quantum vacuum (QV) based plasma code written in C+ under Windows/Unix and VMD visualization software that utilizes the COMSOL E&M derived field data for a given thruster geometry that allows one to track the movement and velocity of a subset of the QV's electron/positron neutral plasma pairs in the thruster over time as they respond to the applied time varying RF E&M fields in the copper frustum resonant cavity and to each other. This package also allows one to calculate the expected thrust for a given input power and quality factor of the frustum resonant cavity based of standard plasma rocket physics. So far the estimated thrust verses experimental observations are within 2% for the first experimental data run I compared it to, but we still have a long, long road ahead of us of experimental validation before we have any real confidence in this very new Q-Thruster design tool.Best, Paul March Thanks Paul for an excellent update, much appreciated.Congratulations to the Eagleworks team for obtaining experimental force measurements in the torsional pendulum in a hard vacuum (~5.0x10^-6 Torr) !It would be most helpful to the scientific/technical community if you could provide the dimensions of the frustum of a cone (truncated cone) used in the Brady et.al. "Anomalous ..." report.Of several estimates of the geometry, we have established that this is the best estimate so far:Aero Best estimate as of 11/9/2014 http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29276.msg1285896#msg1285896 cavityLength = 0.24173 mbigDiameter = 0.27246 msmallDiameter = 0.15875 mwhere "cavity length" is the axial length of the frustum measured along the longitudinal axis of the cone, perpendicular to both the small and big diameters. In other words, the dimension labeled "h" in the following image: It would be most helpful if you could provide the actual (internal) dimensions of the frustum (or at least if you could provide its approximate dimensions).Thanks
..Folks:The Eagleworks Lab is still working on the copper frustum thruster that was reported on last summer at the AIAA/JPC. We have now confirmed that there is a thrust signature in a hard vacuum (~5.0x10^-6 Torr) in both the forward direction, (approx. +50 micro-Newton (uN) with 50W at 1,937.115 MHz), and the reversed direction, (up to -16uN with a failing RF amp), when the thruster is rotated 180 degrees on the torque pendulum. However we continue to fight through RF amplifier failures brought on by having to operate them in a hard vacuum with few $$$ resources to fix them when they break, so the desired data is coming along very slowly. We are still working on obtaining enough data though that will allow us to go to Glenn Research Center (GRC) for a replication effort in the next few months. However that will only happen if we can make the thrust signature large enough since the GRC thrust stand can only measure down to ~50uN, so we have to get the thrust signature up to at least 100uN before we can go to GRC. As to the theoretical side of Q-Thrusters, Dr. White has just developed the first cut at a quantum vacuum (QV) based plasma code written in C+ under Windows/Unix and VMD visualization software that utilizes the COMSOL E&M derived field data for a given thruster geometry that allows one to track the movement and velocity of a subset of the QV's electron/positron neutral plasma pairs in the thruster over time as they respond to the applied time varying RF E&M fields in the copper frustum resonant cavity and to each other. This package also allows one to calculate the expected thrust for a given input power and quality factor of the frustum resonant cavity based of standard plasma rocket physics. So far the estimated thrust verses experimental observations are within 2% for the first experimental data run I compared it to, but we still have a long, long road ahead of us of experimental validation before we have any real confidence in this very new Q-Thruster design tool.Best, Paul March
...The copper frustum we built and now are using has the following internal copper surface dimensions.Large OD: 11.00" (0.2794m), Small OD: 6.25" (0.1588m) & Length: 9.00" (0.2286m) also see the attached slide with notes on the copper frustum's internal construction. I've also attached a slide with the TM212 E&M resonant mode we are currently exploring in this copper frustum cavity with a screen shot of the end on VMD display that shows the 100,000th simulation increment for this resonant mode. Each step in this plasma code is 1/72 of a full RF cycle, i.e., every 5.0 degrees of phase shift so each time step at 1,937.115 MHz is ~7.12 pico-seconds (10^-12s). Next is a picture of the forward thrust signature from this copper frustum taken in a ~5.0x10^-6 Torr vacuum. However we are currently trying to investigate the thermal response of the is copper frustum on the baseline of the torque pendulum after learning that I made a poor choice in how I built and mounted the copper frustum since it makes these thermal effects more pronounced in these thrust plots than they had to be. I'm appending a partial COMSOL thermal analysis of the copper frustum and I would like to get someone better versed in the art of thermodynamics than I to see if they calculate the expected thermal expansion of the copper frustum AND the polyethylene discs over a 60 second data run with ~50W of 1,937.115 MHz RF applied inside the cavity via a 14mm OD magnetic loop antenna made from 20 gauge magnet wire. BTW, we have found that both the TE and TM E&M modes of this copper frustum can produce a thrust signature, but so far the TM modes appear to be the better performer, at least for the few modes we have been able to study to date. (Shawyer and the Chinese used the magnetron excited TE012 mode in their frustum cavities without dielectrics being present.) Lastly, like any busy lab, Eagleworks could always use extra funding to deal with its daily heart burns and required salaries to keep it going. However we are currently a NASA sponsored facility, which sadly precludes being able to accept crowd sourcing or any other outside source of funding, unless it's through a commercial NASA Space Act Agreement that has to be approved up through NASA headquarters in Washington DC. In the meantime we limp along with the meager funding we are allotted until we either run out of time, or we finally prove our QVF/MHD conjecture is close enough to the reality so that we can start building Q-Thrusters with large enough thrusts, (tens to thousands of Newton), to be used on manned spaceflight missions.
Rodal:As a follow up to my previous post and in the spirit of open disclosure, I'm including our last null-thrust test that ran the RF amp at 10.0Adc while its RF power was being dissipated in a 100W, 50 ohm dummy load positioned in place of the test article on the torque pendulum (TP), a picture of the new heat shields for our torque pendulum's upper and lower torsion springs, (more belts and suspenders to mitigate thermal drifts in the TP baseline), the reversed test setup drawing and the best reversed thrust plot obtained just before or during when our second and last 120W max RF amplifier was dying from internal corona discharges around its RF output circulator. Apparently the RF amp's internal gas pressure had gone down from 1 Bar to an estimated 10 Torr or less after a few days leaking air in a hard vacuum. And 0.1-to-10.0 Torr is where glow discharges are the easiest to ignite with RF signals. So much for EMPower's "hermetic" sealed RF amplifiers...Best, Paul March
Has anyone notified Dr. M re. precise cavity dimensions and latest forces from Paul? I would but don't have his link handy.
Well here's an open one...... http://scharstein.eng.ua.edu/electromagnetic.pdf
(1) We have developed an exact analytical approach for the description of the electromagneticfields inside a hollow metallic waveguide with a taper. Analytical expressions for the spatitaldistributions of electromagnetic field components, attenuation constant, phase constant andwave impedance are derived.(2)According to our theory the modes configurations inside a tapered hollow metallicwaveguide are similar to those in a cylindrical hollow metallic waveguide, but thetransmission characteristics and engergy densities distributions along propagating directionhave a different behavior. It is shown that all modes run continuously from a propagatingthrough a transition to an evanescent region and the value of the attenuation increases as thedistance from the cone vertex and the cone angle desrease. A strict distinction between purepropagating and pure evanescent modes can not be achieved. There is no well-defined cutoffwavelength but rather a cutoff radius. It is interesting to note that the magnitude of the cutoffradius is related to the wavelength and the cone half-angle. The values of attenuation andphase constants for the spherical TE and TM modes inside the tapered hollow metallicwaveguide depend on the cone half-angle very seriously. As the cone half-angle decreases, thevalue of the attenuation increases. The smaller the cone half-angle is, the faster the modesattenuate. This can explain why large taper angle may improve the light throughout inaperture probe which finds an important application in scanning near-field optical microscopy(3) As follows from our calculations, we find that in the propagating region the attentuation ofsome modes decays faster than those of others, and one mode after the other reaches cutoff inthe tapered hollow metallic waveguide as the distance from the cone vertex decreases.4) In the tapered hollow metallic waveguide, light is well confined in the hollow core (airregion) because it is reflected back to the core by a metal wall.
Quote from: Star-Drive on 02/07/2015 04:01 pmRodal:As a follow up to my previous post and in the spirit of open disclosure, I'm including our last null-thrust test that ran the RF amp at 10.0Adc while its RF power was being dissipated in a 100W, 50 ohm dummy load positioned in place of the test article on the torque pendulum (TP), a picture of the new heat shields for our torque pendulum's upper and lower torsion springs, (more belts and suspenders to mitigate thermal drifts in the TP baseline), the reversed test setup drawing and the best reversed thrust plot obtained just before or during when our second and last 120W max RF amplifier was dying from internal corona discharges around its RF output circulator. Apparently the RF amp's internal gas pressure had gone down from 1 Bar to an estimated 10 Torr or less after a few days leaking air in a hard vacuum. And 0.1-to-10.0 Torr is where glow discharges are the easiest to ignite with RF signals. So much for EMPower's "hermetic" sealed RF amplifiers...Best, Paul MarchFirst off congratulations, and thank you very much for the information. One question though. The use of a dummy load to the best of my understanding provides evidence to support that the thrust measurement device is not generating false positive data. Is it possible to run the Frustum in a null configuration? If so, is that in the plans before the next report is published?