Related papers: What fuel for a rocket?
Logical and mathematical aspects of the basic concepts of thermodynamics are considered.
A brief overview of jets and their central drivers is presented, with a focus on accreting black hole systems. In particular, scaling relations that elucidate some basic properties of the engines are derived, and the implications for the…
Recent progress towards the non-fission ignition of thermonuclear micro-explosions raises the prospect for a revival of the nuclear bomb propulsion idea, both for the fast transport of large payloads within the solar system and the launch…
Interstellar transport is an object of interest in many sci-fi stories. In history a lot of sci-fi predictions have turned into reality, such as communications satellites, deep-sea submarines and journies to the moon. In this work we study…
The basic physics for plasma core rocket engines was already completed in 1985. At the time successful containment of a fissioning uranium hexafluoride U(93%)F6 plasma was achieved for ~120 seconds using an argon vortex. Unfortunately,…
Current spacecraft mass are mostly fuel, this is dictated by the lack of fueling stations in space and also by the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation which defines the mass ratio needed to escape earths gravity. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation…
Large scale manned space flight within the solar system is still confronted with the solution of two problems: 1. A propulsion system to transport large payloads with short transit times between different planetary orbits. 2. A cost…
We comment about the general argument given to obtain the rocket equation as it is exposed in standard textbooks. In our opinion, it can induce students to a wrong answer when solving variable mass problems.
Emission from astronomical jets extend over the entire spectral band: from radio to the TeV gamma-rays. This implies that various radiative processes are taking place in different regions along jets. Understanding the origin of the emission…
A new kinetic approach is developed and a quasi-practical gas is defined to which the new approach can be applied. One of the advantages of this new approach over the standard one is direct calculability in terms of today's computational…
The turbulent jets are usually described by classical velocities. The relativistic case can be treated starting from the conservation of the relativistic momentum. The two key assumptions which allow to obtain a simple expression for the…
If you want to get accurate predictions for the motion of water and air propelled D.I.Y rockets, neglecting air resistance is not an option. But the theoretical analysis including air drag leads to a system of differential equations which…
Water has been identified as a critical resource both to sustain human-life but also for use in propulsion, attitude-control, power, thermal and radiation pro-tection systems. Water may be obtained off-world through In-Situ Resource…
The mathematical properties associated with the widely accepted concept of the extensivity of many of the common thermodynamic variables are examined and some of their consequences considered. The possible conflict between some of these and…
A computational model is developed to assist the design of the first hybrid rocket engine of the McGill Rocket Team, using liquid nitrous oxide as an oxidizer and solid paraffin wax as a fuel. The model is developed in three phases: In the…
A thermodynamic formulation of jammed matter is reviewed. Experiments and simulations of compressed emulsions and granular materials are then used to provide a foundation for the thermodynamics.
Two related topics are discussed. 1. Accretion onto black holes at low and high (though not very high) rates is believed to proceed adiabatically ({\em ie} non-radiatively). It is argued that the liberated energy is carried off by an…
In a scramjet, the fuel can be used to cool down the engine walls. The thermal decomposition of the jet fuel changes the reacting mixture before its combustion. A numerical study of the pyrolysis of norbornane, a jet fuel surrogate, has…
Projectile like fragments emerging from heavy ion collision have an excitation energy which is often labeled by a temperature. This temperature was recently calculated using a geometric model. We expand the geometric model to include also…
We consider a turbulent jet which is moving in a Lane--Emden ($n=5$) medium. The conserved quantity is the energy flux, which allows finding, to first order, an analytical expression for the velocity and an approximate trajectory. The…