Introduction
As everybody in Lifter mailing list are well avare, the work on corona-discharged
aircraft has moved from the stage of the demonstrating the basic ability
to develop thrust to development of autonomously powered aircraft, which
requires clear understanding of technical improvements needed to achieve
the flight powered with on-board power supply. Recently developed by author
engineering
model of basic lifter allowed to predict correctly thrust and
voltage/current relation of all existing externally powered lifter models
described in Jean Naudin's
Lifter web-site. The natural next step is to derive relations combining
such key engineering characteristics as power density of autonomous power
supply and specific weight of wire/collector electrode stack with the lenght
of electrode stack and distance between corona-wire and collector which
would provide sufficient efficiency and power for self-propelled flight.
This is the topic of this communication.
Theoretical background
Following equation describing thrust/current and curren/voltage relatioin
of coron-discharge propelled device, derived by author in http://sudy_zhenja.tripod.com/lifter_theory
based on voltage-current relation in electrostatic dust precipitators developed
by Copperman (P. Cooperman, Theory for Space-Charge-Limited Current with
Application to Electrical Precipitation, Trans. Amer. Inst. Elec. Eng.
Part 1, vol. 79, pp. 47-50, 1960.) are used in derivation below.