07-07-2013, 08:07 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
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I is impulse, measured in Newton-seconds, a.k.a. kg-m-s^-1. "Specific" means "per unit mass", so you divide by kg and get specific impulse (Newton-seconds per kilogram) in metres per second. Or in US Customary units, impulse is in pounds-force seconds (or poundal-seconds) and to get specific impulse you divide by pounds-mass (or slugs). You only get seconds if you divide pounds-force by pounds-mass and get a dimensionless number instead of an acceleration. You can't even do that in the Système International. Specific impulse works out identical to the effective exhaust speed.
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07-07-2013, 09:38 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
If it's labeled Isp, it's commonly measured in Seconds even under SI. If instead it's labeled as Ve, it's not measured in Seconds, despite the fact that these two names are measuring exactly the same thing.
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07-07-2013, 10:10 PM | #13 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
That is bizarre, freakish, and bound to lead to confusion. Also, not what I was taught in my physics courses.
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07-07-2013, 10:21 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
Yeah, well, common usage fairly often uses physically annoying notations. Seconds should really be G-seconds, but it's a useful enough notation and commonly understood.
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07-07-2013, 11:21 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
But of course specific impulse isn't much used in physics. In spaceflight literature it is by and large quoted in "seconds" even in modern papers where everything is in metric units. In aeronautical engineering, it's almost always quoted in Ns/kg - and never reduced to meters/second, because in fact nothing is moving at anything like that "velocity", which could conceivably exceed the speed of light for a big enough rotor and sufficiently efficient engine.
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07-08-2013, 12:18 AM | #16 |
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
You have no idea how fun explaining this to a classroom full of engineering students was.
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07-08-2013, 02:01 AM | #17 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
I used to be an engineering student, once.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 07-08-2013 at 02:06 AM. |
07-08-2013, 02:05 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
Surely, by conservation of momentum, the exhaust must be doing so relative to the outlet.
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07-08-2013, 07:22 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Hamilton, Ont. CANADA
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
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Dalton “who is looking forward to your "Spaceships Additions" files ;)” Spence
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07-08-2013, 09:50 AM | #20 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Spaceships] Homebrew: Alternate Chemical Rocket Fuel
No. That's true if the thrust is provided by reaction to exhausting the fuel, but that's not actually the definition of specific impulse, which is the thrust of the engine divided by the weight of the fuel it burns. If you move a very large volume of air very slowly you can get lots of thrust for very little energy (and hence fuel) use. Turbofan specific impulses can break 100,000 Ns/kg, helicopter rotors routinely reach millions. It's more common to quote these as the reciprocal ("thrust specific fuel consumption") and multiply by 3600 to get them in per hour but its the same thing.
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