Integrated Nuclear Facility

Almost all electric production plants have a single function. That is to produce electricity. However, for nuclear power plants I would like to propose an integrated facility. The major problem of a nuclear plant is the uncontrollability of the nuclear chain reaction. These plants require continuous cooling and if cooling fails the core would melt down and radiation would leak into the environment.

I would like to propose a simple nuclear reactor design with closed water loop to generate electricity. This design requires the hot steam to be condensed after turning the turbine. This would be achieved by transferring heat to continuous endothermic reactions. This approach negates the need for continuous water for cooling. Energy intense chemical reactions that would take place under the boiling temperature of water would condense the steam into water. This requires continuous feed of chemicals to absorb the immense heat. In addition to chemical reactions, most dehydration processes (such as sewage sludge dehydration) can work at temperatures below the boiling point of water. Once the closed loop water condenses into water, the reactor can be kept cool. There would be reserve water to replenish the leaks, but it would be nowhere near the classical reactors would require.

The integrated nuclear facility would have considerable space allocated to the side process that require energy in exchange of cooling the reactor water. This approach increases the overall efficiency of the nuclear power plant with almost no energy being wasted. The critical nuclear part of the plant can be build much compact leaving room to the integrated facilities.

Nuclear Powered Surveillance Plane

The nuclear-powered engine I proposed earlier would need to operate continuously once it is started. The nuclear core inside is air cooled which requires certain air flow. Therefore, the engine would be started on air at certain altitude and speed. The surveillance plane and the engine should be light to reduce thrust requirement to stay airborne. Lower energy requirement equates to lower radioactive material which reduces the environmental risk. The plane would patrol over the oceans away from human population. In case of failure the plane would be directed to the nearest deep sea to be buried under hundreds of meters of seawater. The planes continuous movement would negate the need for heavy shielding of the core. Any high energy particle escaping from the plane’s engine would disperse over a large area which pose minimal environmental hazard. As I stated earlier, a heavier shielding would require more radioactive material to keep the plane airborne. Aluminum is very resistant to radiation damage and is light weight. The aluminum block with high thermal mass covering the core would create moderate shielding against the radiation as well. There would be a thin layer of copper between the core and the aluminum to increase the thermal surface area and prevent aluminum from melting.

The engine would be on the center of the plane and high aspect ratio wings would be attached on it. The surveillance equipment would be attached on either side of the engine. High aspect ratio wings would generate high lift at high altitudes. The planes would be deployed as clusters like the satellite constellations. They may even stay airborne longer than some satellites. They would not be serviceable. If they fail, they need to be discarded on a dead spot on the ocean.

The plane would utilize thermoelectric generator I proposed last year to convert heat energy directly to electricity coupled with a backup battery to be used during launch.

The planes would be deployed on air behind a high-altitude drone plane. The planes would be attached one after the other on a strong light weight tether.  They would look like the tails of a kite. Onboard battery would be used to control the flight controllers which would stabilize the plane on air like a glider. Once deployment criteria are met, they would be released one after the other behind the drone plane. The release from the attached cord would pull the safety pin which releases the lead shield covering the neutron emitting isotopes. The neutron bombarding the nuclear core would start the engine. This is the critical part that needs to be perfected.

Nuclear Aircraft Engine

Designing an aircraft engine which has a nuclear core inside may not seem feasible. However, with careful calculations solutions can be found. In this article I will only focus on the design of the engine. Some of the safety measures related with the engine will be discussed on my next article.

The summary of the idea is to use the heat generated by the nuclear core to drive a fan to suck and heat air to accelerate it to generate thrust. The engine would be started on air with a certain amount of initial ground speed. The nuclear core would be started by natural neutron emitting isotopes. Once the chain reaction starts, the engine would be released together with the plane it is attached to. Initially, this engine would be used on a high endurance surveillance plane. Such autonomous plane would stay aloft for months without refueling. They would only be deployed over the oceans for extra safety.

The engine would work as follows. The nuclear core would only have a single fuel pallet and no control rod or moderator. This simplifies the design and reduces the weight. The nuclear pallet would be surrounded by good heat conducting material such as aluminum alloy. There is no need for a control rod while there would be only a single fuel pallet. The fuel pallet would not be sealed inside a Zirconium casing but housed on a big aluminum casing. This casing also negates the need for the moderator. Part of this casing will have spiraling pipes with a cooling gas inside. This gas would be used to drive a gas turbine which drives the fan of the engine. The gas turbine and the fan would also be made of aluminum alloy for good heat conductivity. This setup would cool the gas inside the spiraling pipe in expense of the reduced efficiency of the gas turbine. The rest of the nuclear core would be surrounded by heat radiating fins. The air sucked by the fan would be heated by the rest of the core which generates the thrust of the engine. In summary, the core would be air cooled. Thermodynamic calculations of the design can be made and minimum air speed and ambient temperature to keep the core temperature under control can be found. The critical part of the design is the closed loop gas turbine. Therefore, it would be made of two independent systems to ensure failsafe operation.

Once started, this engine should keep working to prevent a core melt down. If designed properly, a self-stabilized system can be formed. If the core gets hotter, the fan would spin faster and more air would be sucked. The aft section of the engine would heat the air more to generate more thrust. The higher air speed increases the air-cooling effect on the core. The autonomous plane would adjust its route and altitude to maintain certain air speed and ambient air temperature.

The Diary

My acquaintance with diary dates back to my childhood. When I was in primary school, our teacher would mandate the students write a diary during summer holiday. In the first day of the school, we would show it to our teacher and sometimes read couple paragraphs from it to the whole class. During my high school study, we read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’. A couple of years after I read the book, I had a chance to see her house as well. By coincidence she was born in Frankfurt am Main, which I value it as my second hometown after Adana.

More than two decades later, I started writing blog articles like a kind of diary and published them as books. I always associated writing a diary with Anglo-Saxons culture. The reasoning behind every diary may differ, but they have one thing in common is that they last. So many suffered during wars. However, it is hard to imagine it by just looking at the pictures or the films. Writing with one’s own words during hard times has something deeper compared to still images. Looking at the pictures of the war is something, reading Anne’s diary is something else.

I also take pictures and videos, to document events and places since I owned a digital camera in 2001. Now I am writing as well to add one more dimension.

My books are not like classical diaries. However, they are like the paintings of a painter or compositions of a composer. I develop ideas like painting or songs and realize them with my own words and images. I try to be as natural as possible with my own grammatical errors and poorly drawn images. Those imperfections are like my fingerprints which make my work unique. That’s why I avoid the trends like usage of AI.

Finally, I recommend everyone to keep a diary. It’s a kind of self-therapy to write.

Hydrogen Powered Plane

Density of jet fuel is 840 g/L, approximate energy density per weight is 43 MJ/kg and per volume is 36 MJ/L. Density of hydrogen is 70.85 g/L, approximate energy density per weight is 142 MJ/kg and per volume is 10 MJ/L. In addition to these values, the cryogenic tank of hydrogen weights several orders more than a typical jet fuel tank. The result, much higher volume of hydrogen is required compared to jet fuel to establish the same task.

A successful hydrogen powered plane requires completely new approach in the plane design philosophy. On a hydrogen plane, the fuel tank would be at the center of the design. Whereas with traditional planes, the airframe is in the center of the design. You may see the cryogenic tank like the chassis of a truck. On a truck, everything is mounted on and around the chassis which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. The cryogenic tank is way stronger than an airframe. Therefore, the remaining airframe housing the passenger cabin can be built with less structural strength. The wings would also be attached to the hydrogen tank so as the landing gears. However, I have a VTOL proposition for the hydrogen plane using the VTOL assistor. Ariane 6 rocket which also uses liquified hydrogen as propellant has solid booster for takeoff. Like the Ariane rocket the hydrogen powered plane can also use assistance during takeoff and landing via the VTOL assistor. This negates the need for landing gears, but requires safety parachutes for the emergencies. Placing the very strong hydrogen tank on the bottom of the plane protects the airframe above during emergency landing using parachutes. Like the LNG plane I proposed earlier, the liquid hydrogen can be released before emergency landing which would also generate passive thrust.

The hydrogen tank would take up the space of baggage compartments. Therefore, the baggage would be stored at the back of the cabin like in passenger railroad cars. This would make the plane longer compared to its similar capacity counterparts.

Due to so many technical challenges and higher cost of manufacturing, the hydrogen planes can never be a mainstream choice. However, LNG powered planes may find some potential among the aviation industry.

What You Can Do For AI

Snowmobile for Extremes

After watching so many videos on winter camping which utilized snowmobile for transportation, I decided to come up with my own design to address some of the issues with current models. Snowmobiles are small vehicles that allow so many modifications based on the model. My proposed features would be provided by the manufacturer and the design would be optimized to accommodate these features seamlessly compared to an aftermarket modification.

The main objective of my design is to improve the operability of the snowmobile in extreme weather.

To address the cold start problem of the engine I propose the use of super capacitors instead of classical car batteries. The batteries are only used for startup. Once the engine starts, the dynamo supplies the necessary electrical power to the rest of the vehicle. A specially designed super capacitor would have better low temperature rating and can be charged very fast in case of depletion. There will be a pull rope emergency electric generator to fast charge the capacitors in extreme colds.

There will be an internal Webasto heater that can be started by a piezo igniter to warm the engine block and the super capacitor in extreme cold. Once the engine starts it would be shot down.

Some of the air cooling the engine block would directed to the dash of the snowmobile to warm the drivers face. This would also defrost the frozen windshield to improve visibility. The handlebar grips would be electrically heated to prevent the fingertips from freezing in extreme cold. The seats will be heated by a heatsink attached to the exhaust pipe.

There will be a winch in front of the snowmobile that is powered by the engine. It would allow the snowmobile to tow itself in case of emergency.

The dashboard of the snowmobile will only have LED indicators which keep operating even at extreme cold compared LCD screens. There will be a GPS receiver on board which would only show distance information in X-Y coordinates between the selected prerecorded points and the current position. This simple design would be more reliable in extreme conditions compared to GPS systems with complex software and LCD screens. In case of getting lost in snowstorm, the home location, last turn on location or pre-recorded location would be recalled by pressing large memory buttons that can operate with large glows.

Finally, the headlights would have high illumination LEDs with multiple focusing options.