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Boat Moves Without an Engine Or Sails

Posted by samzenpus on from the watching-too-much-seaquest dept.

coondoggie writes "Researchers say technology they have developed would let boats or small aquatic robots glide through the water without the need for an engine, sails or paddles. A University of Pittsburgh research team has designed a propulsion system that uses the natural surface tension that is present on the water's surface and an electric pulse to move the boat or robot, researchers said. The Pitt system has no moving parts and the low-energy electrode that emits the pulse could be powered by batteries, radio waves, or solar power, researchers said in a statement."

3 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Can't MHD already do this? by bistromath007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, MHD drives that I know of are slow and run on superconductors, but that was back in the early 90's, they should be able to gin up something better by now.

  2. Re:Is it the Red October? by Arker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Err scratch that. Teach me to post in this heat.

    Apparently it relies on surface tension and would not, therefore, be very useful on a submersible vehicle. :((

    Might be nice for whale-watching and the like, at least. Engine noise scares off a lot of creatures that would otherwise be observable. But sailing ships are already quiet enough for that, so I'm not sure I see a real viable purpose for it at the moment.

    Still, just as pure research, it's pretty cool.

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  3. Re:Calm water by pato101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AFAIK, no: the tension surface forces are only strong when the surface is in almost steady state.
    I've forgotten most of these issues, but I recall solving tension surface problems, and there was a condition which meant almost steady state. The idea is that when the surface is in motion, convection and pressure terms become dominant over surface tension (the pressure gradients generated by convection are much larger than the pressure gradient due to surface tension).