Capturing Wake Energy Without Drag ?

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by apex1

No does not look too good.............

If my NA needs some deeper insight of the sort you provide, he invites some children to devastate his office while he listens to their comments. Thats about 15$ as well, including the ice cream, but he gets a proper result.

That definitely sounds like more fun, too.

[DennisRB]

At least Questor come out as a troll.

[wardd]

I'd go to a bar and get drunk and ask the other drunks there

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Questor

Regardless of my grade 7 education I am licensed to operate power equipment ,

Originally Posted by Questor

At the age of 7 a teacher that was alarmed by the potential security threat of my paper airplane making called the police. The ensuing investigation resulted in me being prohibited from making paper airplanes or discussing aviation technology. From then through high school every time I changed schools I was called into the office and threatened with the consequences of building paper airplanes or even discussing them.The threat was that a NATO agency would remove me from my family and community to be placed in secure detention.

Someone is amusing himself by spinning fairy tales, and seeing who will take him seriously....but the trouble with spreading fibs around is that it's hard to avoid stepping on them.

[ancient kayaker]

Originally Posted by Questor

... In the midst of all that I was giving more serious thought to the original object of the thread ... it would make more sense to acquire a more efficient hull rather than trying to reengineer something that shouldn't be allowed on the water in the first place ...

Questor, even for a (fellow) Canadian you are remarkably stubborn, but I think reality is starting to make itself felt. Perhaps the following will finally put this thread, and your idea to a well deserved rest.

The amount of energy in the ripples produced by dropping a pebble in water are less than the amount of energy required to lift the pebble in the first place. That should tell you how little energy there is in the ripples. The movement of items floating in the water as the waves pass beneath them is cyclic, so the energy required to raise a log is returned when the log sinks back. If the wave does not have enough energy to raise a large log it just passes the log which is not effected: in that case an observer will be noticed that the wave length is significantly shorter than the length of the log. Since the wave height varies from above to below the mean water surface it all averages out. Beautiful in its way.

As far as getting more energy out of the waves than you put into lifting the pebble, if that is what you are thinking, I suggest you forget it. Check out the principle of conservation of energy. Also know as No Free Rides From Nature. Waves only seem to grow as they travel across the surface of water because their wave length is increasing as they become shallower. Their energy is simply spreading over more space with time, which is what energy always does if not constrained. That is either the cause of, or results from entropy: cause and effect are hard to separate sometimes in Physics. Waves do indeed go on for ever despite energy lost to viscosity; eventually they will become infinitely long and shallower than the width of an electron: they lose interest to the casual observer long before that, of course because they seem to disappear once their dimensions become smaller than the wavelength of visible light.

Wave energy devices work in one of two ways: either they are flexible or pivoted in sections and the action of flexing them as the wave passes transfers energy from the wave to the device, or the device moves up and down with the wave and the motion is transferred to a fixed generator, in either case the effect is to dampen the wave. Either there is motion between different parts of the wave that can be harnessed, or there is motion between the wave and a fixed object.

The problem with extracting energy from the boat using a device attached to the boat is, the wave surface is fixed with respect to the boat. So there is no way to move the device in order to extract energy. Obviously you can have a paddle wheel, but it will not extract energy from the wave, it will just create additional drag that will slow the boat. The energy of the wave could be extracted by a device attached to the shore or the bottom of the body of water as noted in a previous post, but it would only work for a brief while as the boat passes.

Deflecting waves off the bottom of wings at the stern of the boat has already been done. The purpose is to level a boat that rides bow up, and sometimes to increase water pressure at the prop depth to reduce cavitation, or to reduce air induction. If the wing moves against a spring it will find a balance point and stop: no motion, no transferred energy. Lots of outboard motors have such a device, but without the spring.

It’s a nice objective but in the form that you have described it is doomed to failure for purely physical reasons. It is a Physics question actually, not an engineering one, and cannot be solved by engineering efforts no matter how ingenious since the Physics does not permit the energy to be returned to the boat without creating drag which would require more energy to overcome.

A better objective, that has the merit of being achievable, would be to reduce the drag of the hull at speed in order to reduce the energy required to drive the boat in the first place, as you noted. However, marine architects have been working on that problem ever since the first boat was given an engine, and they are about 150 years ahead of you. Nonetheless, I wish you well.

You seemed worried about the qualifications of our members. I hold a bachelors degree in Physics among other qualifications, have several patents (that really work) and worked as an engineer for 40 years. I enjoyed your mention of AVRO as I worked alongside many former AVRO engineers, who were not only talented but also firmly grounded in reality. I have designed robots, computers, communication devices, remote-controlled tooling, mining equipment, worked in Aerospace and so forth. It’s been a great ride and I have spent a lot of it hearing how my ideas would not work and then having to prove they did, usually by making a working prototype. There are far better qualified people in this forum for answering a question of this nature, but I am sure they have better things to do than give a full reply to your question, so you will have to either be satisfied with this explanation, or build it and show us all we are wrong. Good luck with that.

[DennisRB]

Don't you get it? He is trolling!

[Questor]

Originally Posted by troy2000

Someone is amusing himself by spinning fairy tales, and seeing who will take him seriously....but the trouble with spreading fibs around is that it's hard to avoid stepping on them.

Grade 7 is the last grade I passed. With 45% in grade 8 I did not pass but received credit for it and was allowed into grade 9. Those 2 years were severely impacted by partying until 6:00 AM with some LSD and Marijuana thrown into the equation. I lied about the junior high marks to get in to high school where I failed every subject other than English in grade 10. Dyslexia was always a major handicap that resulted in grades that did not reflect achievement but the hard partying drug culture were larger factors in high school as well.

During my second attempt at high school was the last time I was called to the office about AVRO , paper airplanes and the NATO documents that followed me throughout public school life. The principal asked what it was all about. He said he tried to call the NATO Military Intelligence telephone number on the letter but the number was out of service. He tried to locate alternative contacts through NATO but no one seemed to be interested in assisting him due to the age of the documents . He was quite disturbed about the issue and said that he had no comment on the subject other than to remind me of the threatening nature of the file.

While dismalling failing during the high school era I was self studying psychology and psychiatry. By 19 I had allegedly acquired the equivalent of a Masters Degree in the subjects. At that point the local University became interested in me. They figured I was somewhat of a displaced idiot savant with an IQ of 156 but no math skills beyond grade 3 according to testing. For a few years they prodded me to enter as a mature student. They would have allowed me to study anything I wanted within social sciences up to 4th year on the condition that I would be permanently enrolled in English 100 and Math 100 until I passed them. Over the years I enrolled several times but never actually showed up on registration day.

A few of my screw ball ideas actually ended up in serious University investigations involving a couple of Universities and colleges working on them. I was invited to participate but did not attend. One of them involved trying to disprove prevailing wave theories in a controlled environment. That ended up with a whole lot of conflict between orthodox and alternative thinkers. Alternative thinkers claimed the experiments were compromised by inadequate controls in the indoor pool environment provided to them . They felt the experiments would provide better results in a still pool outdoor environment with true atmospheric pressure, natural water and lower humidity. The alternative thinkers claimed the orthodox guys wouldn't let the experiments move outdoors because they were afraid of losing the debate. The orthodox guys said they wouldn't go outdoors because too much time would be wasted waiting for conditions that satisfied the alternative thinkers. In the absence of consensus that study produced no meaningful results.

Another study involved my belief that man does not experience real time.We basically go through life experiencing brief moments in sequence, much like watching a movie.We would go insane if we experienced moments of time at the same frequency as single celled life forms.I came to that conclusion in the 70s after dwelling on the subject of molecular processes within cells. One cell can produce a million offspring in less than 24 hours, each of which produces many thousands of organelles that perform millions of functions. The speed of change within cells is so fast that it cannot possibly occur within time as we know it. Supporters of the theory believe that opponents are to arrogant to accept that man is a mere observer of incredibly brief moments within a much faster moving universe. Opponents claim supporters are deluded because they can't prove the theory in any way that can be graphically represented.

Many people would be shocked if they knew the extent to which one faculty often considers another faculties beliefs to be utter nonsense. There are also many professors teaching scientific beliefs that they have no faith in whatsoever.

In conclusion, I say I have grade 7 education because that was the last grade I actually passed.

[BMcF]

Originally Posted by Questor

Another study involved my belief that man does not experience real time.We basically go through life experiencing brief moments in sequence, much like watching a movie.We would go insane if we experienced moments of time at the same frequency as single celled life forms.I came to that conclusion in the 70s after dropping two tabs of what turned out to be some very potent Mr. Natural.

ahhh..its starting to make sense to me now.

[CatBuilder]

Yup. Psychosis.

Originally Posted by BMcF

ahhh..its starting to make sense to me now.

Concur,

it gives a clear picture..............

















....of a completely rotten brain.
My guess: stuck on the 3412th LSD trip, some 30 years ago.

[wardd]

if you take this to it's logical conclusion, rear paddle wheel steamers could be the fastest most efficient boats

[Questor]

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

Questor, even for a (fellow) Canadian you are remarkably stubborn, but I think reality is starting to make itself felt. Perhaps the following will finally put this thread, and your idea to a well deserved rest.

The amount of energy in the ripples produced by dropping a pebble in water are less than the amount of energy required to lift the pebble in the first place. That should tell you how little energy there is in the ripples. The movement of items floating in the water as the waves pass beneath them is cyclic, so the energy required to raise a log is returned when the log sinks back. If the wave does not have enough energy to raise a large log it just passes the log which is not effected: in that case an observer will be noticed that the wave length is significantly shorter than the length of the log. Since the wave height varies from above to below the mean water surface it all averages out. Beautiful in its way.

As far as getting more energy out of the waves than you put into lifting the pebble, if that is what you are thinking, I suggest you forget it. Check out the principle of conservation of energy. Also know as No Free Rides From Nature. Waves only seem to grow as they travel across the surface of water because their wave length is increasing as they become shallower. Their energy is simply spreading over more space with time, which is what energy always does if not constrained. That is either the cause of, or results from entropy: cause and effect are hard to separate sometimes in Physics. Waves do indeed go on for ever despite energy lost to viscosity; eventually they will become infinitely long and shallower than the width of an electron: they lose interest to the casual observer long before that, of course because they seem to disappear once their dimensions become smaller than the wavelength of visible light.

Wave energy devices work in one of two ways: either they are flexible or pivoted in sections and the action of flexing them as the wave passes transfers energy from the wave to the device, or the device moves up and down with the wave and the motion is transferred to a fixed generator, in either case the effect is to dampen the wave. Either there is motion between different parts of the wave that can be harnessed, or there is motion between the wave and a fixed object.

The problem with extracting energy from the boat using a device attached to the boat is, the wave surface is fixed with respect to the boat. So there is no way to move the device in order to extract energy. Obviously you can have a paddle wheel, but it will not extract energy from the wave, it will just create additional drag that will slow the boat. The energy of the wave could be extracted by a device attached to the shore or the bottom of the body of water as noted in a previous post, but it would only work for a brief while as the boat passes.

Deflecting waves off the bottom of wings at the stern of the boat has already been done. The purpose is to level a boat that rides bow up, and sometimes to increase water pressure at the prop depth to reduce cavitation, or to reduce air induction. If the wing moves against a spring it will find a balance point and stop: no motion, no transferred energy. Lots of outboard motors have such a device, but without the spring.

It’s a nice objective but in the form that you have described it is doomed to failure for purely physical reasons. It is a Physics question actually, not an engineering one, and cannot be solved by engineering efforts no matter how ingenious since the Physics does not permit the energy to be returned to the boat without creating drag which would require more energy to overcome.

A better objective, that has the merit of being achievable, would be to reduce the drag of the hull at speed in order to reduce the energy required to drive the boat in the first place, as you noted. However, marine architects have been working on that problem ever since the first boat was given an engine, and they are about 150 years ahead of you. Nonetheless, I wish you well.

You seemed worried about the qualifications of our members. I hold a bachelors degree in Physics among other qualifications, have several patents (that really work) and worked as an engineer for 40 years. I enjoyed your mention of AVRO as I worked alongside many former AVRO engineers, who were not only talented but also firmly grounded in reality. I have designed robots, computers, communication devices, remote-controlled tooling, mining equipment, worked in Aerospace and so forth. It’s been a great ride and I have spent a lot of it hearing how my ideas would not work and then having to prove they did, usually by making a working prototype. There are far better qualified people in this forum for answering a question of this nature, but I am sure they have better things to do than give a full reply to your question, so you will have to either be satisfied with this explanation, or build it and show us all we are wrong. Good luck with that.

I really appreciate your efforts here and I could spend the next two days responding to it.I believe that there are many people here that are much more intelligent and talented than I ever was. Last night I was sleepless for quite a while wondering what my life would have been if not for the aviation design prohibition during my school years. There was nothing I ever enjoyed more than creating unconventional paper airplanes. There was no greater frustration than being asked to either remain silent or leave the room whenever aviation was mentioned in school. I also wondered what would have happened if I refused to stop making airplanes and demonstrating flight potentials. Would the results have been reform school or some kind of think tank alongside of working engineers ? There were a few instances in which I made planes perform their desired tasks after the engineers gave up on them. Making them fly to prove a theory was quite often just a matter of finding the right launch angle and velocity. Being surrounded by a bunch of leading engineers that are jumping and hollering over successful flights was very exciting.

In my last post I mentioned real wave test experiments at a local University. If the orthodox guys were so confident of their mathematical models why did they rig the tests to fail ? The alternative guys trusted the orthodox guys to act in fairness in choosing a time and place for the experiments. The orthodox guys refused to participate unless they had control of choosing the time and location for testing. What they chose was an indoor swimming pool in the dead of winter with an outside temperature of 20 below fahrenheit.You can't produce anything near a perfect wave on a surface that is in constant turmoil due to the influence of heating and circulating systems working full blast. The alternative guys tried to get the orthodox guys to at least turn off the heating system for a while to help stabilize the pool.They answered that everyone ought to be thankful that the athletic department even allowed them to use the pool and that it would be too great an imposition to ask them to adjust their maintainance program in the interest of experiments that would only fail anyway. Despite the hostile environment a number of students and faculty members from other colleges and universities drove in from up to 200 miles away. I heard they had a lot of fun in between very heated arguments.

The weight of a 1 gram pebble plus the added force of a one meter drop doesn't come close to the combined weight and travel of even the first wave let alone all the others that will follow. Within linear time as we know it, ( the multi dimensional nature of time doesn't really belong here and it discredits my argument here ), there is a finite time during which the pebble is dropping through the water , but you concede that the outgoing waves are infinite despite our inability to perceive them . How can an infinite reaction of the movement of mass be equal to a finite movement of mass ?

[CatBuilder]

Originally Posted by Questor

The weight of a 1 gram pebble plus the added force of a one meter drop doesn't come close to the combined weight and travel of even the first wave let alone all the others that will follow. Within linear time as we know it, ( the multi dimensional nature of time doesn't really belong here and it discredits my argument here ), there is a finite time during which the pebble is dropping through the water , but you concede that the outgoing waves are infinite despite our inability to perceive them . How can an infinite reaction of the movement of mass be equal to a finite movement of mass ?

This particular paragraph sounds just like every uneducated "hippy physicist" I've ever known.

They believe magnets contain mystical properties, believe there is an "energy" something like an ether, surrounding us at all times. They believe our "energy" (read mental energy) can change things in the universe and believe the energy in Newtonian physics is the same as the "energy" they manifest in their brains.

There sure is a lot of crap literature out there dumbing down an already ill-educated population.

My comment isn't directed at Questor, but is merely making social commentary based on this last paragraph of his. It reads just like all those uneducated "hippy physicists" I've run into in my life. I always find myself biting my tongue around them, rather than helping them learn because they are usually too old and stubborn to learn anyway.

Speaking directly to Questor's paragraph and to Questor:

Where does the extra energy in your first wave come from if it didn't come from the pebble drop?

[BMcF]

What Questor does not realize, of course, and would fail to grasp the significance of even if he did is that....some pretty bright 'PhD types' have beaten the problem of modeling waves in the computational realm. Not only that..they now accurately model the interaction between waves and the passage of a hull produing its own waves. And so on.

That success is based entirely on the continued refinement and coding of the basic physical laws that Questor so desperately wants to ignore.

But I digress. I'm still waiting for a demonstration that proves us all wrong. Nothing forthcoming but words so far..

[Questor]

Originally Posted by CatBuilder

This particular paragraph sounds just like every uneducated "hippy physicist" I've ever known.

They believe magnets contain mystical properties, believe there is an "energy" something like an ether, surrounding us at all times. They believe our "energy" (read mental energy) can change things in the universe and believe the energy in Newtonian physics is the same as the "energy" they manifest in their brains.

There sure is a lot of crap literature out there dumbing down an already ill-educated population.

My comment isn't directed at Questor, but is merely making social commentary based on this last paragraph of his. It reads just like all those uneducated "hippy physicists" I've run into in my life. I always find myself biting my tongue around them, rather than helping them learn because they are usually too old and stubborn to learn anyway.

Speaking directly to Questor's paragraph and to Questor:

Where does the extra energy in your first wave come from if it didn't come from the pebble drop?

The energy of the falling pebble acts as a catalyst causing latent energy in the water to be released. I don't know if you have ever heated water in a mug in a microwave oven without a browning tray but if you have you may know why the tray is there. In some instances, the water will absorb the microwave energy without distributing it properly throughout the water. When you simply touch a spoon to the surface of the water or let some cream or sugar fall in to the cup the water will sometimes explode violently out of the mug.In a couple of experiments I've blown the water out of the mug with just a few grains of sugar. The exploding water effect of microwaved water is comparable to wave travel. In both cases a minor catalyst is releasing a greater latent potential .

In industrial boiler applications you deal with latent heat issues regularly as you try to control the transition of water to steam and steam to water at various pressures and temperatures. Extracting the energy when and how you wish, as either power or heat, with the least loss of energy input is an art dependent upon a science .