Toroidal propellers: A noise-killing game changer in air and water
These strangely-shaped twisted-toroid propellers look like a revolutionary (sorry) advance for the aviation and marine sectors. Radically quieter than traditional propellers in both air and water, they’re also showing some huge efficiency gains.
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Wow.
I’ve seen props like that on boats, a couple of years back.
Spiny Norman said:
I’ve seen props like that on boats, a couple of years back.
Okay about one year then.
The Video at the bottom is very informative.
I wonder if this could be applied to jet engines?
Might make them quieter and maybe a little more efficient.
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder if this could be applied to jet engines?Might make them quieter and maybe a little more efficient.
No and no.
We’ve seen the boat version now here’s a drone version.
They consist of two blades looping together so that the tip of one blade curves back into the other.
MIT’s latest drone propellers are very quiet and efficient
The quiet toroidal propeller consists of two blades looping together so that the tip of one blade curves back into the other. This closed-form structure reduces and controls the drag effects of swirling air tunnels (i.e., vortices) created at the blades’ tips and strengthens the propeller’s overall stiffness. As such, the propeller’s acoustic signature is significantly decreased without affecting its performance.
This has been proven by tests of prototype toroidal propellers on commercial quadcopters that indicated thrust levels comparable to those of conventional propellers at similar power levels. The resulting reduced sound levels allowed toroidal-propeller-equipped drones to function without affecting human hearing at distances half of those encountered in typical operations.
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thanks
I wonder what performance gains could be achieved putting one on a combustion engine, behind the radiator.
That’s a surprisingly simple design change for such a large efficiency gain.
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder what performance gains could be achieved putting one on a combustion engine, behind the radiator.
Zero.
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder what performance gains could be achieved putting one on a combustion engine, behind the radiator.
Probably not much of a performance gain, but it would be good to keep the fan noise down. When the fan on my Mack kicks in, it sounds like a helicopter doing a low pass. Anything loose under the truck is launched out the sides.
Kingy said:
That’s a surprisingly simple design change for such a large efficiency gain.
I like the idea of quiet speed boats and quiet drones.
Spiny Norman said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder what performance gains could be achieved putting one on a combustion engine, behind the radiator.Zero.
I’ll explain that a bit better. Pretty much all modern cars use electric fans, engine driven fans are getting increasingly rare. And with the electric fans they only run when the car is going slowly and so not much cooling airflow. Anything above about 40 km/h and the electric fan never runs.
Spiny Norman said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder what performance gains could be achieved putting one on a combustion engine, behind the radiator.Zero.
I think not.
The gain would be there.
Spiny Norman said:
Spiny Norman said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder what performance gains could be achieved putting one on a combustion engine, behind the radiator.Zero.
I’ll explain that a bit better. Pretty much all modern cars use electric fans, engine driven fans are getting increasingly rare. And with the electric fans they only run when the car is going slowly and so not much cooling airflow. Anything above about 40 km/h and the electric fan never runs.
ok, but it would be interesting to see it applied, to see what happens
A noise reduction would be appreciated.
Tau.Neutrino said:
Spiny Norman said:
Spiny Norman said:Zero.
I’ll explain that a bit better. Pretty much all modern cars use electric fans, engine driven fans are getting increasingly rare. And with the electric fans they only run when the car is going slowly and so not much cooling airflow. Anything above about 40 km/h and the electric fan never runs.
ok, but it would be interesting to see it applied, to see what happens
A noise reduction would be appreciated.
The fans have a shrouding around the tips of the blades, so likely to not really have any reduction in sound levels.
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?
Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
Off topic but related, this fan design is interesting.
Its main fame is to reduce noise.
“What if the magnetic levitation train goes looped?”. The fan spins on electromagnetic rails. Electromagnets levitate and rotate fan without touching the track to reduce awful noise from friction.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/35676621/Torus
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?
Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
don’t they already use entrainment multipliers
SCIENCE said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?
Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
don’t they already use entrainment multipliers
Yes
SCIENCE said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?
Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
don’t they already use entrainment multipliers
Only some.
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
Not to mention computer fans.
Bubblecar said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
Not to mention computer fans.
My laptop doesn’t have a fan, nor did the previous one.
Quiet I can believe. I know a bit about reducing aero noise.
“Indeed, the company says this is a propeller you can stick on more or less any outboard motor, then blast along at 30 mph (48 km/h) quietly enough to have a conversation on board without raising your voice. Remarkable stuff.”
Oh wow. That’s a real game changer.
Spiny Norman said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder if this could be applied to jet engines?Might make them quieter and maybe a little more efficient.
No and no.
Yah, agree with that.
What about helicopters? They’re noisy. Using a tip connection might increase strength, at the expense of weight.
Bubblecar said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
I wonder how toroidal fans would go in car air-conditioners and fans in dashboards to reduce noise?Pedestal Fans could get a much needed revamp.
Not to mention computer fans.
Possible.
> There’s no way you are going to see a white Italian snail only the once. If you can see one, you’ll easily see fifty or fifty thousand.
Saw about 20 of them, but only on one occasion.
> An Onychophoran.
aka Peripatus, velvet worm, lovely. Very rare.
can add to my list: thrips, zitting cisticola, white-fronted chat.
i wonder if you’d have balancing issues with these kinds of blades?
with drones you put the prop into a swinging mechanism and balance the prop using selotape
wookiemeister said:
i wonder if you’d have balancing issues with these kinds of blades?with drones you put the prop into a swinging mechanism and balance the prop using selotape
I wonder if the balancing happens during or after the 3D process.
Cannot be used with Jet engines.
ok.
Tau.Neutrino said:
wookiemeister said:
i wonder if you’d have balancing issues with these kinds of blades?with drones you put the prop into a swinging mechanism and balance the prop using selotape
I wonder if the balancing happens during or after the 3D process.
After. And also because it’s impossible to do mid-print.
Almost ever since aeroplanes have been able to fly, the props have been balanced, so it wouldn’t be any different for the oddly-shaped props mention here.
One possible good use of them I just realised – Wind turbines. They could get a lot of blade area in a smaller diameter and of course reduce the noise emissions.
And – random brain fart – I have wondered if large wind turbines would be easier to maintain & build if they had the big heavy generator on the ground instead of at the top. To do that you would of course need a long drive shaft from the blade hub down to the generator, and having just one would have the torque tend to make the blades turn away from the alignment with the wind, so if there were two contra-rotating shafts that would cancel out the asymmetric torque. The rotational inertia of each shaft would have to be the same, to eliminate the asymmetric torque effect as the blades sped-up & slowed-down.
roughbarked said:
Turned MIT Award Winning Toroidal Propeller Into A PC Fan
Watched that and another one that followed it.
A bit disappointing, however they are trying to fit a toroidal fan design into a standard pc fan case, which means they have to flatten out the toroidal fan.
I like to see a test in which they use a toroidal that’s more like this design, yes it will be wider than the standard pc fan design.
