Hovercraft Project

Abstract

An exercise was conducted to create a hovercraft by applying physics and engineering. This was accomplished by using Bernoullis theorem and fluid mechanics and building the hovercraft with the calculated parameters. Introduction Hovercrafts have been around since the 19 !s when they were invented by the British. Today" they are used for many different purposes li#e rescue crafts" transporting materials" recreation" racing" passenger transport" and military uses. A hovercraft can be defined as a vehicle that is supported by a cushion of pressuri$ed air. The air cushion performs a basic principle where it separates the vehicle from the supporting surface" thus reducing or eliminating surface contact and the associated resistance. This is done by pumping a large amount of air into a s#irt by a fan or compressor. The air going out has higher than atmospheric pressure where a pressure difference creates a cushion that supports the vehicle. %a&ority of current hovercrafts essentially employ a plenum chamber configuration where the air being pumped into the chamber is &ust sufficient enough to replace the air lea#ing under the peripheral gap. The lift is defined as '1(

)here the vehicle weight ) is e*ual to the lift + cu generated by the cushion pressure pcu and Ac is the effective cushion area. The air inside the plenum chamber was assumed to be essentially at rest. +rom Bernoullis theorem" the velocity of air escaping under the peripheral gap ,c is given by

'-( where . is the mass density of the air. The total volume flow of air from the cushion / is given by '0(

where hc is the clearance height" lcu is the cushion perimeter" and 1c is the discharge coefficient. The discharge coefficient is primarily a function of the wall angle 2 c shown in +igure 1. +or a long wall and nonviscous fluid" the values of 1 c are .311 at a 9!4 bend. The power re*uired to sustain the air cushion at the peripheral gap is given by

'5(

Experimental Methods )hen building the hovercraft" there were several parameters that were given. The hovercraft had to be able to hover and able to propel itself forward. 6ach group was given a fan that was to be used when building the hovercraft" besides the fan any other material could be used to ma#e the base and s#irt. The exercise began by experimentally determining the velocity of the fan and the pressure capabilities with anemometer. The fan produced a velocity of -!.05 ft7sec and a pressure of .!!8psi. The weight of the fan was measure to be .-3 lbs. +rom 6*uation 1" assuming no pressure losses" the minimum area re*uired was calculated to be 08 in -. +rom e*uation -" it was important that some air escaped to provide a cushion. with this information a calculation

could be done to figure out the minimum pressure that would be provided. To figure out the pressure Bernoullis e*uation was used assuming the air inside the chamber is at rest.

'1(

)here , is the velocity of the air" . is the density of air. To calculate the weight that the hovercraft could be so it could lift off the ground" could be accomplished from using the pressure calculated from e*uation 1 and the surface area of the cushion. 9ur group varied the surface area to see what types of weight our fan could lift. :sing e*uation - the weight was calculated; '-(

To find the total volume flow rate of the air ' Q( from the cushion e*uation 0 was used; '0(

)here hc is the clearance height of the s#irt to the ground" lcu is the perimeter of the cushion" and Dc is the discharge coefficient which is a function of the wall angle and the length of the wall. <n our design we assumed that the discharge coefficient was at a wall angle of ! degrees" which gave the discharge coefficient of . ! from a table ')ong(. +inally to calculate the lift force that would be needed to get the hovercraft to hover was found by using e*uation 5;

'5(

)here . is density of air" / is the volume flow rate of the air in the cushion" and , is the velocity of air escaping. Results =everal prototypes were made during this pro&ect. The first prototype used the supplied fan" cardboard" paper and bag. =et up as a typical hovercraft the fan was facing the rear of the craft with a duct that diverted the air into the base. The s#irt on this prototype would not fill up. The second prototype used an additional fan dedicated solely to filing the s#irt in order to lift the craft off the ground. The supplied fan was used to propel the craft forward. The base on this prototype was made out of foam board. The third and final prototype went bac# to a single 'supplied( fan design. The base was made of cardboard and foam board glued together> this base was significantly larger than the previous two prototypes bases. The s#irt was made of plastic with a semi rigid frame provided by round =tyrofoam sections. The fan was mounted facing downward into the base. A small section is cut out of the base and a small duct is built around it to move the craft in the forward direction. Conclusion Although the pro&ect was ultimately successful" the entire process ended up ta#ing much more time and effort than the group had originally anticipated. The original plan was for the given fan to be mounted on the base facing towards the rear of the craft. An elbow &oi9nt was then to be constructed in order to force a ma&ority of the air downwards and create the pressure necessary to lift the craft. This prototype proved

unsuccessful as too much pressure was lost in the airflow divider and elbow to even raise the craft off of the ground. The second prototype incorporated a ?@ case fan as well as the original fan given to all of the groups. This prototype had the larger ?@ fan dedicated to filling the s#irt and the smaller fan dedicated to locomotion. This prototype failed for several reasons; the craft was significantly heavier than it would have been without the ?@ fan> the s#irt had several small holes instead of &ust one large one 'this meant that the craft would sit on a bubble instead of hovering(> and the ?@ fan simply did not send air out as fast as the given fan did. The third" and only successful" prototype combined the two main ideas of the previous two prototypes but in a more efficient manner than either of its predecessors. This one only used the stoc# fan in order to #eep the weight of the craft to a minimum" and had this fan pointing downwards in order to focus more on levitation than locomotion. <n order to propel itself it was made sure that some of the air exited near the rear of the s#irt. This exercise proved how valuable a tool the utili$ation of physics is in manufacturing a functioning prototype. The first two attempts the group decided to focus more on construction than the actual physical laws behind our creation and the results proved underwhelming. <t was not until the third attempt that time was ta#en to calculate what forces the craft must actually generate over exactly how large of an area in order to lift its own weight. References

)ong" Ao Bung. Theory of Ground Vehicles. Hobo#en" CA; Aohn )iley" -!!D. ?rint.