Towards a sustainable aerogel airship: A primer

  • Authors

    • Nadiir Bheekhun
    • Abd Rahim Abu Talib
    • Fortunato Cardenas
    2018-10-09
    https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.13.21346
  • aerogels, airship, energy, insulation, zero emission.
  • Airships are the ï¬rst craft that realized mankind’s dream of controlled, powered flight but have been a forsaken method of air transportation since the invention of heavy-than-air aircraft. However, environmental concerns have urged humanity to think once again over the possibility of deploying these lighter-than-air ships. This paper describes an on-going project thereby a nature-inspired airship, namely Huvr Trek is being designed to address current airborne technological, economical and ecological gaps. It uses the world’s best thermal insulator and second lightest material, silica aerogel for inhibiting heat transfer within the balloon for efficient lift as well as in a prototype liquid-fuelled ramjet for propulsion. The airship uses carbon aerogels also as super capacitors for energy storage. Proposed applications of the aerogel airship are and implementations into advertising and tourism, surveillance, environmental monitoring, planetary exploration, cargo transportation, stratospheric observation, medical equipment carrier and telecommunication relay.

     

  • References

    1. [1] Liao L & Pasternak I (2009), A review of airship structural research and development. Progress in Aerospace Sciences 45, 83-96

      [2] Oh S, Kang S, Lee K, Ahn S & Kim E (2006), Flying display: Autonomous blimp with real-time visual tracking and image projection. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

      [3] Colozza A & Dolce JL (2005), High-altitude, long-endurance airships for coastal surveillance. NASA Technical Report, NASA / TM-2005-213427

      [4] Li Y, Nahon M & Sharf I (2011), Airship dynamics modeling: A literature review. Progress in Aerospace Sciences 47, 217-239

      [5] Kistler SS (1931), Coherent expanded aerogels and jellies. Nature 127, 741

      [6] Kistler SS (1932), Coherent expanded aerogels. Journal of Physical Chemistry 36, 52-64

      [7] Bhagat SD, Kim Y, Moon M, Ahn Y & Yeo J (2007), A cost-effective and fast synthesis of nanoporous SiO2 aerogel powders using water-glass via ambient pressure drying route. Solid State Sciences 9, 628-635

      [8] Fen SL, Lei M, Sakae T & Gang X (2012), Low-cost and fast synthesis of nanoporous silica cryogels for thermal insulation applications. Science and Technology of Advanced Materials 13, 035003

      [9] Cuce E, Cuce PM, Wood CJ & Riffat SB (2014), Toward aerogel based thermal superinsulation in buildings: a comprehensive review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 34, 273-299

      [10] Worsley MA, Pham TT, Yan A, Shin SJ, Lee JR, Bagge-Hansen M, Mickelson W & Zettl A (2014), Synthesis and characterization of highly crystalline graphene aerogels. ACS Nano 8, 11013-11022

      [11] Pekala RW (1989), Low density, resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogels. Google Patents

      [12] Pekala RW, Mayer ST, Kaschmitter JL & Kong FM (1993), Carbon aerogels: An update on structure, properties and applications. in Sol-Gel Processing and Applications. Springer

      [13] Bheekhun N, Abu Talib AR & Hassan MR (2013), Aerogels in aerospace: An overview. Advances in Materials Science and Engineering 2013, 18

      [14] Jin L, Li P, Zhou H, Zhang W, Zhou G & Wang C (2015), Improving thermal insulation of TC4 using YSZ-based coating and SiO2 aerogel. Progress in Natural Science: Materials International 25, 141-146

  • Downloads

  • How to Cite

    Bheekhun, N., Rahim Abu Talib, A., & Cardenas, F. (2018). Towards a sustainable aerogel airship: A primer. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7(4.13), 141-145. https://doi.org/10.14419/ijet.v7i4.13.21346