Design and Testing of a Hovercraft with Electroaerodynamic Propulsion
Name
Quiram-quiram-SM-AeroAstro-2025-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
7.5 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f40da0616f800f8cac32099ab6c1e670
Author(s)
Quiram, Matthew
Advisor(s)
Speth, Raymond L.
Date Issued
February 2025
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Electroaerodynamic (EAD) multistaged ducted (MSD) thrusters are a novel solid-state thruster architecture that has been shown to provide order-of-magnitude improvements in thrust density compared to single-stage EAD thrusters. This makes MSD thrusters well-suited for use in EAD hovercraft, where generating sufficient pressure is crucial for hovering. This study explored the feasibility of a wire-to-airfoil corona discharge MSD thruster powered hovercraft through a scaled-down prototype and final design. The hovercraft was tethered to a ground-based power supply and carried a payload mass to simulate having on-board power electronics to limit the scope of the project. The design of an EAD hovercraft involved applying the principles of hovercraft lift to a design optimization that implements the recently developed EAD MSD thruster model. A hovercraft prototype was designed and constructed to validate the models applied during the design phase and to test hovering capabilities without a payload. Using the manufacturing lessons and insights gathered in the prototype testing, a full-scale model was designed and built to hover while having an additional payload capacity that would be representative of a set of power electronics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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