I've mentioned this before, but you need exponential spacing. You are trying to accelerate a 2.8 column of air with another 2.8 stream input. Because you want external entrainment, you might consider an exponential horn housing. Each 2.8 input would force more air into a smaller space, increasing the speed. Alternatively, each thruster could be exponentially increased in power, to use the same level of input more efficiently. So like cut the first one in half, raise the last one by double. Without external entrainment, you could change the distance between anode and cathode to accelerate the same stream successively but with increased speed each time. The first one would be closest, and the second one twice as separated, but since the air is already moving, the ions would travel much faster covering the doubled distance in the same time.

I really think you need to switch to static thrust measurement as a method of comparing efficiency rather than output velocity alone. For example, you might be seeing the same 2.8 meters per second output on two designs with the same power but one could have way more thrust than the other due to the surface area of the output. You might also have a design with lower velocity that is far more efficient than one with higher. You kinda touched on this with liters of flow but a thrust stand will provide more accurate information. Grams of static thrust per watt is the gold standard of measured efficiency. You should be making more than 1 gram per watt from what I know about ionic thrusters. 4 grams per watt is the highest I’ve ever heard of from research papers.

I think you should run a design competition and have viewers submit thruster designs and you build and test them.

Okay hear me out. If you're not going to do it, I might. Consider the following: - A wing profile is revolved radially, such that you end up with a wing profile that's disk shaped. - The disk is initially stationary with air surrounding the disk. - Underneath the disk wing, there's 'zero' radial velocity, indicating high pressure. - Above the wing, there's non-zero radial velocity of air, indicating low pressure. - The radial velocity of air above the wing is induced by plasma. - The electrodes are circular rings placed on top of the disk, where the inner ring has a smaller diameter than the outer ring, such that air flow radially from in to out. - The disk is made using CNC and is supposed to be extremely lightweight, i.e. EPS foam (non-flammable) density of about 30 kg/m3. Preferable thin-walled, perhaps with ribs if there's low stiffness. - Downward 'Wingtips' around the disk's edge could be used to properly separate the high and low pressures. - You could use a wing profile that has a very high Cl, i.e. high lift at low speed, since Cl does not rely on airspeed. - You could subdivide the disk into 4 parts, where each quarter's potential difference can be manipulated, which could help in allowing you to steer. The idea is to create a solid velocity difference between top and bottom surfaces, to create a strong lift force, where the bottom velocity is essentially zero (stand still). Relying on Bernoulli's principle we can determine the lift force. For a simple rectangular plate with area 'A' being in air with density rho, the lift force Fl = 1/2 * rho * A * (Vtop^2 - Vbot^2). I've done quick calculations. Considering your and others previous work, I think it's viable starting at ~45 kV. if we can achieve similar airflow speeds, I think we could create the first actual hovering UFO drone that doesn't rely on moving parts. Some other notes: - There should be sufficient airflow, such that a 'boundary' layer is formed between the high and low pressure zones. Such that air doesn't leak towards the low pressure zone - Use foam that is preferably fire-retardant, since the plasma may ignite the foam. EPS should be suitable, XPS possibly not. - Preferably use foam or another lightweight material for the electrodes. Paint it with graphite spray and use electroplating to make some seriously lightweight electrodes. - One conclusion I had from watching your videos, is that the air speed doesn't necessarily increase with multiple stages. But it does help in creating a more uniform flow over a larger volume or area. Using multiple electrode rings may create a very uniform flow field above the disk. Been thinking about this for quite some time, and I am thinking about doing it as a hobby project, but I think this would fit your Channel a lot better and if it works out, it's a world's first! (not considering Aliens did it before we did, lol.)

Dude, a second Channel of just you recording the process of you designing and building the prototypes in long form, like an hour or even longer, would be mad and you’d be able to get a video out sooner, less editing needed because it’s a second channel video, no music is really needed, just pure analysis and prototyping. I’d love to see how you do your process and how your brain works. I often say you can see Adam savages brain work on the outside as he builds things. And I love the rawness of the content.

I love that part of the design change is you've moved from 'how fast can we push air' to the more important question 'how much air can we push'.

Man seeing an american engineering channel use the metric system is a breath of fresh air. Awesome project man, this has huge potential

Just a reality check: at 4m/s and a cross-sectional area of about 100cm2 you're putting about 0.3W of power into the air; for a 70W input. Because energy rises as velocity squared the second stage of your first prototype is actually _more_ efficient than the first. To maximize thrust efficiency you actually want to move a large volume of air slowly rather than a small volume fast, something ionic thrusters might be suited to. However, due to the nature of ionic acceleration much of the energy input is going into rotational/vibrational states of the molecules rather than velocity, so it's unlikely ionic thrusters will ever be efficient enough to compete with, say, a propeller. But still fun stuff, thanks for posting.

Awesome work! Here are some improvements i suggest: - measure grams of thrust per watt instead of airspeed - focus mainly on achieving max thrust at a certain size - use a single tube design with no holes in the sides of the design to simplify aerodynamics and testing Robust design like you did was really smart, hope you continue with the ionic thurster. Would love to see this on rc planes or even table fans in the future

1) They need to still be circular. They can be segmented...1/3 or 1/4 circle for each thruster, but a round interior will create smoother airflow and offer larger internal area for objects to fit through without compromising volume. 2) You'll need to find a way to more smoothly merge the flows so that they compound one another. As it is, currently, they're slamming into each other and losing energy. They're not blending together to improve flow, and they're losing velocity in the process. My recommendation would be to find a way to offset the thrusters at an angle, laterally. Instead of merely tilting them so their exhaust is pointed inward, also tilt them so that flow is off-centered, to create a vortex. Then they shouldn't be slamming into one another, but more like merging on a highway.

This series is my medication. Love it. Thanks for showing us this progress!

Yeah! Can't wait for OpenSauce! See you there!

Friends don't let friends get sponsored by Betterhelp

This guy is good at what he does.. I just hope his Mr Wonderful character wont ruin it.

As a product designer, my advice is to research what was already done in the "moving air business". Aka fans, vacuum cleaners, blowers, coolers... There are a vast amount of research in aerodynamics applied to those products. Just look what Dyson does by shaping the air flow and utilizing centrifugal forces. They are great source of information. It's great to see your improvement! Congratulations!

Please drop Better Help as a sponsor man, they sell people's medical info to advertisers :(

I have been designing air ducts recently, and one of the very important things is to not restrict the air flow rapidly. For the best results it's best to stay under 10 degrees of restriction. Keep up the good work!

"my work has paralleled MIT's attempt" is not something many people can say. Congratulations man, good work!

Some Physics here is helpful. You want to optimize for the most thrust for the least power. You get thrust by accelerating air backwards. The momentum of the air moving backwards is m*v; the kinetic energy of the air moving backwards is 1/2mv^2. You want the most momentum for the least kinetic energy. Maximizing mv / (1/2 mv^2) you get 2/v. In other words, your efficiency drops the faster you move the air. However, there's also a few other considerations here! For one, you seldom will use a thruster like this while truly stationary. And if you're moving forward at 10km/h and your thruster moves air back at 5km/h... you aren't actually making any thrust. When you work out the optimum, it works out to "you want to move air back at 2x the velocity you are moving forward". This is why props work well at low speeds, then turboprops, then high-bypass turbofans, then low-bypass turbofans, then classic jets, then ramjets, then scramjets, then eventually rockets as you increase speed. It's "all" about the exhaust velocity. (Well, not entirely. But largely.) However, this then gets into the second consideration: if you want to move air back slowly, you need to move a _lot_ of air slowly. And you can only fit so much through a given, say, 10x4cm hole. Especially if the air is moving slowly. I suspect if you wanted to maximize thrust at low speeds you could do better by optimizing to improve the amount of entrainment air. Look at e.g. bladeless fans for inspiration.

Can’t wait to see you at Open Sauce again this year! Had a great time chatting with you at the last one.

Maybe you could try a circular design instead of a triangular design. I feel like it might focus the air a little better.

I never regret that I subscribed to your channel. This is a very huge improvement from your previous video about this experiment which is the first video I saw of yours. You don't realize it but I think what you do will innovate this technology to the future and will make a great impact in history.

Amazing! You're part way to a turbine engine with no moving parts. It's possible there is turbulence happening between each stage as you're compressing air and then running the next stage at the same size. It might make sense to reduce and move the 2nd stage to the size of the covergance point of the first stage. Not sure of the 3 stage, maybe the same or go larger than the first stage, like and afterburner, with a case the diameter of the largest stage, assuming it ultimately needs to be fit as such in a plane. Also, redesigning it circular as opposed to triangular will reduce internal turbulance, adding a slight twist to the blades to create a vortex should also stabilize airflow. Just spit balling, you're doing great stuff.❤

Truly becoming closer to real life Halo every day

Your explanations and commentary are excellent. Awesome video and project. Edit: I do agree with some of the other commentators that some of the revelations about BetterHelp's data policies deserve scrutiny and push back. Hopefully you can find more responsible sponsorship partners moving forward.

Few design changes I would make 1.) less steep angle so less loss of energy when the air streams collide 2.) the sequential thrusters have diminishing returns, but are more efficient. Using multiple sets of 2 sequential thrusters converging into one stream would give a more efficient and powerful flow I believe. 3.) use a circular thruster and angle the outputs of each set of thrusters in a way to produce a vortex inside the body of the thruster. Just some ideas.

You could change to a design similar to a Dyson Fan, with a small inlet at the front surface. Curved surface and using an aerofoil design to reduce pressure further back in the ring design would create a venturi effect allowing the air to move faster, you can then recombine the two streams of air both now traveling faster together, increasing the pressure again, as they combine with the outside air you should gain a larger net air throughput. Ensuring the outer and inner surfaces are smooth and dont cause too much air turbulance. You could also create multiple voltage points. Entrance 2xV, V, GND Any air that entered without being energised can then be energised at intermediary steps. This would keep the voltage differentail in one direction, otherwise you could end up with a second stage causing a counter effect.

There's really no channel I consistently follow every single video EXCEPT for this channel. I love this project and I'm here for this the whole thing. Can't wait for the next update

As someone in psych, you really gotta dump BetterHelp as a sponsor. For everyone else on PC, don't forget about sponsorblock.

Been with the channel since 800 subscribers and man how it has become better and better :)

if you think about it, having a hollow center has the additional advantage of using bernoulli's principle. Since there's moving air at the tail end of the thruster, surely there's a low pressure cavity in the center front section which is also contributing. Though I would think the individual thruster unit (one side of one triangle) should be a little shorter to maximize that effect.

By colliding the streams of air in a column you are inducing massive turbulence and a high pressure field behind the engine. that might sound good, but it basically makes the engine need a stronger internal compression to overcome it. I suggest to either increase the size of engine intake the further to the front, or to make them exhaust parallel to each other. In other words, either brute force a large intake into a small output and compress it down with each stage, or make it all flow parallel and avoid compression and go for airspeed. To illustrate with water, laminar flow moves more water compared to chaotic flow at the same pressure and pipe diameter, but if you want to increase the pressure, its easier to just force it down the tube in chaotic flow by increasing the pressure.

Hi Jay. Did you measure the thrust force in newtons or grams. To check the thrust to weight ratio?

So in all honesty if you have a taper after all stages are done with a reduction of 15-30% and some splines/fins to reduce turbulence towards the exit and get some better linear flow you can get a massive boost to your velocity. Love the videos best of luck.

The final stage that’s outputting the fastest velocity is fed by slower earlier stages, similar to a gas turbine compressor. So the earlier stages need to gather more air to not restrict the final stage(make them bigger like a jet with a large fan disc that graduates down to the smallest row of blades) With trial and error, figure what end velocity is then figure cfm’s, and expand back to the first stage and you’ll get the flare rate needed and then put the stages together in a sealed path not letting outside air in. I think you’ll figure out, at that point, how to bias the earlier gathering stages to help boost whatever is possible for the final stage, or stages.(it might look like a trombone horn, but hey?) This is the same mechanics as stacking three same sized ducted fans in a row and getting diminishing returns from that. Think, how do fans make jet propulsion, and apply it to your ionic stages, but seal off the outside air, it’s not helping.

This is an awesome project. It would be cool to see a circular (ring-shaped) wing thruster. You'd get the same hollow center you're looking for while also using the support structure to provide lift

It's always a good day when this guy uploads something. Thanks for the knowledge dump, love your pursuit with this project.

You could take inspiration from axial compressors, and have your cross-section slowly reduce for each stage to improve and achieve a set pressure ratio by the end. One reason why in your case more stages doesn't seem to help is that all stages are identical. However, downflow stages will need more power and a different geometry since they are fighting a higher pressure. Then, your high pressure flow could go through a converging nozzle to accelerate even further (or just add more and more smaller ionic stages along the way, it might work as well).

You have to trade velocity for thrust, just because the velocity is high doesn’t mean you’re creating more thrust, both are good for different things. It may help if you look at optimising the accelerated fluid coming off the trailing edge of the thruster especially if you’re going to use converging flow. Inducing some vortexes to energise the flow and control the turbulence of the air streams going back together

I think having the stages that close isn't allowing the streams from each stage to converge before hitting the turbulence from the next stages. May want to try spacing them farther apart, but with shielding to prevent more air coming in, but have SOME air input to prevent a low pressure / vacuum area formation between stages. That would allow each stage to fully converge before being added to or even wrapped with the next stage column. As I was typing this, I also thought that, if you alter the angles of each stage, you may get coaxial flow where the stages can "wrap" the column of the previous and allow for, maybe not more velocity, but more total mass flow, resulting in more overall power output. You can't totally think of the velocity alone, but how much air is being moved at said velocity. 2m/s for 3 L/s is going to be more power than 4m/s for 1L/s. You simply have more kinetic energy being output. Air is approx 1.2g/L, so for the above you would have 60mN vs vs 47mN, respectively.

you should angle each of the 3 segments in each phase to form a vortex in the middle

BetterHelp sells medical data to advertisers. Do you want to be a part of that?

Idea: what if each stage of thruster was closer to the central stream? The pass-through benefit would be sacrificed somewhat, but it may provide significant improvements. And what if each stage had a different angular placement relative to the thruster's longitudinal axis? So the airflow would get deflected at almost 45 degrees at the first stage, narrowing down to 10 or 12 degrees at the end? Or maybe in reverse? And what if the angle and spacing was variable while in operation? You could find the most optimal placement and angle at every airspeed and automate them somehow so the thruster automatically scales thrust with speed? Like others have said, I think this design would also greatly benefit from exponential spacing.

Super impressive!😊 Awesome work! 👌 I have been following your progress and you have come a pretty long way towards something that might end up being used in a real life application and surpass the model stage. I think you are on the right track. Can't wait to see your next video.

the problem with Ionic thrusters is that the situations where they are better than a simple propeller are very rare. I would also love to see a thrust per watt stat.

I share my knowledge: NIM engine. (Negative-Impulsive-Magnetic) Engine. (Because you build things, so why not help a bit) Nice idea with the waves but you didnt use it yet in your thruster. You recognized some air is sucked into the thruster, although it thrust air out? What is missing is the consideration of how the air consist and what actually move the air... electrons. Electron speed is determined by the voltage. If multiple thrusters are in row, it accelerats the air with the voltage-plasma but not beyond the voltage. Also the distance of the accelerating parts could be 1 factor at your build, also try to get lower ampere with same thrust results. In SHORT: Air volume calculation, air consistance calculation, thrust calculation with air, thrust efficiency by testing the best volt to ampere ratio, Thrust Frequency. Air(A): volume x consistance, Thrustfactor(Tf): volt x ampere, ThrustOutput(TO): Tf x A x TF (Thrust-Frequency) Think of the electrons AS if its waterdrops. Always make the plasma visible once to see where its flowing (helps alot). Also a magnetic field guides the electrons, because these are negative charged.

your insights into this topic have been invaluable, thanks!

your work and rapid-prototyping inspires me so much

Drop the betterhelp.

Yay more ionic thrusters!

Progressive convergence. Each stage is creating disturbance as it 'adds' more air. Set the convergence angles so the air point of convergence has a combined pinpoint (at the end) Also, circles.

A few people are mentioning measuring the thrust. Meaning measure how many pounds/grams/kilograms/newtons are pushing. Dividing by watts gives you efficiency. Or dividing by weight of motor is interesting as well. Velocity is of course important as if it is only 3m/sec and doesn't improve much in a headwind then your airplane can't go faster than 3m/sec. But I recommend concentrating on static thrust. grams of thrust per watt. You can use a kitchen scale or, better, get a load cell and build a test stand. Calibrate the load cell with a kitchen scale, suitcase scale, or similar.

I have an idea !!! Why don’t you make a hybrid ionic thruster ! One with metallic rotating blades and the blades are positively charged and also being driven by a motor and there are bunch of grounded wires at the end Airflow would be fan+ ionic thruster

Sorry but dropping my sub until better help is no longer a sponsor. Not a nice comapny that predates on peoples mental health to sell their data to third parties.

about the sequential design providing diminishing returns +50% +25% in speed but ifbyou think in terms of energy you have +130% and + 48% energy (for +100% and +50% power input). or +244% energy for +200% power input overall. it would be interesting to measure thrust too. I think rhe issue with sequential design is the closer you are going to accelerate an aircraft the output velocity, the less efficient the multiple stages are going to become and its the reason why propellers on planes are never used sequentially but in parallel

I just have to say I have been a Bill Oddman fan for years now and the fact that the chaotic menace that he is has brought people together for OS is kinda amazing. He’s like the general no one can predict.

it would insanely cool to see a lightweight drone that can hover using these.

when you stack them in series, the electric fields could be interfering with one another. just as the air can be pushed forward, if you put another thruster in front it could add to an opposing force.

More convergence, fewer layers. The physics works out to the trailing layers canceling out. The equation for ipnization also indicates that ducted output would improve thrust by slightly densifying the air, increasing efficiency of energy transfer

Super cool! Can't wait to see and talk at open sauce! I need to finish my videos about my projects. I also can't believe it's been a full year since your last version of the engine. Super super cool technology and I love the progress

Man - the fact that you are putting all of this R&D out there before ever getting a single patent in hand, you sir are a gentleman - or just extremely brave. Amazing work!

Better Help? Really?

May you thrust yourself further into excellence. Well done sir, loving your content and brain

You could also use air flow guides they're like wing-shaped things that direct the flow of air through the center of course it would remove it being Halo but it would streamline in it you could also use something similar to what Dyson does for their fan Airstream to remove turbulence from combining the airstreams

Cool video. Shitty sponsor

My “physics nerd common sense” is telling me that a circular shape might help with a more uniform flow, as the three streams coming from the triangles are probably converging in a pretty awkward way. Also some way of directing airflow from each peripheral thruster(like a duct or something) into a smaller output area in the center would likely help reduce turbulence and increase the velocity of the airflow (assuming you are building this for velocity and not displacement ). I am a high school senior so take this with a grain of salt lmao

I have a couple of Points to share: 1. Increased Air Velocity and Thrust: By positioning the thrusters slightly offset, the streams of ionized air could be directed to converge in a manner that utilizes the rotational kinetic energy of a vortex. This configuration can potentially increase the velocity of the air stream as the converging flows from different angles add rotational momentum. The centripetal forces in a vortex can compress and accelerate the air, potentially increasing the overall thrust. 2. Stability of the Airflow: Vortex flows are known for their self-stabilizing properties due to the angular momentum conservation. This could result in a more stable thrust output with less dispersion of ions, leading to improved directional control and efficiency of the thruster. 3. Enhanced Mixing and Ionization Efficiency: The rotational movement of the air can enhance the mixing of ions and air molecules, potentially increasing the ionization efficiency. The constant movement might also help in maintaining ions in the excited state longer, improving the overall ion thrust efficiency.

the triangle shape also allows for a lot more a steerable thrust as well. more voltage on 2 sides vs 1 should direct air flow directions. it also seems like it would benefit from being able to adjust the gaps at run time. like say adjustment threads using a non conductive metal. since it looked like voltage / gap = trust able to adjust more variables during runtime should help with experimentation time. and might uncover extremes that weren't expected.

"And what yould you do if someone attacked your ionocraft with a peice of fresh fruit?" "Wot if 'e 'ad a gun?" "Wot if 'e 'ad a point-ed stick?"

Aero engineer here: See 3:12 E=0.5mc^2 so your % increases are being underestimated. Energy @ 2.1 ~ m*2.1^2 = m*4.41 Energy @ 3.2 ~ m*3.2^2 = m*10.24 So delta energy ~10.24-4.41=5.83. This indicates the second stage is actually more efficient than the first. AND considering you are entraining more air, the mass is probably higher so this is already underestimated. Hope this helps!

This is like your 3rd Iron Man movie, where you re-discovered the missing bit and swapped designs for a triangle shape. Excited to see where Mark 4 will end up!

very impressed by your build techniques

You really made the Tony stark New-Element Arc reactor of ionic thrusters.

In the first 10 seconds, you got me to dislike the video already. Betterhelp is not a doling or helpful in any way. I am disappointed that a great KZfaqr like you would *ever* accept a sponsorship from them! Do some research before accepting a sponsorship next time!

Point of convergence for each stage, if you put in a cullander or nossel half the size of your initial opening, you will concentrate more of the air flow, and cause less of a "blow out" increasing the overall column of air's strength, if the nozzle is too small, it will result in blow back as it forces air back out the inlet. By my understanding, a slight adjustment, should make the central hole into a vortex blend, believed to increase the max compression of the air column. Still, no moving parts added.

Use tubes to converge the flow, then use a nozzle on the big tube to accelerate even more

Come on better help is a really horrible company. They don’t even use real therapists

I think the reason subsequent stages result in lower velocity changes is due to how kinetic energy is a function of the square of velocity. I.e., if you add the same amount of energy each time you’d expect the change in velocity to be less each time.

A really important thing is thrust and drag coefficient. You could measure and add them to the next video. That would be useful in comparing different designs.

This is cool, try circular design with this if financially possible, hollow out the centre, add all three stages with increased power at each stage. This should give more velocity push like bladeless drone.

I think the reason why when spacing reduced your thrust is reduced is because your staged thrusters or the same size. Because its peripheral propulsion the air flow exits at an angle. I would suggest you make each stage smaller than the last in a way that it intersets with the airflow of the previous stage this will allow the forces to stack rather than fight each other if u had same sized stages. Please test it I really wish to see it, this based on the the shape of conventional jet engines they have that cone shape.

"Science is not a perfect science" -Jay Bowles Seriously enjoy watching the evolution of the BSI and I very much appreciate you sharing the entirety of your iterative process including the setbacks. Things don't always go the way we hope but thats what drives us to find new solutions and get to better outcomes. Keep up the great work!

I think your problem is the line of convergence-you mistakenly assume that an efficient angle of output from one will not cause interference when stacked with another. Try a version that allows you to adjust the angles of each set of 3 "blades", not just the gaps between each set of 3. AND-there will be less air interference if the entire thing is housed in some sort of casing. You can always add slits to this housing to allow strategic air input that is efficient-and cut out airflows that are not!

Have you considered that switching from a cylindrical column of airflow to a prismatic column of airflow may have added greater resistance from the surrounding air? I think that taking your individual rectangular thruster design and bending it to be an arc, you can get back to the cylindrical airflow. Convergence was a great breakthrough. I think that you could take greater advantage by taking the new arc-shaped thrusters and adding a rotational flow. This should create a whirlpool effect at the front of the thruster that would increase intake by causing a suction in front of the engine instead of intake being caused by the thrust at the back of the unit. Changing the focal distance for convergence and changing the rotational angle of the individual thruster direction could lead to greater airflow and should be iterated over in order to get the best results.

Now with the linear design. Streamline the thickness and apply to the root of a wing along the top of the NACA airfoil. Where air tends to separate from the wing at high angles of attack.

To measure the thrust, just hang it from a frame with string, and put a 300 mm long (to avoid disturbing the inlet airflow) rod on the inlet side pushing on a kitchen scale. You can add levers to amplify the thrust if needed, but it should show a few grams.

Energy is proportional to the square of velocity. So a 2x thrust speed is actually 4x more efficient for the same energy used.

Perhaps the forward module feeds down a center tube (square, rectangular or round). The center module exits thru a larger (shaped) tube around the forward module exhaust. They exhibit convergence with final stage or module. The thought might not be velocity but volume. You can control the charge to each stage. You can use the exhaust convergence as a possible built in fourth stage at said convergence. How the different stages are tuned will create very interesting results. The possibility to create a fourth stage at the convergence moment with the stream separation tubes becoming electrodes brings interesting thought.

thanks for always being so informative and thorough!

Curve the output towords the rear of the engine, slightly twist the output as to get air to flow in a circular way. This will create a stream of air that is way less turbulent and easier to control. Circular airflow also stops the turbulence created by the merging of air from the second and third stages of the engine. That turbulence is killing performance. Best scenario you twist it enough as to create laminar flow and allow for unbroken stream to exit the engine. From this you might come to see that air is moving faster at the edges of the engine instead of in the middle for this im not so sure tho

Your limitation is static pressure. Higher voltage produces higher static pressure. When pushing the modules together you closed off a route for the air to escape thru. Another optimization would be a ring thruster that would not have the excessive buildup of ionized air due to the decreased gap distance, the lower breakdown voltage, and reduced amount of outside non ionized air entrainment in this region. A Circumfrential convergent airflow will be more uniform and the design of the thruster can be lighter as well. I suspect the reason this thruster is angular is because of your plates being straight. Find away to bend and curve your corona wire and discharge plate.

Mb 2 upgrades can change velocity. 1) maybe use more conductive material or cover with the copper 2) use 3 stages but first and second stage should use venturi effect, it could provide more air in last stage. 1 and 2 stage must have smaller nozzles than last stage, to create this effect.

i was thinking in the individual desing (before the peripheral model), but making it customizable and modular so you can try different lengths between electrodes, this for 2 reasons, u can test different output power levels and look when it creates the electric arc so u can evade it, and the second reason its, u can look which setup its better to the airflow, like, u can move multiple lengths and see whats better in the flow meter without the need for printing everytime u think it can be a better desing, with this idea you saving time, so you dont have to print every desing, and u saving money every thing dont u print a new thing, i hope that u read this.

Also instead of just wind speed velocity, you need a proper way to measure thrust. You need to build a way to calculate how many grams of thrust each design has and then figure out the thrust to weight ratio. Wind speed is nice but it doesn't take into account volume of air moved as well.

It's also well worth considering that some 50+% of thrust from both jet and turbine engines comes from channelled bypass airflows (Aviation fans please don't hurt me, I've no idea about proper terms lol) around the main compression/high output stage. You utilise the drag your high speed air has on the air that's only been accelerated by a larger area first stage, whilst feeding the central airflow from that initial acceleration into the high power core stages that produce a very fast channel, feeding back into the slower but still accelerated column of air, which then acts on the ambient static air to produce more laminar flow instead of harsh vortices. Beyond that I'd just wonder about if you're getting turbulance from the corners of the design where a tapered air channel might help get more laminar airflow.

The design of the Mark 3 reminded me immediately of triangular Arc reactor from the Iron Man 2. When you mentioned that nature "roundhoused you in the face", I had crazy ideas of a tornado vortex shaped thruster. It became so complex in my head, that I thought that nobody would want to build that nightmare of a design. 😂

*@Plasma Channel* 1:34 & 1:51 First I thought "Why 3 sides, why not 4?" quickly followed by "why 4 when you could do a pentagon, or octagon..." until the "ultimate" question/answer: *"Why not round?"* Could you makes several rings (instead of triangles) that all accelerate the air & aims it inwards? It seams very possible. Maybe you could even give the edge a kind of "fractal"-ish design, just to increase the surface area more? like a hollow star-shape or so? (but that's probably worse than round?) I guess the answer to *"Why not round?"* is: *"Because easier to build with straight pieces, no need to special-order round knife blades."?*

I still believe with the larger flow, this would benefit as the driver unit for a fluidic propulsion system. It does follow the constructive interference idea. But scales it a little more. It also potentially cuts internal drag issues from the assembly.

Try a widening cone or an elipse that gets stretched more as you continue. You are fighting pressure to keep the air inside the engine. Problem is that the engine doesnt have walls so unlike a jet the air isnt confined. A widening cone or something would keep air pressure at a lower value but keep speed rising, you'd move more air at a relatively slower speed but increases the volume compared to no widening. For a tech demo though this is certainly interesting

I wonder about experimenting also with the degree of rotation between stages, and also with the timing - starting the different stages at different offsets in time. I guess another possibly weird thing to try might be looking at squid propulsion. They are using muscular contraction rather than ionic thrust, but I guess what I'm thinking about is the way they draw in water into a chamber and then push it out in a pulsed manner. So increasing the air volume in the chamber in one phase, and then the pressure on the volume in the next. Maybe by running every other stage (to pull in some air) and then all the stages (to push out the air that's there). Or running all the stages at the same time (to pull in air) and then all the stages with a slight offset (to squeeze out the air).