Hydrogen making a comeback?

[blimpship]

Very interesting post today on the possibilty that hydrogen could be used as a lifting gas again, even if the report comes from 1985. I've heard this mentioned somewhere before:

Why can't modern technology make hydrogen safe to use?

It's being touted as a possible lift gas for stratospheric airships because they're unmanned and would burn out long before they crashed to earth. The idea of using a fire-proof gondola is one I've not heard of!

It seems possible that with sensors we could monitor the hydrogen and oxygen mix, use fire-proof materials and other preventative measures, but surely the whole point would be to make the airship safe in the event of an accident - what good are all of these if the craft is flown into the side of a building, crashes into trees or someone took a shot at it?

I'm sure a safe hydrogen airship could be made, if we could guarantee that it wouldn't ever be in an accident.

[Andreas G]

Interesting Point but the question is, would an Airship filled with
hydrogen and a maximum speed of roughly 200km/h have a strong effect
on a building when crashing into it compared to a plane loaded with
kerosene crashing into a building at speeds well above 500km/h.
Hydrogen burns quick and doesn't stick to anything like gasoline based
fuels. In my opinion it would be very interesting to conduct some test
tests as to how dangerous Airships with hydrogen really would be. The
Hindenburg disaster was spectacular, but considering how many people
have died in air plane crashes how how good the survival rate is of
air plane crashes an airship with hydrogen might actually not be so
bad after all. One Idea could also be to build an airship that has a
hydrogen ballonet inside protected by the helium surrounding it. This
hydrogen could be used for fueling the airship making it heavier as
time progresses. Allowing it to land without any hydrogen on board and
being heavier than air. This way an airship could lift of vertically
and probably also land vertically if the rate of descend could be
slowed down enough through vectored thrust.

I think there are many possibilities to think more outside the box and
we should start to develop those.

Regards

Andreas


On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 6:19 PM, blimpship <duncan.rice@...> wrote:

>
>  Very interesting post today on the possibilty that hydrogen could be used as
>  a lifting gas again, even if the report comes from 1985. I've heard this
>  mentioned somewhere before:
>
>  Why can't modern technology make hydrogen safe to use?
>
>  It's being touted as a possible lift gas for stratospheric airships because
>  they're unmanned and would burn out long before they crashed to earth. The
>  idea of using a fire-proof gondola is one I've not heard of!
>
>  It seems possible that with sensors we could monitor the hydrogen and oxygen
>  mix, use fire-proof materials and other preventative measures, but surely
>  the whole point would be to make the airship safe in the event of an
>  accident - what good are all of these if the craft is flown into the side of
>  a building, crashes into trees or someone took a shot at it?
>
>  I'm sure a safe hydrogen airship could be made, if we could guarantee that
>  it wouldn't ever be in an accident.
>
>  -----
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>
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[brunians]

> I'm sure a safe hydrogen airship could be made, if we could guarantee that
> it wouldn't ever be in an accident.

In the real world, it is not possible to make such gaurantees.




.



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[TURTLEAIRSHIPS]

I often run into comments about the limited supply of helium; although, these generally are made by persons who only focus on the U.S. supply.  Other sources are coming online.  

However, since it is Turtle Airships' goal to make airships as ubiquitous as trucks, I do look forward to using other lifting gasses outside of helium.  In my book 'Helium Phoenix", I have made mention of using hydrogen as a lifting gas for robot cargo airships, flown over areas with little or no population below, such as over oceans or empty quarters of the earth.

Doing this, after a time, will eventually lead to more acceptace of possible use of hydrogen for craft that carry passengers, and flying over populated areas.

There will still remain the danger involved in the filling or replenishing of the hydrogen; although, that is no more or less dangerous than handling natural gas.

There have been many proposals made of placing hydrogen cells within larger cells of inert gases, ie:  helium or nitrogen.   These are all reasonable.

Use of "fireproof" airship construction materials is another step forward in the technology that the LTA industry needs.  I lean towards using materials such as aerogel for cell walls; it can withstand temperatures of >1,000 degrees (F);and, has some structual potential as well.  As time goes on, Turtle will conduct R&D to this end.

It will take a long time, far more successful and visible airship operations than have been evidenced in the past several decades, and a concerted  effort to reprogam the public's built in aversion to hydrogen; but it will come about.