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An ionocraft or ion-propelled aircraft (commonly known as a lifter or hexalifter) is a device that uses an electrical electrohydrodynamic (EHD) phenomenon to produce thrust in the air without requiring any combustion or moving parts. The term "ionocraft" dates back to the 1960s, an era in which EHD experiments were at their peak. In its basic form, it simply consists of two parallel conductive electrodes, one in the form of a fine wire and another which may be formed out of wire grid, tubes or foil skirts with a smooth round surface. When such an arrangement is powered by high voltage (in the range of a few kilovolts), it produces thrust. The ionocraft forms part of the EHD thruster family, but is a special case in which the ionisation and accelerating stages are combined into a single stage. The device is a popular science fair project for students. It is also popular among anti-gravity or so-called "electrogravitics" proponents, due to the research of Thomas Townsend Brown, who built these devices in the 1920s and incorrectly believed that he had found a way to modify gravity using electric fields. The term "lifter" is an accurate description because it is not an anti-gravity device; rather, it produces lift using the same basic principle as a rocket, i.e. from the equal but opposite force upward generated by the driving force downward, specifically by driving the ionized air downward in the case of the ionocraft. Much like a rocket or a jet engine (it can actually be much more thrust efficient than a jet engine〔(Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2013, April 3). Ionic thrusters generate efficient propulsion in air. ScienceDaily ) Quote: "...In their experiments, they found that ionic wind produces 110 newtons of thrust per kilowatt, compared with a jet engine's 2 newtons per kilowatt..."〕), the force that an ionocraft generates is consistently oriented along its own axis, regardless of the surrounding gravitational field. Claims of the device also working in a vacuum have been disproved. Ionocraft require many safety precautions due to the high voltage required for their operation; nevertheless, a large subculture has grown up around this simple EHD thrusting device and its physics are now known to a much better extent. ==Description== An ionocraft is a propulsion device based on ionic air propulsion that works without moving parts, uses only electrical energy, and is able to lift its own weight, not including its own power supply. The principle of ionic wind propulsion with corona-generated charged particles has been known from the earliest days of the discovery of electricity with references dating back to 1709 in a book titled ''Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects'' by Francis Hauksbee. Its use for propulsion was given serious thought by Major Alexander Prokofieff de Seversky who contributed much to its basic physics and construction variations in 1960. In fact, it was Major de Seversky himself who in 1964 coined the term Ionocraft in his (). There are also designs by the American experimenter Thomas Townsend Brown, such as his 1960 patents for "Elektrokinetic Apparatus". Brown spent most of his life trying to develop what he thought was an anti-gravity effect, which he named the Biefeld–Brown effect. Since Brown's devices produce thrust along their axis regardless of the direction of gravity and do not work in a vacuum, the effect he identified has been attributed to electrohydrodynamics instead of anti-gravity. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ionocraft」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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