GB2207753A - Force generating apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

Apparatus for generating a directional force acting on a body, e.g. to provide lift to a vehicle, utilises gyroscopic effects and includes a sun rotor (10) which itself carries a plurality e.g. three balanced planet rotors (12), each of the planet rotors being carried in a respective gimbal yoke (14) so that the axes of the planet rotor lies in a respective plane radial to the axis of the main rotor, the yoke being selectively rotatable with respect to the sun rotor to alter the angle or attitude of the planet axes in unison in said plane from a park position at which all the rotor axes are parallel, said rotation of the yokes providing a resultant force acting directionally on the assembly, e.g. along the sun rotor axis, derived from the gyroscopic precessional and other vectors due to said angling of the planet rotor axes. <IMAGE>

Description

FORCE GENERATING APPARATUS This invention relates to apparatus for generating a directional force acting on a body, e.g. as a prime mover or motor supplying a driving and/or directional force to a vehicle whether surface operating, submarine, or operating in the inner atmosphere, outer atmosphere or space within or beyond the earth's gravity. The invention is particularly but not exclusively applicable to provide a controlled and selectively operable lifting force fully or partially counteracting gravity.

The object of the invention is to provide apparatus operating in the above manner which is compact and substantially self-contained, is energy efficient and which may possibly also serve as a device for storing energy, and which is particularly convenient in use.

According to the invention there is provided apparatus for generating a directional force as defined in claim 1 of the appended claims.

Some examples of the invention are now mor particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings, which are all of the nature of schematic diagrams, wherein: - Figure 1 is a perspective view of the essential operating parts of a simplified version of the invention to explain its theoretical operation; Figure 2 is a part sectional perspective view of an embodiment of the invention in a proposed operational form and in a first operating mode; Figure 3 is a like view of the embodiment shown in Figure 2 with components in another operational mode; Figure 4 is a vertical sectional view on a radial plane of another embodiment of the invention shown in greater detail; Figure 5 is a detail on a like plane of a central region of one unit of said embodiment;; Figure 6 is an exterior plan view of a planet rotor yoke of the latter embodiment and Figure 7 is a sectional plan view of said yoke and its associated planet rotor.

The theory of the operation of the invention will first be described and discussed with reference to the basic diagram of Figure 1.

The apparatus incorporates two types of gyroscopic element, a single sun rotor 10 of substantial diameter and mass and a plurality, in this example three, planet rotors 12 of lesser diameter and mass carried on the sun rotor. In the attitude shown in Figure 1 all four rotors have their axes vertical and parallel, the axes of the planet rotors 12 being at equal radii from and at equiangular spacing about the sun rotor axis.

The sun rotor 10 can be visualised as a "spinning top" with its axis upright, indeed, as well as coacting with the planet rotors in the manner described below it may also serve as an energy storage flywheel with the planet rotors inactive.

The planet rotors 12 may be visualised as being in "equatorial orbit" about the sun rotor and, in the attitude shown, spinning in a common plane therewith; this attitude is referred to as the park mode.

Each planet rotor 12 is journalled in a respective gimbal yoke 14. Each yoke 14 is pivoted at the periphery of sun rotor 10 for angular movement about a respective yoke axis which subtends the circumference of the sun rotor and lies in or is parallel to the plane of rotation of the associated planet rotor 12. The sub-assembly of planet rotor and carrying yoke is hereinafter referred to as a gyro unit.

By means of the pivoted yoke mounting the attitude of each said unit with respect to the sun rotor 10 can be selectively varied so as to rotate the axis of the associated planet rotor 12 with respect to the sun rotor or main axis in a respective radial plane of the latter axis, i.e. the planet axes can be moved out of their park mode parallel relationship to the main axis e.g. to a position at which each planet axis can be visualised as a spoke radiating from the main axis i.e. the attitude of the gyro units has been shifted by 90 deg. from the park mode. It is contemplated that said pivoting movement may be continued through a further 90 deg. so that the gyro units can be inverted to bring them to an inverse park mode. However, the initial 90 deg. of movement is most pertinent to the operation of the apparatus.

When in park mode a gyro unit can be referred to as being at zero ALPHA, and when rotated from the park mode to be at either positive or negative ALPHA depending on the sense of rotation. The term ALPHA is thus used to describe gyro unit movement in a particular direction and also implies the resultant force produced by said movement in operation, the ALPHA force.

Operation of the apparatus is initiated by running up the sun and planet rotors to rotate at high rpm, the rotation with the gyro units in park mode being in the same direction e.g. clockwise as viewed from above - thus due to the rotating mass of the whole moving assembly i.e. the sun rotor 10 carrying the mass of the gyro units with it, and the rotating masses of the planet rotors 12 substantial compound gyroscopic effects are produced. As long as the apparatus remains in the park mode these effects will be balanced and neutralised about the main axis so that no forces tending to displace the latter are generated.

If all three gyro units are now shifted in unison out of the park mode in a manner which can be visualised as pushing imaginary upwardly extending spigots attached to yokes 14 coincident with the associated planet axes outwardly away from each other and away from the main axis the planes of rotation of each planet rotor 12 will become tilted with respect to the plane of rotation of sun rotor 10.

The movement may be continued until the gyro units have been shifted through almost 90 deg. from the park mode so that the planes of planet rotation are nearly perpendicular to that of the sun rotor. Rotation of the gyro units through the intermediate angles from the park mode, and especially as they approach the 90 deg. angles, causes the entire assembly to exhibit an upward movement, i.e. an apparent reduction in weight, in response to the resultant force which is a function of or results from the gyroscopic effects or vectors including precessional effects of the spinning rotors and their attitude to each other.

Whilst it is apparent that precessive forces are produced as the gyro units are actuated out of park mode, it is believed that another gyroscopic property or force which has more in common with gyroscopic rigidity in space than with precession is produced. It may be that the Alpha force is a summation of precessive moments manifested in another kind of rigidity, one whereby a gyro maintains the vector imparted to it, including the acceleration component, and that this force is maximised at about 90 deg. of rotation of the gyro units from the park mode. The Alpha force appears to be an symbiotic attribute of the whole assembly rather than of any one component (like precession).

The above example described a clockwise-clockwise sun-planet spin viewed from above. For the sake of brevity we will label this < 1-1 > , and a counter-clockwise sun-planet spin as < 0-0 > . In the < 1-1 > example depicted, gyro unit movement attributing positive Alpha was accomplished by pushing the imaginary upwardly extending spigots apart.

In its preferred form the apparatus includes two coaxially journalled contra-rotating sun rotors each carrying one or more balanced sets of gyro units as described above e.g. two sets each comprising three units, the units of each set being controlled in unison but with the facility to control each set either independently or in coordination with the other set or sets, i.e. some one or more sets may be held inoperative or in park mode while the other set or sets are operative and/or shifted out of park mode.

Such an apparatus is illustrated diagrammatically in Figures 2 and 3 and includes an upper or North sun-planet rotor assembly 20 and lower or South assembly 30.

Keeping the same perspective, but now looking at the "South" assembly 30 we will impart this a < 0-0 > spin, so as to maintain torque symmetry. (The South assembly including planet gyro units is an exact geometric copy of the North).

The gyro unit movement attributing positive Alpha to the South assembly is not a mirror image of its Northern counterpart. In fact the 'imaginary spigots' are again 'pushed apart' (when viewed from above). Thus in a contra-rotating system, the south assembly can be operated to complement the north by a sense of movement which at all times keeps the planes of planet rotation of the adjacent upper and lower gyro units 22, 32 parallel.

When Planet-sun rotation is in opposition e.g. < O 1 > , gyro unit movement attributing positive Alpha is in the reverse sense - i.e. the imaginary spigots are pulled toward one another.

An additional side effect (in a < 1-1 > assembly) is that torque resulting from planet rotation in the same direction in park mode tends to slow down sun rotation.

If planet and sun rotation are opposite this effect is reversed.

The effects obtained vary with the masses and spin rate of both Sun and Planet rotors and the ratio of Planet to Sun radius (The sun radius being the distance between the main axis and the pivotal attachment of the gyro units). A large Planet-sun ratio would exaggerate these effects for example, but geometric limitations may force the use of only one set of 3 planets. (Such a configuration may be useful in a data gathering prototype).

It is of interest to examine closely the precessive forces at work in an operating assembly. Taking the < 11 > example as before, run up in park mode, it is apparent that the tangential velocity of each planet rotor is increased outboard, about the point of maximum sun radius (being a summation of sun and planet radial velocities at that point), and decreased inboard. Thus a planet's outboard sector may be termed the 'most significant sector', and the inboard sector ;the 'least significant sector'.

As positive Alpha is applied via gyro unit actuation, the planet rotors each experience precessive moments about their leading and trailing points. This moment manifests through 90 deg. in the direction of (planet) rotation.

If we examine an individual planet, we find that the resultant is a downward and inward moment about the point of minimum sun radius, coupled with an upward and outward moment about the point of maximum sun radius.

In the intermediate angles between 0 and 90 deg.

then, the precessive resultant has a continuous upward component in the most significant sector of each planet rotor (plus a downward component in the least significant sector). At 90 deg. planet sectors are no longer 'significant' and the precessive resultant becomes an inboard-outboard moment.

It is attractive to ascribe the resulting effects to the 'asymmetric' precessive resultants occurring during transit from 0 through 90 deg. However, conventional wisdom dictates that these precessive forces should cancel each other out. The present proposal therefore, postulates the existence of the 'Alpha' force or component of resulting force.

The problem of quantifying the Alpha force precisely cannot be usefully resolved ahead of dedicated scientific research.

Various constructions of the apparatus are contemplated for different applications and for deriving further experimental results. For some applications and tests a single sun-planet rotor assembly as in Figure 1 having a single set of three gyro units and suitably mounted on or in a vehicle or other body may be sufficient. The relative masses of the sun and planet rotors may be varied as may their relative operational speeds of rotation and effective diameters, thus the sun rotor might have a diameter of 3-3.5 meters and the relative dimensions of the rotors could be such that the sun rotor revolves at about one tenth the speed of the planet rotors but the peripheral speeds of the rotors considered individually are approximately the same.

While a full 360 deg. range of movement of each gyro unit from the park position may be provided it is contemplated that, for most practical purposes, movement of around 110 deg. to each side of the park position would be sufficient.

In apparatus having two or more sun-planet rotor assemblies, arranged with their main axes coincident or otherwise it is contemplated that each assembly will be operated as an independent sub-system, thus the value and/or the direction of the resultant or Alpha force derived from one system will not necessarily be the same as that derived from the other system or systems.

The apparatus referred to above with reference to Figures 2 and 3 will now be described in further detail with reference to Figures 4-7. The North and South sunplanet rotor assemblies 20,30 which can be controlled and operated independently as referred to above are each housed in a respective enclosure or shell 24,34. The shells are rigidly interconnected co-axially to form a single structure which also serves to mount the apparatus within or upon a vehicle or other body in use. Both assemblies are identical in construction and only the upper or North assembly 20 is now further described in detail.

The shell may be hermetically sealed and provided with a connection leading to a vacuum pump so that the atmosphere within it may be partly evacuated to improve the performance of the spinning rotors.

The sun rotor 10 is journalled on a pair of opposed low friction bearings 25 and the associated hub construction, as shown in Figure 5, also includes a stator element of an electric motor 26 used to drive the sun rotor which has the rotor element of said motor built into it. There are also electrical slip rings and contact or other brush arrangements 27 for transferring electric power from leads connected through the shell 24 to leads n or in the sun rotor 10 feeding current to further electric motors referred to hereafter which drive the planet rotors 12 and which operate the gimbal yokes of the gyro units 22.

One of these units is shown in greater detail in Figures 6 and 7, the gimbal yoke 14 which carries the associated planet rotor 12 is generally spherical in shape with the axis of rotation of rotor 12 lying in an equatorial plane thereof and the yoke being pivoted for angular movement relative to the sun rotor 10 on its polar axis by means of stub shafts locating in radially projecting lugs 28 of the sun rotor. The exterior of the yoke 14 is provided with a toothed gear ring 29 around said equatorial plane which meshes with a pinion 40 journalled inboard of the gyro unit on the sun rotor 10 and selectively driven by a control electric motor to alter the attitude of the associated gyro unit as referred to above. In Figures 4, 6 and 7 the unit is shown rotated to 90 deg. from its park mode.

Each planet rotor 12 includes an integral electric drive motor, the rotor elements of said motor being integrated with the rotor 12 and the stator elements forming part of the non-rotating journal or bearing means of said rotor fixed within yoke 14. Electric power for driving the planet rotor reaches the stator element by leads passing through the yoke and carried through the pivot shafts of the yoke to the sun rotor 10 and hence through the slip ring means 27 to an external source of supply.

The assembly 20 also includes control means for monitoring the rotational speeds of the rotors 10 and 12, said speeds may be sensed by optical or magnetic transducer devices of known kind with associated feedback arrangements to control the speed of the rotor drive motors, there will also be remote sensing of the angling of the gyro units 22 from their park modes and servocontrol of the control motors which vary their attitude.

In one form of operation said servo-control may be regulated as a function of the rotational speed of the sun rotor 10 though other parameters may be introduced.

The partly cutaway construction shown in Figures 2 and 3 contemplates the use of more than three gyro units, e.g. possibly six for each sun-planet rotor assembly 20,30 operating as two sets of three units for each assembly, each set being disposed symmetrically of the associated sun rotor, i.e. alternate units around the periphery of the sun rotor would belong to the respective different sets. The units of each set would be operated in unison, but the sets can be operated independently or in coordination with each other. As well as widening the control possibilities this arrangement will provide added safety and reliability as if a unit in one set breaks down that set can be taken out of service leaving the other set or sets operational.It is to be understood that the number of sets and/or the number of units in each set may vary, and that there need not necessarily be the same number of units in each set.

In an alternative construction (not shown) the gyro units are carried on swinging arms linked to the periphery of the sun rotor, thus said arms may hang vertically downward (or extend upward) from the median plane of the sun rotor (assuming said plane is horizontal) in the park mode but can be swung up to 90 deg. outwardly i.e. until they form a radial extension of the sun rotor to alter the attitude of the planet rotor axes as referred to above. Said outward movement may be effected or assisted by centrifugal force as the speed of rotation of the sun rotor is increased so that the resultant force provided is a direct function of sun rotor speed; or there may be servo or other selective control of said outward movement.

Claims (13)

1. Apparatus for generating a directional force acting on a body including a sun rotor operatively driven for rotation about a main axis of the body, a plurality of planet rotors carried by the sun rotor remote from the main axis each operatively driven about a respective planet axis which lies in a respective plane common with the main axis and each planet rotor being journalled in a respective gimbal yoke pivoted on the sun rotor for angular movement about a respective yoke axis normal to the respective said plane, and control means for selectively effecting said angular movement of the yokes during said rotation of all said rotors, the gyroscopic precessional and/or other vectors resulting from the selected angling of the axes of rotation of the planet rotors with respect to the axis of rotation of the sun rotor and the direction or directions of operative rotation of the rotors providing a resultant force acting directionally on said body.

2. Apparatus as in Claim 1 wherein the planet rotors are of equal mass balancing each other about the main axis and operated in unison, said resultant force acting rectilinearly along the main axis.

3. Apparatus as in Claim 1 or 2 wherein there are three planet rotors positioned equiangularly about the main axis.

4. Apparatus as in Claim 1, 2 or 3 wherein the planet rotors are divided into sets, each set comprising a plurality of planet rotors disposed symmetrically about the main axis and being controlled in unison, but the different sets being capable of control and operation independently of each other.

5. Apparatus as in Claim 4 wherein each said set consists of three planet rotors disposed at equiangular positions about the main axis and at equiangular spacing from the planet rotors of the other set or sets.

6. Apparatus as in Claim 4 or 5 wherein there are two said sets.

7. Apparatus as in any preceding claim including a plurality of sun-planet rotor assemblies each comprising a said sun rotor and associated said planet rotors or sets of planet rotors, the sun rotors of the assemblies being disposed in co-axial relationship and each said assembly being capable of independent control and operation.

8. Apparatus as in any preceding claim wherein each rotor is driven by an integral electric motor.

9. Apparatus as in any preceding claim wherein said control means includes a control motor carried on the sun rotor respective to each planet rotor and connected to effect pivotal movement of its respective gimbal yoke.

10. Apparatus as in any preceding claim wherein the control means operates to effect said angular movement of the yokes as a function of the rotational speed of the sun rotor.

11. Apparatus as in Claim 10 wherein the yokes are mounted on the sun rotor for swinging movement radially outwardly thereof by centrIfugal force, said movement effecting or assisting displacement of the associated planet axis in said respective plane.

12. Apparatus as in any preceding claim wherein the or each sun-planet rotor assembly is contained within an enclosure which is partly evacuated below atmospheric pressure in operation.

13. Apparatus for generating a directional force substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as shown in Figure 1, or Figures 2 and 3, or Figures 4 - 7 of the accompanying drawings.