test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Need help finding something.

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Hey guys, we're all trekkie's so I figure a few of us have looked up how much of the sci-fi is reality. I'm looking for information on the use of plasma as a working fluid in power tranfers. I can't find anything outside ST though that mentions it.

Has anyone ever read anything on it, or know where I can find some information on its engineering potential? Any research by chemists and phisicists would also be good.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    There is none. Plasma is exceptionally excited form of ionization. The closest thing that you will find to it would be some of the stuff that is done with Tesla coils and Plasma lamps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29.

    There is still a significant amount of research going on in the field of Plasma physics, so who knows, in a few years we may very well find our energy transfers being done through plasma from Fusion reactors.

    The lower section of the above Wiki gives some pretty good information on the current fields and lines of research. But most of the applications are fairly mundane (such as the earlier mentioned Plasma lamps, which likely consist of the majority of real world uses for plasma at this time (including manufacturing etc).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Astrophysicist here:

    Since plasma is an exceptionally excited gas, it's sometimes throught of an the 4th state of matter beyond gas. However, it wouldn't be used for power transfer like hydrolics since it is compressable like a gas, but unlike liquid. So you may want to keep aware of your word usage of liquid and fluid.

    I could see however how a dense plasma might be used to carry charge through a tube, but then why wouldn't you use cable or a more easier method? Although if you could get your plasma to turn, you could make very powerful magnetic fields, so that's something to consider....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    No offense, but just Googling it came up with tons of non-Star Trek sources many from Educational centers.

    Plasma is in fact used for power transfers in modern times and it's being heavily being experiemented on.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    When they mention Plasma Fluid in the shows, aren't they referring to Plasma Coolant Fluid (i.e. some fluid used to cool the reactions caused by plasma)?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    Ok... thats the last time i use yahoo, lol.

    I know the difference between fluid and liquid. I'm studying to be an aerospace engineer, so i need to learn tons, and my dream is to work on spacecraft. I figured theres a reason why Sci-fi writers like to use plasma in their stories for power xfer systems.

    In engineering we talk about "working fluids" gas, liquid and plasma can all be working fluids as far as I know. In ST they call it electro plasma, so it appears that someone, somewhere thought there was a possibility of charging the plasma to incredible amounts of usable energy.

    Not to knock the astrophycisist. i think the terms used by engineers and phycisists may be a little different, and I'm in the early stages of my degree :D

    Btw, thanks for that link, and I'll try googling instead of using yahoo.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    When they mention Plasma Fluid in the shows, aren't they referring to Plasma Coolant Fluid (i.e. some fluid used to cool the reactions caused by plasma)?

    No, plasma is used in St to carry energy throughout the ship, and the weapons tend to be forms of plasma. Plasma is something like a gas thats been stripped of it's electrons and they become something like a "soup" of charged particles. Theres so much energy in the plasma that electrons and protons can't hold onto eachother.

    The coolamt in the shows cools the plasma exhausted from the warp core ;-)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    No, plasma is used in St to carry energy throughout the ship, and the weapons tend to be forms of plasma. Plasma is something like a gas thats been stripped of it's electrons and they become something like a "soup" of charged particles. Theres so much energy in the plasma that electrons and protons can't hold onto eachother.

    The coolamt in the shows cools the plasma exhausted from the warp core ;-)

    That's what I thought they were referring to: Plasma Fluid as a non-technical shorthand for Plasma Fluid Coolant (which leaks every other episode).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    In Treknobabble, they super-excite some exotic (fictional) matter to its gaseous state and then its plasma state (at near three million degrees Kelvin, which is ludicrously hot.

    We can assume that the plasma is the result of whatever is going on in the reactors and they use plasma conduits to shunt it all over the ship as a power source. Its just a higher "throughput" of power than you could achieve through wiring or other types of medium.

    I believe some of this plasma is used in the containment field around the warp core (which is secured by another layer of magnetic fields) and that the "coolant leak" that Geordi always shouts about during combat (and the coolant fluid data dissolved the borg queen in during First contact) contain some sort of fluid used to keep the plasma FIELD around the warp core cool (much like a radiator in combustion engines syphons off the excess heat)

    So plasma is just another form of energy (alongside radiation, magnetism, electricity, thermal, etc) in the Trek verse, and they use it in Fields and as a distribution method in Starships.

    and at this point, its all highly fictional :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    well, plasma appears to be very susceptible to magnetic fields and would be somewhat easy to direct that way. It can also hold more energy than any wire. It also can be used to form particle densities that could form something kinda solid, like a forcefield. On a whole it's electrically nuetral, and the temperatures seem to be varied (the free electrons in solid metal is considered a plasma).
Sign In or Register to comment.