Toroidal propellers turn your drones and boats into noiseless machines

https://www.designboom.com/technology/toroidal-propellers-quiet-efficient-alternatives-aerial-marine-sectors-01-27-2023/

by danboarder • 3 years ago

117 21 3 years ago

designboom.com

nailer• 3 years ago

Saving you some time: skip the first video, go straight to the second.

discordance• 3 years ago

Second video: https://youtu.be/b9a40Rs5CxE

mkl• 3 years ago

Related discussion from a couple of months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33949895 (156 comments).

kibwen• 3 years ago

That was only for the boat prop design, this is the first I've seen of the infinity propellers for drones, which at least look extremely cool.

jbay808• 3 years ago

From that article:

Greg reasoned that if he could reduce or even eliminate these tip vortices, it should lead to a quieter, more efficient drone. His light bulb moment came on a dog walk when the idea of a tipless blade, that loops round to rejoin the propeller hub like a strip of twisted ribbon, first popped into his head.
It took a further seven years of intensive research and development, substantial investment, 23 worldwide patents and a switch in focus from drones to boats before Sharrow Engineering unveiled its first production propeller

It seems that Sharrow was initially trying to tackle drones, but found boat props to be a lower-hanging fruit. This all makes me wonder who has priority on the patent -- MIT, or Sharrow?

number6• 3 years ago

I guess we will see them in Ukraine

olliej• 3 years ago

Low content article imo - much more a marketing piece (though at least isn’t trying to pretend it is not)

rom-antics• 3 years ago

This video has a noise comparison for the drone propellers at 1:11

https://twitter.com/MITLL/status/1611438712683958306

Torkel• 3 years ago

Wow. Anyone making these for drones yet?

This will be big.

s1artibartfast• 3 years ago

You see any reporting on the loss of efficiency due to the different design?

paulcole• 3 years ago

As someone who grew up doing a lot of outdoor activity, I assumed part of the fun of owning a drone and/or motorboat was annoying the shit out of the people around you?

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

My family cottage is on a lake about 4km end to end. It’s the perfect size for some water skiing, tubing, swimming, fishing. But some maniac has one of those boats with four outboard engines lined up and zips across it in seconds. Insanely loud. Just awful.

ge96• 3 years ago

Wonder if it helps with seaweed issues

Gravityloss• 3 years ago

A company called Aviation Partners developed and licensed winglets. They developed the spiroid winglet that is a loop at the end of the wing, claiming increased efficiency over plain winglets. No takers so far, first tested 30 years ago. https://www.aviationpartners.com/aircraft-winglets/types-ble...

ricardobeat• 3 years ago

Since their other winglet designs are on modern Boeing airplanes, there must be a reason for that.

ballenf• 3 years ago

Could they make these out of a stiff silicone? Seems more doable than with a traditional prop.

JoeAltmaier• 3 years ago

Didn't read much but look like they could foul pretty solidly.

metadat• 3 years ago

Is there anywhere you can buy these for a DJI mini 3 or Mavic Pro?

I wonder if someone is already 3D printing this design in a compatible format.

kmlben65• 3 years ago

can those be used in very high flow channel conditioner / ventilation or is usual wheel blowers more efficient? or external unit of split ac system to pack more radiator surface in less space(i understand the higher power comsumpion of it)?

amai2• 3 years ago

See this discussion one day ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558670

amai2• 3 years ago

How do they compare to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rim-driven_thruster ?

Toroidal propellers turn your drones and boats into noiseless machines

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