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Old 09-25-2014, 11:26 AM
mmartin798 mmartin798 is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Michigan
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I guess it all depends on design. A jet engine has compressor fans that feed into the combustion chamber where the jet fuel ignites and goes out the back through more fans to run the compressor fans. We currently have plasma torches that can convert normal air into plasma with a temperature of about 2700K. Used in the combustion chamber we would not have the added volume from burning fuel, but you would have cold compressed air rapidly heated to something over 1500K that would providing thrust. How much is something I really don't know. But then again, we currently don't have a portable fusion reactor capable of driving multiple plasma torches into a jet engine's combustion chamber to see what kind of output is possible. It would not be as much as a normal jet, but if it were a significant fraction, it might be useful.
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