Could Sound itself Move a Aircraft?

I am obviously no scientist, much less a rocket scientist, but I got to wondering the other day about something so here I am too see if it is just way to far fetched, or a possibility. Since it involves aircraft, I figured this would be the best place to ask.

I got to thinking about sound. How it travels, how it can shatter glass at a certain pitch. How it moves in waves. Then I got to thinking what if...

What if you could design something that focused sound to a point that the waves would crate a thrust, or the sound pushed against something that then in turn created the thrust. I know I am not using very scientific terms here, but hopefully you get the gist of what Im trying to ask. Somehow I see it contained and focused. Not sure what frequency would be needed, but possible perhaps?

Maybe someone with a true scientific mind could ponder that what if a bit. Seems we hear a lot about craft that didnt make a sound. Perhaps the sound is being used on the inside somehow.

originally posted by: onehuman
I am obviously no scientist, much less a rocket scientist, but I got to wondering the other day about something so here I am too see if it is just way to far fetched, or a possibility. Since it involves aircraft, I figured this would be the best place to ask.

I got to thinking about sound. How it travels, how it can shatter glass at a certain pitch. How it moves in waves. Then I got to thinking what if...

What if you could design something that focused sound to a point that the waves would crate a thrust, or the sound pushed against something that then in turn created the thrust. I know I am not using very scientific terms here, but hopefully you get the gist of what Im trying to ask. Somehow I see it contained and focused. Not sure what frequency would be needed, but possible perhaps?

Maybe someone with a true scientific mind could ponder that what if a bit. Seems we hear a lot about craft that didnt make a sound. Perhaps the sound is being used on the inside somehow.

I say it's Entirely possible bud.

I run a 15" speaker in my back seat for obscene amounts of bass in my car - if it weren't for the recoil of the speaker; or if perhaps there were one way air ducts involved, I could totally see this working to some degree... The efficiency of which I'm not sure of. I've speculated the same on a couple of occasions.

In this context... I can put a piece of wadded up paper inside of the front-facing port on stated speaker-box, and it will almost surely be ejected with a haste as soon as the first serious note hits.

*Edit: Moral of this being that positive energy is Surely generated in the process.

Hats off for the thought - I'm not alone!

a reply to: onehuman

Yes, it could. Sound is an energy wave. It's really not different than a propeller displacing air to produce thrust when you boil it down. It only required a medium to displace (like air). So technically, a speaker produces thrust. The problem is that producing sound as a means of thrust would very inefficient with any means that i know of.

originally posted by: Fiberx
a reply to: onehuman

Yes, it could. Sound is an energy wave. It's really not different than a propeller displacing air to produce thrust when you boil it down. It only required a medium to displace (like air). So technically, a speaker produces thrust. The problem is that producing sound as a means of thrust would very inefficient with any means that i know of.

This is the problem I've considered myself - it would take a serious amount of sound to get something airborne.

I've got some theories kicking around in my head for condensing / amplifying the waves to increase efficiency, as well as a general theory for a sound generation device - but if I told you about any of it I'd have to kill you >_>

Really though the thought first came to mind when I was watching District 9 for maybe the second time -- at the end of the movie when the mother-ship lifts off, it could be speculated that a huge sonic burst initiated the movement. Just got me thinking.

a reply to: onehuman

Seems we hear a lot about craft that didnt make a sound. Perhaps the sound is being used on the inside somehow.

Thats a good question. The one I saw didn't make a sound, either. That was one of the things that stood out the most. At the speed it was moving there should have been a roar of engines or rockets but here was not flame, nor vapor trail, and it was absolutely silent.

Kind of weird too, because it was the prettiest neon blue. If it was trying to hide by being in quiet mode or something why was it lit up?

Some might say it was really the spirit of the devil or some such, but it wasn't either. it was real, it flew by and made an abrupt angular change of direction, without a sound.

I don't think it would be a good idea. Vibration tends to weaken structures. One of the projects I did in college was to take a steel bar and cut it into three equal sections. I used a saw with coolant flowing heavily on to the cut so that I didn't change the strength of the metal by heating. I sprayed a preservative on one section, wrapped it in a cloth and placed it in a drawer. The second section I left exposed to the elements and I put the third section in a soundproof box, exposed to 180 decibels of noise (Megadeath CD). Six months later I placed all three sections in a strain tester. The first two broke at about the same load, while the third one had a 15% loss in strength.

a reply to: JIMC5499

And mythbusters says that that bass won't rattle my car apart... Proof.

Plus I've watched it happen :-/

a reply to: JIMC5499

Vibration tends to weaken structures

This will sound tarded but then maybe change the structure of the craft to something more malleable

exposed to 180 decibels of noise (Megadeath CD)

Which megadeth cd...you know for science

OP, well done for thinking outside the box.

The probable lack of thrust from a sound based drive and silence of observed craft has been raised, and these are both valid points.

But if we think even further outside the box, how about a combination of complimentary technologies?

Perhaps a technology that reduces or completely eradicates mass? Now the lack of thrust from the sound drive could be nullified, needing much less raw power to move a craft with little to no mass.

Also bear in mind sound has many wavelengths and traits, a new born baby being scanned by ultrasound is a good example.

The loud home stereo speaker that moves paper out of its path is not doing so with sound waves. The speaker cone moves backwards and forwards at a speed fast enough to displace the area of air directly in front of it, hence moving the paper with a gust of air. On a simpler level just think of a lady fanning herself with a folding paper fan on a hot day and feeling the displaced air on her skin.

Which raises another issue....how does the sound drive work in the vacuum of space?

Sonic vibrations would make a really good weapon...

a reply to: MystikMushroom

They did. Unfortunately they killed their operators as well as the enemy!

originally posted by: OrbitalDecay
The loud home stereo speaker that moves paper out of its path is not doing so with sound waves. The speaker cone moves backwards and forwards at a speed fast enough to displace the area of air directly in front of it, hence moving the paper with a gust of air. On a simpler level just think of a lady fanning herself with a folding paper fan on a hot day and feeling the displaced air on her skin.

Granted - but not incredibly different from the aforementioned function of a propeller. Which may or may not ( I'm curious now* ) have actually originated from stated folded paper.

Given that sound is a pressure wave in an atmosphere, then yes, it already does - in the sense that propeller & jet thrust, the explosive front of a fuel/air mix in an internal combustion cylinder are also pressure waves.

However the sound component of those waves is miniscule compared to the amount of energy in the actual pressure component.

Perhaps eth most common use of sound itself as an actual propulsion method is the extraction of kidney stones (I kid you not - badaboom! ) - ultrasonics can be used to move the stones around inside a conscious patient. It's still a fairly new procedure - eg see this request for clinical trial patients from earlier this year.

but here's an article demonstrating propulsion of nano-materials with acoustics inside living cells.

a reply to: onehuman

This is actually my area of research. I can tell you it is entirely possible and something the US military has been looking into for some time.

Need look no further than google. It is called acoustic levitation and has been proven numerous of times - in labs and in the field.

Quick explanation - every material in the universe has a resonant freq. That freq may however not be within our tiny range of hearing but every material does in fact have a frequency that will cause it to vibrate. An example; glass will resonate at the highest octaves of human hearing, where as water resonates in the microwave spectrum. Stone however is much much lower, think of kidney stones [ouch]. Many have thought these techniques were used to build Coral Castle et al and perhaps the Pyramids.

This might be closer to your answer...creating a craft that can levitate is entirely possible but the frequency of the medium required is not technically "sound" as we know it. But the principle is exactly the same, so you are certainly on to something! But really depends on your definition of "sound" . Lucky for us guys researching this, there is an abundance of said energy the tricky part is finding enough resonant material to build an entire ship out of. Very expensive but it has technically been done. If you notice the videos above, there are very similar characteristics to UFO sightings all over the world.

IMPO - just another way for us to fly around that's all....

a reply to: MystikMushroom

As in nuclear sounds? A bomb has a pressure wave. The sun does, too. Its the loudest thing in the Solar System.

About 1:15:

No it would not work, sorry.
sound is a wave that pushes and pulls.
so it would move forwould then back!

it could pump air IF
you had it in a box with in and out vaulves.
one sucks air/water in the other out.

a reply to: buddha

You guys are thinking too much about how speakers work. Speakers will never put an aircraft into flight but "sound... sonics.... sound pressure level" most definitely CAN.

Due to the oscillating nature of waves, whether transverse or longitudinal, I do not see how you could ever get fluid motion. It would likely be turbulent. Perhaps at specific frequencies, but the amount of power necessary to create movement in a flying craft, and sustain that movement in any fluid manner while simultaneously having to overcome the gravitational pull of the earth, would be enormous. And even if you could get it to work, somehow, flying above the speed of sound seems like it might produce other obstacles. Your source for vibrating the air molecules would have to be attached to the craft itself, and that also seems like it would pose problems, especially since a portion of the "speaker" propulsion system would be outside the forward propulsion that might be produced. But we do know that the movement of air can create movement, and I do not dispute that point. I only wish to say that I do not see how such movement could be translated into anything resembling flight over a sustained distance. But I am not a rocket scientist either, lol, nor am I aerodynamically-inclined.

a reply to: onehuman

Here's a video, showing an interesting phenomenon associated with acoustic propulsion (the speaker is fixed in this example however)

m.youtube.com...

Ps it's just a link. I'm not sure how to embed a video from my phone.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

I understand your thoughts here. But what if we didn't use traditional sound waves. But something of a much higher magnitude, high enough where oscillation is effectively non existent. Light at nominal amplitude wont burn your eyes out just because it oscillates.

Sound alone will never be powerful enough to get anything of decent mass airborne. But there are wavelengths that can.....