It's been some years, and I'll need to look up the archives for the details. The Chalopede design for legged land vehicles has a counterpart for water vessels. Conceptually, these would include both surface and underwater craft, though, obviously, with some major differences in the overall design.
(A major marine engineering firm had shown some interest in evaluating the cost and construction efficiencies, using their proprietary engineering software, but sadly, the founder passed away unexpectedly, and the idea was shelved. So it goes.)
In a nutshell, the concept is for a double hull, an single sheet inner box to house the crew, cargo, fuel, generators etc, and a modular external hull that is actually the prime mover.
Each module is a linear motor oscillating perpendicular to the direction of motion, with an outer plate, that could (and would) vary in shape from a square to a complex curved surface.
The sum of all the individual motor movements will be a smooth* wave moving fore to aft. The resultant force from the water will act to move the vessel forward. *Actually, the smoothness will be modified by sensors that detect the real-time external wave forces from the sea.
Using large numbers of low noise, low energy linear electric or hydraulic motors, such vessels would impose a much lower cost on marine life, that would be a big step forward in itself. But, apart from being ecologically sensible, constantly matching energies with the motion of the sea means that such vessels are intrinsically more energy efficient, with no wasted energy on churning the water.
When this is combined, for a surface vessel, with energy converted from the air using overhead cylinders or sails, plus all horizontal surfaces layered with solar energy convertors, the dependence on fossil fuels drops.
Superficially, an undersea vessel works the same way, though the energy conversions will change. Losing access to energy from the sun and air will probably raise the overheads to the point that this won't be a viable cargo carrying commercial design, though.
Any likelihood of passenger services on these freighters (like the ships my parents traveled on between NYC and Puerto Rico back in the '30s and early '40s)?
I've been reading about these for years. Nice to see they seem to be coming to fruition. Plus, they'll look really cool!
It's been some years, and I'll need to look up the archives for the details. The Chalopede design for legged land vehicles has a counterpart for water vessels. Conceptually, these would include both surface and underwater craft, though, obviously, with some major differences in the overall design.
(A major marine engineering firm had shown some interest in evaluating the cost and construction efficiencies, using their proprietary engineering software, but sadly, the founder passed away unexpectedly, and the idea was shelved. So it goes.)
In a nutshell, the concept is for a double hull, an single sheet inner box to house the crew, cargo, fuel, generators etc, and a modular external hull that is actually the prime mover.
Each module is a linear motor oscillating perpendicular to the direction of motion, with an outer plate, that could (and would) vary in shape from a square to a complex curved surface.
The sum of all the individual motor movements will be a smooth* wave moving fore to aft. The resultant force from the water will act to move the vessel forward. *Actually, the smoothness will be modified by sensors that detect the real-time external wave forces from the sea.
Using large numbers of low noise, low energy linear electric or hydraulic motors, such vessels would impose a much lower cost on marine life, that would be a big step forward in itself. But, apart from being ecologically sensible, constantly matching energies with the motion of the sea means that such vessels are intrinsically more energy efficient, with no wasted energy on churning the water.
When this is combined, for a surface vessel, with energy converted from the air using overhead cylinders or sails, plus all horizontal surfaces layered with solar energy convertors, the dependence on fossil fuels drops.
Superficially, an undersea vessel works the same way, though the energy conversions will change. Losing access to energy from the sun and air will probably raise the overheads to the point that this won't be a viable cargo carrying commercial design, though.
Any likelihood of passenger services on these freighters (like the ships my parents traveled on between NYC and Puerto Rico back in the '30s and early '40s)?