What is after the jet engine?

An afterburner (or reheat in British English) is an additional combustion component used on some jet engines, mostly those on military supersonic aircraft. Afterburning injects additional fuel into a combustor in the jet pipe behind (i.e., “after”) the turbine, “reheating” the exhaust gas.

What was used before jet engines?

Precursors. Jet engines can be dated back to the invention of the aeolipile around 150 BC. This device used steam power directed through two nozzles so as to cause a sphere to spin rapidly on its axis.

What are the types of jet propulsion?

There are two general types of jet propulsion air-breathing and nonair-breathing engines. Air-breathing engines use oxygen from the atmosphere in the combustion of fuel. They include the turbojet, turboprop, ramjet, and pulse-jet. The term jet is generally used only in reference to air-breathing engines.

Could microwave plasma jets replace combustion engines?

Researchers in China have demonstrated a prototype device that uses microwave air plasmas for jet propulsion, an advance that could one day replace fossil fuel combustion engines. A schematic diagram of a prototype microwave air plasma thruster and the images of the bright plasma jet at different microwave powers.

Can plasma jet thrusters be made for air travel?

This method is claimed to differ from previous attempts to create plasma jet thrusters in one key way: other plasma jet thrusters, like NASA’s Dawn space probe, use xenon plasma, which they team said cannot overcome the friction in Earth’s atmosphere, and are not powerful enough for use in air transportation.

Could a plasma jet be created by compressing air?

The researchers are said to have created a plasma jet by compressing air and using a microwave to ionise the pressurised air stream.

What are the components of a microwave engine?

This device consists of a microwave power supply, an air compressor, a compressed microwave waveguide and a flame ignitor (Image: Jau Tang and Jun Li) The team from the Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan University describe the engine in AIP Advances.