air-cushion machine

▪ vehicle

Introduction

also called  ground-effect machine,  or  hovercraft,  

      any of the machines characterized by movement in which a significant portion of the weight is supported by forces arising from air pressures developed around the craft, as a result of which they hover in close proximity to the Earth's surface. It is this proximity to the surface that chiefly distinguishes such craft from aircraft, which derive their lift from aerodynamic forces created by movement through the air.

      Two main classes of air-cushion vehicles exist: those that generate their own pressure differential irrespective of forward speed; and those, more closely related to true aircraft, that require forward speed before the pressure differential can be generated. The former are classed as aerostatic craft (ACVs); the latter are called aerodynamic ground-effect machines (GEMs).

History

      Perhaps the first man to research the air-cushion vehicle concept was Sir John Thornycroft, a British engineer who, in the 1870s, began to build test models to check his theory that drag on a ship's hull could be reduced if the vessel were given a concave bottom in which air could be contained between hull and water. His patent of 1877 emphasized that “provided the air cushion could be carried along under the vehicle” the only power that the cushion would require would be that necessary to replace lost air. Neither Thornycroft nor other inventors in following decades succeeded in solving the cushion-containment problem. In the meantime aviation developed, and pilots early discovered that when they were flying very close to land or water surface their aircraft developed greater lift than in free air. It was soon determined that the greater lift was available because wing and ground together created a “funnel” effect, increasing the air pressure. The amount of additional pressure proved dependent on the design of the wing and its height above ground. The effect was strongest when the height was between one-half and one-third of the average front-to-rear breadth of the wing (chord).

      Practical use was made of the ground effect in 1929 by the German Dornier Do X flying boat, which achieved a considerable gain in performance during an Atlantic crossing when it flew close to the sea surface. World War II maritime reconnaissance aircraft also made use of the phenomenon to extend their endurance.

      In the 1960s, American aerodynamicists developed an experimental craft, making use of a wing in connection with ground effect. Several other proposals of this type were put forward, and a further variation combined the airfoil characteristics of a ground-effect machine with an air-cushion lift system that allowed the craft to develop its own hovering power while stationary, then build up forward speed, gradually transferring the lift component to its airfoil. Although none of these craft got beyond the experimental stage, they were important portents of the future because they suggested means of using the hovering advantage of the air-cushion vehicle and overcoming its theoretical speed limitation of around 200 miles per hour (320 kilometres per hour), above which it was difficult to hold the air cushion in place. These vehicles are known as ram-wing craft.

      In the early 1950s, engineers in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland were seeking solutions to Sir John Thornycroft's 80-year-old problem. Christopher Cockerell of the United Kingdom is now acknowledged to have been the father of the Hovercraft, as the air-cushion vehicle is popularly known. During World War II he had been closely connected with the development of radar and other radio aids and had retired into peacetime life as a boatbuilder. Soon he began to concern himself with Thornycroft's problem of reducing the hydrodynamic drag on the hull of a boat with some kind of air lubrication.

      Cockerell (later knighted) bypassed Thornycroft's plenum chamber (in effect, an empty box with an open bottom) principle, in which air is pumped directly into a cavity beneath the vessel, because of the difficulty in containing the cushion. He theorized that, if air were instead pumped under the vessel through a narrow slot running entirely around the circumference, the air would flow toward the centre of the vessel, forming an external curtain that would effectively contain the cushion. This system is known as a peripheral jet. Once air has built up below the craft to a pressure equaling the craft weight, incoming air has nowhere to go but outward and experiences a sharp change of velocity on striking the surface. The momentum of the peripheral jet air keeps the cushion pressure and the ground clearance higher than it would be if air were pumped directly into a plenum chamber.

      To test his theory, Cockerell set up an apparatus consisting of a blower that fed air into an inverted coffee tin through a hole in the base. The tin was suspended over the weighing pan of a pair of kitchen scales, and air blown into the tin forced the pan down against the mass of a number of weights. In this way the forces involved were roughly measured. By securing a second tin within the first and directing air down through the space between, Cockerell was able to demonstrate that more than three times the number of weights could be raised by this means, compared with the plenum chamber effect of the single can.

      Cockerell's first patent was filed on Dec. 12, 1955, and in the following year he formed a company known as Hovercraft Ltd. His early memoranda and reports show a prescient grasp of the problems involved in translating the theory into practice. Such problems still concerned designers of Hovercraft years later, and some of Cockerell's ideas have yet to be fully explored. He forecast, for example, that some kind of secondary suspension would be required in addition to the air cushion itself. Another of his ideas still to be developed deals with the recirculation of air in the peripheral jet so that part of it is used over and over, improving efficiency and reducing the power required.

      Realizing that his discovery would not only make boats go faster but also would allow the development of amphibious (amphibious vehicle) craft, Cockerell approached the Ministry of Supply, the British government's defense-equipment procurement authority. The air-cushion vehicle was classified “secret” in November 1956, and a development contract was placed with a British aircraft and seaplane manufacturer. In 1959 the world's first practical ACV was launched. It was called the SR.N1.

      Originally the SR.N1 had a total weight of four tons and could carry three men at a maximum speed of 25 knots (1 knot = 1.15 miles or 1.85 kilometres per hour) over very calm water. Instead of having a completely solid structure to contain the cushion and peripheral jet, it incorporated a 6-inch- (15-centimetre-) deep skirt of rubberized fabric. This development provided a means whereby the air cushion could easily be contained despite unevenness of the ground or water. It was soon found that the skirt made it possible to revert once again to the plenum chamber as a cushion producer. Use of the skirt brought the problem of making skirts durable enough to withstand the friction wear produced at high speeds through water. It was necessary to develop the design and manufacturing skills that would allow skirts to be made in the optimum shape for aerodynamic efficiency.

      Skirts of rubber and plastic mixtures, 4 feet (1.2 metres) deep, had been developed by early 1963, and the performance of the SR.N1 had been increased by using them (and incorporating gas-turbine power) to a payload of seven tons and a maximum speed of 50 knots.

      The first crossing of the English Channel by the SR.N1 was in 1959, symbolically on the 50th anniversary of Louis Blériot's first flight across the same water. Manufacturers and operators in many parts of the world became interested. Manufacture began in the United States, Japan, Sweden, and France; and in Britain additional British companies were building craft in the early 1960s.

      In 1963 the first major variation of the basic air-cushion vehicle theme was produced in the form of sidewall craft. This was a nonamphibious vessel that had a solid hull down each side, with a plenum chamber beneath the hull sealed by flexible skirts at the bow and stern. In the displacement mode, the central hull section floated in the water with the sidewalls well submerged, but when air was pumped into the plenum chamber, the hull was raised above the water and the sidewalls themselves were submerged for only some 12 inches (30 centimetres), considerably reducing the hydrodynamic drag.

      The sidewall ACV has several advantages over the amphibious craft, although its use is confined to water: first, water propellers can be used, allowing a much greater freedom of control, especially at low speeds; second, the sidewalls themselves give the craft better stability and reduce the problems that are inherent in all-round flexible skirts. In the early 1970s, sidewalls were once again in favour, especially among American manufacturers who saw a market for a high-speed marine freight carrier that would not need an amphibious capability.

      The years 1962–64 were a peak period for worldwide interest in Hovercraft, but by the early 1970s only the British had produced what could truly be called a range of craft, and this against considerable odds. There were signs, however, that U.S., Soviet, and French manufacturers were seriously contemplating reentry into the field and that Australia and Japan also were becoming ACV-minded.

      The stagnation of the intervening seven years can be explained by the failure of air-cushion vehicles to live up to what many people thought was their original promise. Cockerell and others had foreseen many of the difficulties, but some second-generation designers, builders, and, particularly, operators thought that the simple Hovercraft would be the answer to a variety of problems that at that stage of development were considerably beyond the scope of the craft available.

      In the first place, amphibious craft generally needed to be air-propelled. Directional control was imprecise, precluding their use on highways. As already mentioned, the design of and materials used in flexible skirts had to be developed from the first, and not until 1965 was an efficient and economic flexible-skirt arrangement evolved, and even then the materials were still being developed.

      Another major problem arose when aircraft gas-turbine engines (gas-turbine engine) were used in a marine environment. Although such engines, suitably modified, had been installed in ships with some success, their transition into Hovercraft brought out their extreme vulnerability to saltwater corrosion. By its very nature the air-cushion vehicle generates a great deal of spray when it is hovering over water, and the spray is drawn into the intakes of gas turbines in amounts not envisaged by the engine designer. Even after considerable filtering, the moisture and salt content is high enough to corrode large modern gas-turbine engines to such an extent that they need a daily wash with pure water and even then have a considerably reduced life span between overhauls.

      The costs of engine overhauls and skirt maintenance and repairs have probably been the main factors retarding the advancement of air-cushion vehicles. Skirt development proceeded extremely rapidly in the first decade after SR.N1. Jet-engine corrosion may be solved by new materials or possibly by intake design to limit spray ingestion. In the meantime, some manufacturers are bypassing the gas-turbine difficulty by using high-speed marine diesel engines in multiple units. These are cheaper, more economical to run, and relatively free from corrosion problems but for a given power output are considerably heavier than their gas-turbine counterparts.

      The history of the air-cushion vehicle principle also includes the use of air-cushion support in other applications, both for transportation and for support as such. These include air-cushion transporters, trains, and even beds.

Design, construction, and operation

      The basic elements of an air-cushion vehicle are a hull, beneath which a skirt system is attached and on which accommodation for passengers, crew, and freight is built; a propulsion system; and a lift system that feeds air into the plenum chamber below the craft in order to provide a cushion. The propulsion and lift systems can be driven by the same power plant or by separate units. If a common power plant is used, the system is known as an integrated lift-propulsion system. Some early craft had only one airflow generating system, which was used for both lift and propulsion, but optimum efficiency for both requirements was difficult to achieve simultaneously, and separate systems are generally used.

      The power-to-weight ratio is as critical at the design stage of an ACV as it is in an aircraft. In the ACV it determines not only the payload and performance of the craft but also the ground clearance between the surface and the skirt. The greater the ground clearance, the more efficiently the propulsion forces available can be used. Theoretical design operating weights are essential for comparison and evaluation purposes, but in practice it has been found that air-cushion vehicles can be overloaded by as much as 100 percent of the design payload and still operate.

      To obtain the best power-to-weight-to-strength relationships, structural fabrication of air-cushion vehicles has been based more on aviation than on marine practices. Hull structures are of marine aluminum skin, welded or riveted onto aluminum webs or frames. The enclosed spaces are usually sealed so that the airtight compartments thus formed provide natural buoyancy. More recent craft have aluminum honeycomb paneling separated by frames to provide the basic buoyancy raft, and considerable areas of glass-fibre structure also have been incorporated.

      Early craft had a hole located near the centre of the buoyancy raft through which air was fed to the plenum chamber beneath, but the development of skirt and other techniques led to the ducting of fan air to the edge of the raft, where it was fed downward into the plenum chamber in the manner of a peripheral jet.

Skirt arrangements

      Skirts themselves have developed from a simple curtain designed to enclose the cushion into complicated geometric shapes that contain the cushion, duct the air, and, in some cases, provide a degree of secondary suspension. The simple curtain was quickly replaced by what is now known as a bag skirt. In the shape of a semicircle, this is fastened around the perimeter of the craft; the lower edge is taken inward and upward and is fastened inboard, below the hull. The inflated skirt forms a semicircular cross section. If air is fed through ducts in the top hull so that it inflates the skirt and then is allowed to escape through holes on the inside edge of the bag into the plenum area, the skirt acts as natural ducting, and by varying the size of the holes it is possible to vary the pressure ratio of bag inflation to plenum pressure.

      The problem with bag skirts is that the lowest part of the bag quickly wears away, and the bag itself tears, allowing air to escape and releasing the cushion pressure. In 1965 it was decided to lengthen the bag skirt by suspending a curtain-type skirt from it. But instead of a straightforward curtain arrangement, the skirt was split into small segments, each of which acted independently from the others. This segmented, or finger-type, addition to the basic bag skirt became the version most commonly used because worn segments could be replaced quickly and economically and because the independent action of each finger allowed the whole skirt to conform much more closely to the operating surface beneath, reducing drag and air-cushion losses.

      Materials used in the skirts have varied from the original rubberized fabric, through pure rubber and nylon, to a lamination of nylon and a proprietary plastic known as neoprene. Bondings between the different layers have to be especially strong; otherwise the fabric delaminates under the severe conditions of wear and loses its tear resistance.

Power plants

      Power plants used for air-cushion vehicles are generally gas-turbine engines; (gas-turbine engine) the output shaft is driven by a turbine that is not mechanically connected to the main compressor-turbine assembly. In this way the engine can be independent of the fan or propeller that it drives, and the free turbine will not begin to rotate until gas from the engine is allowed to pass over its vanes. This allows the craft to remain stationary and on the ground until the driver decides to move, even though the engines are delivering power. The fans used to provide air pressure for lift are usually of the centrifugal type, in which air is fed in through the centre and driven out at considerably higher pressure around the circumference. Propellers (propeller) are generally similar to those used for aircraft, although, because the air-cushion vehicles travel in the 0–60-knot speed range and can move in reverse, a standard aircraft propeller designed to operate best at higher speeds is inefficient. Hovercraft propellers can be fixed or mounted on swiveling pylons, which allow the craft to be maneuvered quite accurately, independently of the rudders (rudder) on which fixed propellers rely. Rudder effectiveness depends to some extent on the forward speed of the craft, and at very low speeds rudders are not efficient as a means of turning.

      Other propulsion methods that have been tried in the past include ducted fans, which are quieter than normal propellers but tend to be large and cumbersome. Sidewall craft can be propelled by water screws or by water jets.

ACV operation

      Operations on which air-cushion vehicles have been used have been largely confined to commercial passenger-carrying ferry services across stretches of water, varying between 3 and 25 miles (5 to 40 kilometres) wide, and to certain military operations. Although scheduled services have been run for experimental periods in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Italy, it is only in Britain and France that such services have survived longer than a season. By the early 1970s, a 170-ton car-carrying craft was so well established on routes across the English Channel that a considerable amount of traffic was being taken from sea ferries, and air services were virtually closed down.

      Nonpassenger civil applications also have been found. Craft have been successfully used for seismic survey parties, either over shallow-water areas or in the desert, and in search-and-rescue operations from international airfields at Vancouver, B.C., Can., at Auckland, N.Z., and at San Francisco.

      Military uses have been more diverse. The main British use has been as a troop carrier during amphibious assaults and as a logistics follow-up craft during the post-assault period. The United States Army used the Hovercraft successfully in actual operations in Vietnam, both as a patrol craft and as a means of covering the vast area of marsh and paddy field that surrounds the Mekong delta. Later military uses included mine-countermeasure work, antisubmarine work, aircraft carrying, and missile launching.

      The mainstream of Hovercraft development as such has remained in Britain (United Kingdom). Although U.S. firms built experimental craft in the mid-1960s, American interest declined as the pressure of the Vietnam War tended to encourage technologists to improve their established disciplines rather than develop new ones. Other countries also dropped out when the technical difficulties of skirts and the lift-propulsion system became too great for the financial or technical resources available.

      The three British companies that pioneered ACV manufacturing merged their ACV interests in the 1960s into one company known as the British Hovercraft Corporation.

      Cockerell's patent and other patents were taken up by a subsidiary of the National Research Development Corporation, a peculiarly British body set up to encourage the funding and backing of inventions. The subsidiary was known as Hovercraft Development Ltd., and, because of the patents that it held, it could control the manufacture of skirted air-cushion vehicles not only in Britain but in many other countries of the world.

      The line along which ACVs developed was:

SR.N1 (1959) 3 ¹/₂ to 7 tons, single engine, ducted fan propulsion; speeds between 25 and 50 knots.

SR.N2 (1962) 19 tons, four engines driving two pylon-mounted air propellers; speed about 73 knots.

SR.N3 (1963) 37 ¹/₂ tons, four engines driving two pylon-mounted air propellers; speed about 75 knots.

SR.N5 (1964) 3 ¹/₂ tons, one engine driving a fixed, variable-pitch propeller; speed about 50 knots. Capacity, 18 passengers.

SR.N6 (1965) 4 ¹/₂ tons, one engine driving a fixed, variable-pitch propeller; speed about 60 knots. Capacity, 38 passengers.

SR.N4 (1968) 177 tons, four engines driving four pylon-mounted air propellers; speed 65 knots. Capacity, 30 cars and 254 passengers.

BH.7 (1969) 48 tons, one engine driving a pylon-mounted air propeller; speed about 65 knots. Capacity, 72 passengers and six cars (although the first three craft delivered were purely military versions).

      Those somewhat bare statistics suggest the burst of creative energy in the Hovercraft field in the early 1960s and the subsequent slowing down and rationalization of craft into practical machines. In the period between 1960 and 1964, some six other companies in the world also were building their own prototypes or large-scale models, but because of technology problems many of these were never followed up by production models.

      The exceptions were in the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and France. Little is known about Soviet ACV development, except that after some five years of trials large passenger craft were operated on the Volga River in 1969 and that military craft were tested in the Black Sea in 1970.

      A French company, formed in 1965, built two amphibious craft that, carrying up to 90 passengers, operated a commercial service based at Nice in 1969. The French designs are basically the same as any other amphibious craft with the major exception of the skirts, which are grouped together in a series of “mini-skirts” side-by-side along the length of the craft. Compartmentalizing the cushion in this way is said to improve stability and directional control. In the early 1970s it was announced that a larger craft, based on similar principles and carrying 32 cars and 260 passengers, would be put into production.

      The development of nonamphibious Hovercraft along the sidewall principle began in 1962. For various reasons the manufacturer halted production, but the idea of a fast, essentially marine-oriented craft continued to appeal to designers, and a company known as Hovermarine was formed in 1965 to build a smaller sidewall craft, some 12 of which were sold. This is the HM.2, which carries about 65 passengers and is designed for short and medium ferry routes. Mechanical and skirt-design problems caused difficulties that led to liquidation of the British parent company, but in 1970 an American company took over the HM.2, and it appeared that its future would be assured. The basic advantage of sidewall craft is that, since they are purely marine, it is possible to equip them with marine propellers and operate them in the same way as high-speed boats. Nevertheless, because a great part of their weight when under way is supported by an air cushion, they can be classified as air-cushion machines.

      It is along these lines (sidewall craft propelled by marine methods) that two American manufacturers have designed much larger craft under government contracts. The first versions are 100-ton test craft, which will be used to evaluate the potential of multithousand-ton surface effect ships. The two models are somewhat similar in appearance; both are powered by six gas turbines. One craft uses propellers, the other water-jet propulsion. Another U.S. military application, an amphibious assault landing craft for the navy, offers potential uses in commercial operations.

Other applications

Air-cushion trains

      Once air-cushion suspension was proved practical in Hovercraft, the system was quickly applied to other forms of transport, and it soon became clear that a tracked vehicle, similar to a train or monorail, would benefit considerably from the lack of friction inherent in an air-cushion system. A French company was the first in the world to produce a practical device, and a later version of its machine was considered for a high-speed link between Orléans and Paris by the mid-1970s. The system used air-cushion pads above and at the side of a single concrete track to support the “aerotrain,” while propulsion was via a large ducted fan mounted at the rear.

      In Britain tracked air-cushion vehicle development is also under way, with construction of a “Hovertrain,” propelled by a relatively silent linear induction motor that has no moving parts and picks up current as it moves along the track.

      Research also is proceeding in other countries. Air-cushion trains have speed potentials of up to 300 miles (480 kilometres) per hour; track costs are relatively low because of the simple concrete structure involved, which can be elevated on pylons, laid on the surface, or sunk in tunnels. Engineers in Britain, the United States, France, and Germany see this kind of high-speed surface transport as a means of connecting large urban centres with each other and with international airports.

Industrial applications

      The other major area in which air-cushion technology has proved itself useful is in moving loads over surfaces that would be impossible for wheeled or tracked vehicles. One of the first of these applications was an air-cushion amphibious military vehicle. Another was an air-cushion truck built in France. Air-cushion load lifters for specialized applications were already in regular use in the early 1970s. One of the first was a British heavy-load carrier, designed specifically for the transport of large electrical transformers over bridges that were not stressed for the weights involved when normal wheeled transport was used. The transformers, weighing up to 300 tons, must be transported by road from the factory to the often remote power-station site. The costs of strengthening bridges sufficiently to take the load are far higher than those of fitting a special skirt and air-blower system to a conventional truck.

      Similar systems on a smaller scale have been developed for transport of many types of unusual loads over awkward ground. They find particular application in the Arctic regions, where roads are often lacking and where oil-drill rigs are being constructed or where surveying is being carried out. Air-cushion vehicles have shown a large economic advantage over helicopters.

      On an even smaller scale, air-cushion pallets are used in many industries in the United States and Britain to carry heavy loads across factory floors or along production lines. Again the main benefit is the reducing of strain on floors and the ease of propulsion with reduced friction.

      One unique form of air suspension may be employed in hospitals (hospital). The Hover-bed is a device on which a patient is supported with the minimum of body contact and surface pressure. The bed is being tested by the British Medical Research Council and is expected to be of particular use in cases in which the patient is burned over a large area of the body. Air support in such cases not only relieves pressure and pain but also provides a film of sterile air that actually helps to heal the wound.

Sporting Hovercraft

      Still another application promises to be that of recreation. In the mid-1960s enthusiasts in many parts of the world began to build their own Hovercraft, powered by automotive engines and using homemade propellers, fans, and skirts.

      By the 1970s Hover clubs existed in more than seven countries. The movement is probably most active in Britain, followed by the United States and Australia. Of the several hundred amateur-built craft, a few were capable of operating successfully over both land and water with more than one person aboard. Although power plants and other equipment are readily adaptable, the problem of providing sufficient lift was considerable. A craft capable of lifting 200 pounds (90 kilograms) needs a cushion area of 8 × 4 feet (2.4 × 1.2 metres). When weights of 1,000 pounds are involved, the area must be much greater. Another inhibiting factor in the sport's growth is the restrictions in most countries on operating air-cushion craft in public areas.

The future

      Air-cushion vehicles have not yet fulfilled their original promise. Conventional skirted craft have not yet been shown to be completely economical in commercial use, although in certain military applications they are almost ideal. The ram-wing craft described earlier shows promise for over-water routes.

      One area of research in which manufacturers began concentrating in the 1970s is that of secondary suspension systems to iron out skirt undulations and possibly reduce spray ingestion.

John Beresford Bentley

Additional Reading

Bill Gunston, Hydrofoils and Hovercraft (1969), is a comprehensive, easy-to-understand survey that is well illustrated and includes a glossary of terms and a table of major Hovercraft and ACVs. More technical, requiring some college-level mathematics, is G.H. Elsley and A.J. Devereux, Hovercraft Design and Construction (1968), an excellent textbook, based on lectures given at the Isle of Wight Technical College, which deals with the theory and practice of ACV building. Robert L. Trillo, Marine Hovercraft Technology (1971), covers operational problems to a greater extent. See also Jane's High-Speed Marine Craft (annual), a review of ACVs and hydrofoils, providing technical details of available craft, operators, and consultants; and Hoverfoil News (bimonthly), a review of the state of Hovercraft art, including the design, construction, and operation of ACVs of all sizes.John Beresford Bentley Ed.

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