At 3:42 PM 4/14/5, Robin van Spaandonk wrote: >A Kevlar 49 cord just 1 mm in diameter would be strong enough, not >counting the weight of the kite, but you would have 2 cords, and >they would only contribute an extra 50 kg each to the weight. The >cord would be about 50 km long. An aluminium wire with an area of >1 mm^2 would have a resistance of about 1.3 k ohm over that >distance, but would only lose about 1.3% of the transmitted power >if carrying 10 A at 1 MV (DC) (2.6% when taking the return wire >into consideration). The Al wires would add an extra 270 kg to the >weight. > >This would seem to be feasible, and there is plenty of latitude in >the choice of parameters, mostly due to the strength of kevlar 49, >however generating 1 MV might be a bit difficult. >Lower voltages are going to increase the weight of the conductors, >though dropping to 0.5 MV might make a lot of difference in >difficulty.
Air ionization losses could be prevented by using DC transmission, and encapsulating the wire with woven kevlar impregnated with insulating material, possibly including a thin surface layer of insulation. Regards, Horace Heffner
