team gravition

Challenge

Venus is called earth’s twin because of their similarity in size and structure. But with its sulfuric acid clouds, temperature of over 450°C, and surface pressure of 92 bar, is one of the most hostile planetary environments in the solar system. Due to this, Venus is facing problem regarding energy storage system for a long time. Previous missions to the surface of Venus have failed to operate for more than two hours. As the currently available batteries cannot operate in the extreme environment, our main challenge is to design an energy storage system that supports a surface lander or rover on the surface of Venus for at least 60 days.

Our project goal

Considering all the circumstances, we are bringing a combined solution, Venus Hybrid Energy Storage System (VHESS) which will produce energy by using INSITU CO2 which is at supercritical condition because of the Venus surface high temperature and pressure.

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We designed a gas power turbine which will take the supercritical (450 degree Celsius) CO2 by the inlet and while going through the converging nozzle the pressure of the gas increases. Then that high pressured super critical gas is flown over the turbine and thus turbine rotates. Instead of connecting the turbine shaft directly with the generator, we have taken a different approach. We have designed the shaft which would go through the flywheel chamber. The chamber is kept sealed by using two O ring on the top and the bottom of the flywheel chamber to keep the chamber vacuumed. The shaft is designed through the flywheel vacuum chamber to transmit the rotational energy from the turbine shaft to the flywheel rotor instead of converting the mechanical energy to electrical energy by the generator. Though it creates a high chance of failure in maintaining the vacuum of the flywheel chamber. But by doing this, we avoid the energy conversion. We used a conveyer belt to transmit the energy from the shaft to the flywheel rotor.

Our Team

team