P5 3 Iron Man: I Am ... Powered?

Abstract

Iron Man's suit is capable of sustained flight using compact repulsors located in the hands and feet. In this paper, we investigate the power required for Iron Man’s suit to hover. This is done using a simplified physical model which applies thrust balance and actuator-disc momentum theory. We treat the four repulsors as discs of radius r = 0.03 m and take a combined mass of the suit and wearer as 85.2 kg. Using the combined mass, we show that hovering requires a thrust of 836 N, an ideal power of 145 kW and an input power of 290 kW, at an assumed efficiency of 50%. Reducing the outlet area significantly increases the power required, thus smaller outlets are shown to be very costly. Hovering with small outlets increases the difficulty of achieving sustained flight with a compact, wearable propulsion system.