Author Topic: British official ALSR at 763.035mph there new Bloodhound SSC 1000mph effort  (Read 32801 times)

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Blown Alcohol 57tbird

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It is interesting to me that they have chosen forged titanium for their wheels.  Aside from the exorbitant cost, it will be difficult to find a vendor to make the large forgings with proper process control.  Looking at the stress and the strength/density ratios of various materials, everyone on our team came to the conclusion that any metal was marginal over 800, while Breedlove's hybrid design had far higher margins.


Eric

The titanium wheels are a very high cost deal and as you say finding a vendor to make the forgings with proper process control may be difficult. Richard Noble has all resources and funding for his project advanced technology and science

Blown Alcohol 57tbird

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Blue

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The titanium wheels are a very high cost deal and as you say finding a vendor to make the forgings with proper process control may be difficult. Richard Noble has all resources and funding for his project advanced technology and science
I brought this up since they say in their own release on the subject that they have no vendor yet.  It's better to stick with readily available technology, especially when there are simpler and cheaper options available that are more than twice the strength.

Blown Alcohol 57tbird

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« Last Edit: January 24, 2009, 07:55:43 PM by Blown Alcohol 57tbird »


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Science News
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/10/23/the.groundbreaking.science.behind.what.aims.be.fastest.vehicle.all.time

The groundbreaking science behind what aims to be the fastest vehicle of all time


The world record bid again teams Andy, the current record holder and first man to drive a supersonic vehicle on land with Head of the Design Team and former world record holder Richard Noble. It is aiming to develop the first land speed vehicle that breaks the 1,000 mph barrier and will have its design underpinned through world-class research from some of the UK's top laboratories. The scientists at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have worked with the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) and Fluid Gravity Engineering (FGE) to advise the world-record bid team on two of the most high-risk aspects of the world record attempt – wheel and rocket designs.

The wheels are arguably the most important design feature for the vehicle. To reach 1,000 mph they need to be able to rotate at 10,500 rpm without being damaged by the surface or any stones that they run over. They also need to be as light as possible to minimise steering and suspension forces, absorb all of the weight, down force loads and stresses and distribute this pressure without causing damage to the vehicle or the surface.

To make sure that none of these issues were a risk NPL spent the last year examining every aspect of the wheel design. Its materials experts researched the choice of metals and composites that could be used in the design, providing reports on titanium and aluminium alloys, and metal composites. This will help to advise the team on what materials are most compatible to the wheel size, brake and suspension requirements. NPL also worked with AWE and FGE in considering the effect that shockwaves would have on the wheel design, and advised on the best way to manufacture the wheels.

After advising on wheel designs, NPL and FGE then needed to examine how to provide the thrust and power to ensure that the wheels could rotate fast enough and sustain their speed – by thoroughly understanding the rocket design. The vehicle will have the first ever mixed powerplant of a hybrid rocket motor and a jet engine that is currently used on the Eurofighter Typhoon. It uses cutting edge jet technology to provide the initial thrust and the novel rocket impulse to achieve the 1,000 mph target.

As this is a totally new vehicle powerplant concept, NPL and FGE needed to develop a modelling tool to understand the hybrid combustion process and simulate the internal motor ballistics. This could then provide data for the design team to compare to their own tests done with 6 inch rocket firings and enable considerable developments to the basic hybrid design. This will help to optimise the injector design, oxidiser streams into the fuel grain, radiation transfer, regression rates and rocket motor exhaust. NPL also provided advice on the type of materials to be used in the rocket design, how high temperatures would affect them, what the best material would be for rocket nozzles and how all of these should be produced.

Brian Chapman, Project Leader for NPL, said:

"When you're travelling at 1,000 mph you don't want to be worrying about your motor holding out or whether your tyres are up to it. That's why NPL – with FGE and AWE – have spent the last year looking at every eventuality for both the wheel and the rocket motor designs. We have been closely examining the effect that materials properties will have on the rocket performance, the size and weight the wheels need to be to sustain the speed, and environmental effects such as a high speed impact with a small piece of debris could have. We're confident that our work will help to ensure that Richard and Andy are able to safely oversee another successful world record attempt for the UK, and go faster than ever before."

Richard Noble, Project Director of The BLOODHOUND Project, said:

"On behalf of The BLOODHOUND Team, I would like to thank NPL, FGE, AWE and the MOD for undertaking this valuable work which has underpinned the rest of the early research for BLOODHOUND SSC and given us the confidence to proceed. With the help of experts like these we are sure that our world record attempt can be a success, and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers in the UK."

The analysis is now being assessed by the BLOODHOUND design team and the Ministry of Defence as the funding organisation.


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 The Engineer
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/Article.aspx?liArticleID=308550

 Building the bullet



The technical team working on the UK's new world land speed record bid has given The Engineer an exclusive insight into the huge challenges facing the project.

Andy Green will defend his title as fastest man on land in 2011 when he attempts to break the land speed record for a second time.

In 1997 the former RAF pilot whizzed across the Nevada desert in a jet-propelled car at 763mph. Now he is looking to reach 1,000mph.

The £10m bid has attracted support from some of the UK's top engineers and scientists under the umbrella of a private venture called the Bloodhound Project. The three-year mission, led by former land speed record holder Richard Noble, will build a 12.8m long, 6,422kg fuelled, jet and rocket-powered vehicle that will be as tough as a submarine and faster than a speeding bullet.

Researchers from the UK's National Physical Laboratory have been working hard for the past year to make sure that the wheels do not, literally, fall off the entire project. The NPL, with researchers at the Atomic Weapons Establishment and Fluid Gravity Engineering (FGE) have advised the world-record bid team on the Bloodhound supersonic car's wheel and rocket designs, two of the most high-risk aspects of the world record attempt.

Brian Chapman, project leader from the NPL, said the wheels are the most important design feature of the vehicle. In order to get up to 1,000mph, he said, the wheels need to rotate at 10,500rpm and they will experience 50,000 times the force of gravity at their rims. They would need to withstand any damage by the surface or stones they run over. Yet they would also need to be as light as possible to minimise steering and suspension forces.

The wheels on the previous world record-holding vehicle, called the Thrust SSC, would be inadequate for this project, he said.

'The Thrust SSC used aluminium alloy wheels and we didn't believe that material would be suitable to go another 30 per cent faster,' he said.

Materials experts at the NPL in Middlesex researched a choice of metals and composites that could be used in the design, providing reports on titanium and aluminium alloys and metal composites. Each design was put through an advanced computational fluid dynamics program developed at the facility.

The researchers considered the effects shockwaves would have on the wheels as the vehicle sped up and broke through the sound barrier. They decided the sturdiest design for the wheel was a 90cm diameter titanium disc.

The remaining challenge for the Bloodhound team is finding someone who can manufacture it. 'One of the problems with the titanium disc is we can't find anybody to forge it because it is so big,' said Green, a mathematician who is not only a driver but also an essential part of the Bloodhound design team.

'We are looking to get that forging done fairly soon so we can then find somebody else who can spin something that big and heavy to 10,500rpm to prove all the stress modelling works out.'

If the titanium discs do not materialise, the Bloodhound team is considering a lightweight composite version of the wheel with a carbon fibre interior and aluminium exterior. 'No one has ever made anything like that before,' said Green.

While the wheels are obviously vital, but the only way the vehicle will reach 1,000mph is with a new propulsion system, thus the concept of a new mixed powerplant of a hybrid rocket motor and a jet engine that is now used on the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Green said there has only been one other vehicle to break the land speed record using rocket propulsion — the US-designed Blue Flame in 1970 that used liquid fuels.

The new rocket motor, termed a hybrid because it uses solid and liquid fuel, 'is going to give us the raw power combined with the jet to get us up to a new record-breaking speed,' he said.

The hybrid rocket motor, which measures 46cm in diameter and 4.5m long, is the largest of its type the UK has ever produced. The jet will take the car from a standstill to 350mph, then the rocket will be used for a short burn time of 20 seconds with both engines accelerating the car to its peak speed.


The motor will rely on high test peroxide as its oxidiser and an aromatic rubber substance called hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene as the fuel.

A pump, powered by a V-12 petrol engine, will inject 50kg of peroxide, enough to fill four household buckets, into the motor.

A new modelling tool, developed by the NPL and FGE, enabled the design team to understand the hybrid combustion process and simulate the internal motor ballistics. This data was then compared to tests done with 15cm diameter models of the rocket.

Chapman said this information has helped the Bloodhound team optimise such details as the injector design, oxidiser streams into the fuel grain, radiation transfer and rocket motor exhaust.

'That's something you could only do by understanding the propulsion system and modelling it using algorithms and computational fluid dynamics.'
Whether all this work will be enough to help the Bloodhound car reach 1,000mph remains to be seen.

'However,' said Green, 'we have every reason to believe that all the technical solutions we've found so far can do that.'

Siobhan Wagner


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  Laboratory Design
http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000100&ISSUE=0810&RELTYPE=SOFT&PRODCODE=00000000&PRODLETT=AJ&CommonCount=0


   World class UK research is helping to build the fastest car in the world thanks to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The BLOODHOUND SSC Project, led by Richard Noble OBE, is aiming to set a new world land speed record of a thousand miles per hour by 2011.

The challenge at the heart of the project is to create a car capable of 1,000mph - a car 30% faster than any car that has gone before.

An aerodynamics team at Swansea University—funded by EPSRC—is playing a vital role. Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), the team has spent the last year creating the predictive airflow data that has shaped the car.

In time, the research could lead to better vehicle or aircraft design, improved fuel efficiencies, and even new medical techniques.

"From the nose to the tail, anything that has any kind of aerodynamic influence we are modelling," says researcher Dr. Ben Evans—who as a school boy watched the Thrust SSC record on TV.

"It's the kind of thing aerospace engineers would have traditionally done in a wind tunnel, but we're doing it on a computer, a big multi-processor super computer. Wind tunnels have massive limitations. BLOODHOUND SSC is a car, so it's rolling on the ground and there are no wind tunnels in existence where you can simulate a rolling ground with a car travelling faster than mach one, faster than the speed of sound."

This 'mach factor' is the major difference between this vehicle and its predecessor Thrust SSC. Thrust SSC was a supersonic car in that it crossed the sound barrier and was supersonic for a matter of seconds.

But with BLOODHOUND, the target speed is 1,000mph—mach 1.4. It will be going supersonic way beyond mach one, and for a much longer time period, which means the supersonic shockwaves it creates will be far stronger than Thrust SSC, and they will interact with the car and the desert floor for much longer.

"Once you start approaching, and go beyond the speed of sound, you can no longer send a pressure wave forward to tell the air ahead of you you're coming," explains Evans.

"What happens is a big pressure wall builds up in front of you. Rather than air slowly and smoothly getting out of the way, at supersonic speeds these changes happen very suddenly in a shockwave."

Supersonic aircraft create these shockwaves and they dissipate in the surrounding atmosphere but still reach the ground as a 'sonic boom'.

Evans adds: "What we're trying to understand is what happens when this shockwave interacts with a solid surface which is a matter of centimetres away."

What the team do know is this 'interaction' creates a phenomenon known as 'spray drag'—a term first coined by BLOODHOUND team member and aerodynamicist Ron Ayers during the Thrust SSC attempts.

Spray drag is an additional drag component not accounted for in aerodynamic or rolling resistance theory.

"As the car interacts with the desert, and the shockwaves interact with the desert, they actually eat up the desert floor," says Evans.

"That introduces sand particles into the aerodynamic flow around the car and this interaction is not accounted for in standard CFD work. We plan to look at this spray drag phenomena, what happens and when, and how the sand particles impinge on the car."

The Swansea team is also looking at key systems in isolation. Work has already changed the car from twin to single air intake for stability.

The car will also sport solid titanium wheels with twin 'keels': "That was fundamentally an aerodynamic design decision," says Evans. "We studied different design options, a single keel running down the centre of the wheel, a design that had three keels and finally the one we went for with two keels. It was chosen as a compromise between lift and drag patterns and minimising the pressure disturbance around the wheel on the desert surface.

"Another thing we have been looking at closely is the exact nose shape. We want a nose that constantly generates a small down force on the front to help keep the car on the ground. But we're also constantly looking a how we can minimise spray drag and if we can constantly achieve a positive pressure on the desert surface leading up to the front wheels then hopefully the surface will remain intact until the front wheels roll over it."

But Evans and the team also remain focused on the wider aims of the project and the application of their research in other areas.

"The whole point of doing this is not just to create a fast car. We live in a carbon economy and lots of the issues we face will require engineers and scientists to solve them – part of this project is to inspire young people."

And sat at his desk in Swansea he has a constant reminder of the potential of CFD.

"Some of my university colleagues are working on blood flow monitoring through the arterial system and trying to predict when aneurysms will explode through pressure loadings.

"On one side of the office we have pictures of Bloodhound and on the other we have pictures of blood flow through the heart.

"There are the obvious applications in aerospace, but any application you can think of that involves fluid flow can be modelled using CFD. Biomechanical systems seems to be one of the areas CFD is being applied to now."

An 18 minute podcast featuring the science and engineering behind the project is available on the EPSRC website.

SOURCE: The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)





 
 
 

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 EDGE New England (Jan 16 2009)
http://www.edgenewengland.com/index.php?ch=style&sc=life&sc2=news&sc3=&id=85803

Engineers plan to design, build supersonic car that will top 1,000 mph


The wheels need to be made of solid titanium, the cockpit must be completely airtight - and the driver’s nerves made of steel.

A team of British engineers recently announced plans to shatter the world’s land speed record by creating a car that can travel more than 1,000 mph - more than 200 mph faster than the record they set in 1997.

The man tapped to sit behind the wheel is Wing Commander Andy Green, who steered the "Thrust supersonic car" across Nevada’s Blackrock Desert to its record-setting success.

The Royal Air Force pilot said he wasn’t worried.

"The jets, the very high speeds, the complex systems, the quick responses, handling a 10-ton vehicle, that is something I’m used to," Green said in a telephone interview. "Mentally it doesn’t faze me; physically I’m used to it."

The car’s carbon-fiber cockpit is intended to slice through the air and reduce the shock of reaching Mach 1.4, 40 percent faster than the speed of sound. The vehicle will be airtight - otherwise air could be sucked out of the cabin like a vacuum cleaner. The car’s wheels will be made of titanium to withstand the dizzying number of turns.

"Your regular passenger car going down the motorway will go an average 1,500 revolutions per minute," said John Piper, the project’s engineering director.

"Our wheels are going 10,500 revolutions per minute, and for that reason we aren’t using pneumatic tires. They would disintegrate with the centrifugal force of it spinning at that speed."

Aside from the vehicle’s five wheels - four for riding, one for steering - there’s very little of the regular passenger car in the planned 42-foot-long "Bloodhound supersonic car." The vehicle will be powered by an EJ200 jet engine used to fly Eurofighter Typhoon airplanes, and come mounted with a Falcon rocket.

"Basically the jet engine is used to start the car rolling," said Daniel Jubb, the man responsible for the rocket’s design. Once the car hits around 300 mph, Jubb said, the rocket would kick in, blasting it, he hopes, to a record.

The entire run, expected to last just under a minute and a half, will burn so much fuel that the car will end up weighing 2.2 tons less than when it started, according to Piper.

At those speeds, the engineers said the slightest gust of wind or the most minute turn of the steering wheel could send the vehicle veering dangerously off course.

Piper said the biggest challenge would be "keeping the car stable, keeping the car on its wheel and steering straight."

"It should come as no surprise we’ve got a fast jet fighter pilot to drive the car," Piper said. "He’ll need all of his fast jet skill and reactions to drive what is a really dangerous vehicle."

Green said the steering wheel would be specially modified to make smaller adjustments to the car’s heading - nudging the vehicle’s wheels left and right to "act like tiny little rudders in the airflow."

Stopping the vehicle is another challenge: Two parachutes will be deployed to kill its momentum, but it’s only after its speed drops below 200 mph that Green can hit the hydraulic brakes.

So far, the car exists only on paper - but organizers said they hoped a model could be tested in October.

"It’s still in its design stages, but we’ve got the engines secured," said Peter McAllister, a spokesman for the project. "It’s just a case of building it now."

More than 300 companies and universities are taking part in the project, including Swansea University in Wales and the University of West England in Bristol, where it is based.

Green is still scouting for places to test the car out. He said years of unusually dry weather had degraded the Blackrock Desert, making it unsuitable for the super-fast trial. Meanwhile, he said he was up for the challenge.

"One of our senior doctors told me: ’The driver of this car is going to be cooked, vibrated, acoustically deafened, subjected to enormous G-forces which will both disorientate and threaten to make him black out,’ " Green said.

"To put that in perspective, that’s exactly what it’s like in a jet cockpit. I’m using the day job skills in what is the ultimate holiday job - driving the world’s fastest car."


« Last Edit: January 25, 2009, 08:16:41 PM by Blown Alcohol 57tbird »

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Curventa Go Supersonic with Bloodhound SSC


Curventa a London based product development company, can now finally tell the world about their biggest secret... Bloodhound SSC, the next world land speed record attempt from Richard Noble.

The Bloodhound SSC project is a three year mission to create the fastest car the world has ever seen - one capable of braking the 1000mph barrier. That's five times faster than an F1 racing car and even quicker than the bullet fired from Dirty Harry's Magnum.

Curventa have been working with Richard Noble's team from the very start, helping his chief aerodynamacist Ron Ayres develop his designs into 3D data and creating photorealistic images for marketing materials and capital finance. "We are one of the first product sponsors of Bloodhound SSC and continue to proudly support this project" said Ian Murison, Director.


Bloodhound SSC is being designed to hit 1050mph - that's 287mph faster than the current record, set by Andy Green in Thrust SSC in 1997. No-one has ever increased the land speed record by this amount and no aircraft has made it to this speed at low altitude.

The long term goal is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers - those who will help us overcome the many challenges of the future.


« Last Edit: January 27, 2009, 11:39:03 PM by Blown Alcohol 57tbird »

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Richard Noble, OBE
Challenger, Entrepreneur, Record Breaker, Motivational Speaker

http://www.richard-noble.com/



 
« Last Edit: January 28, 2009, 08:33:15 PM by Blown Alcohol 57tbird »

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  New updates from Bloodhound


January 2009 - The character of BLOODHOUND becomes clear
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news.cfm?widCall1=customWidgets.contentItem_show_1&cit_id=4343


Desert Search - Australia
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news.cfm?widCall1=customWidgets.contentItem_show_1&cit_id=4341



Twitter/Bloodhound
http://twitter.com/BLOODHOUND_SSC

The Aussies are working on a car capable of 700 + miles an hour - the Aussie Invader 5R, now we have a serious race on our hands!
« Last Edit: January 29, 2009, 07:47:19 PM by Blown Alcohol 57tbird »

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 More updates

Visioneering delivers full size mock-up components

On Thursday 22nd Jan 2009 The BLOODHOUND Team welcomed the arrival of the first full-size mock-up components to the University of the West of England (UWE) courtesy of Visioneering, - the engineering design concept company.

Working closely with the BLOODHOUND design team, Visioneering have produced the major components for a full size mock up of BLOODHOUND SSC, to be assembled at our temporary home at UWE.

Building the life-size replica of BLOODHOUND SSC will help the design team address any component packaging challenges ahead of building the real Land Speed Record Car.

The mock-up is comprised of a steel base system, CNC cut wooden frames and CNC foam EJ200, and will gradually be populated with space claim parts.

Visioneering have served the worldwide Aerospace, Automotive, Marine, Defence and Medical industries for over 55 years and, were commended for their contribution to the recent JCB Dieselmax land speed record project.




Newburgh Engineering Co Ltd to machine BLOODHOUND SSC

At almost 13 meters long with major chassis components of over seven meters that will need CNC machining over their entire length - there are only so many places in the UK with the equipment required to accommodate the machining of these large parts of BLOODHOUND SSC.

Newburgh, based in Rotherham, boasts an impressive range of capabilities; from rapid prototyping of small five axis parts to CNC machining of primary assemblies as big as those of BLOODHOUND SSC.

With customers in defence, aerospace, offshore and many other sectors as well as experience in machining parts for cruise missiles, torpedoes and complex aircraft applications, Newburgh are ideally placed to work to the very high standards that are essential on The BLOODHOUND Project.

Newburgh will be providing vital design for manufacture advice and CNC machining services to The BLOODHOUND Project.




Goodridge (UK) Ltd to plumb 1,000mph car

Exeter-based Goodridge (UK) Ltd, world leaders in fluid and gas transfer technology, have signed a product sponsorship deal to supply the gas and fluid transfer requirements of The BLOODHOUND Project.

With a car as complex as BLOODHOUND SSC - where we are moving fluids over its entire length - the transferring of: HTP Rocket Fuel, Jet A Fuel, Unleaded fuel, hydraulic fluid, oil cooling system, water for cooling, nitrogen, fire suppression system, breathing air delivery and rocket quenching systems represents a significant project in its own right.

Goodridge (UK) Ltd will also be supplying their team’s invaluable expertise and support throughout the project.





Diamond Point International (Europe) Ltd products to drive Computing on BLOODHOUND SSC

This week, we are pleased to announce that Diamond Point International (Europe) Ltd, Industrial computing specialists based in Rochester, will be providing key electronic control systems for BLOOHOUND SSC. 

This essential support provides us with multi channel data acquisition capabilities and the multiple Athena II processors both critical components for the development of the Land Speed Record Car’s highly complex control system.

Diamond Point International (Europe) Ltd has been established in the UK since 1983 and is at the forefront of industrial computing technology.



http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news.cfm

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