Very few people have heard of Haksteen pan. It is a dry lake-bed in the Northern Cape, and lies a few kilometres East-Southeast of Rietfontein, which is just east of the Namibian border. It is, in effect, in the middle of nowhere.
But at present a team of over 300 locals are clearing the world’s longest race track – an area 18 km long by 1500 m wide – because at some stage in the near future it will play host to what is potentially the World Cup of science and engineering, when a team of engineers and scientists led by Sir Richard Noble and Andy Green bring the BloodhoundSSC project along, with the aim of smashing the world land speed record by factor of an incredible 31% - and topping the 1000mph (1609km/h) mark. This is faster than the world’s air speed record for low altitudes (994 mph).
Neither Noble or Green are strangers to record-breaking – Noble was the holder of the land speed record between 1983 and 1997, and was the project director of ThrustSSC, which saw Green drive the vehicle to the current land speed record of 1227 km/h – faster than the speed of sound - at Black Rock Desert, Nevada in 1997.
The Bloodhound crew is raving about the potential record site, especially as they’ve got the full backing of the Northern Cape Provincial Government.
“This support is vital for us. It’s been hugely refreshing to deal with a government body that understands the meaning and value of an ‘Engineering Adventure’ – and that wants to join in!,”
Bloodhound isn’t another of those vainglorious British ‘because it’s there’ projects – it aims to entice youngsters into the world of science and technology through appealing to their sense of fun and adventure.
“Somebody else will break the record within the next two or three years,” says Green, who serves in the Royal Air Force as a Wing Commander, flying Tornado jets.
“There’s a couple of US teams, one in Australian, and a New Zealand team as well. And of course us…
“As a national demonstration of science and technology, it is important for Britain, but that’s not the whole reason for doing it. When the Bloodhound team started looking into building a vehicle to improve their record, and approached potential sponsors, they discovered the one resource that many companies were short of wasn’t money, or enthusiasm, but people,” Green continues.
“Industry in the United Kingdom needs scientists and engineering graduates, but there is currently a 60 000 shortfall of them each year. In South Africa, over the past three years, there has been a 34 000 shortfall.
“The average 10 to12 year old is not interested in science and technology, and thus industry falls behind.
“They all know how to use an iPhone and a laptop, they understand why they rely on them, but not how they work’.
Green points out that his own interest with the current record holder, the ThrustSSC, brought him into the project .
“There was an article on Richard Nobel in the London Sunday Times, talking about various records potentially running in the 1990s, when they were looking for somebody to drive the car – but they thought: ‘That’s not a racing car in the normal small, slow round-in-circles way, this is the size and power of jet fighter using jet fighter engines, who are you going to find?’ I thought ‘that’s my day job!’. That’s what piqued my interest to get in touch and help out the project. It is exactly that effect that we are now working on – but not for another driver, but for a whole generation of science and technology students, who’ll ask ‘how does that work?’ and get hooked.
“The difference between the Bloodhound and, for example Formula One, is that in F1 no innovation is ever shared. With Bloodhound, everything is shared.
“Formula One has rules this thick (indicates a 15 cm stack of paper), Land Speed Record rules are simpler: The vehicle must have at least four wheels, be continuously controlled by a driver, and take two runs through the timing lights in one hour. Full stop. The end.
“It is the ultimate innovation project – you can power it with elastic bands, you can power it with a nuclear engine. You can have any number of engines, any shape, on any surface.
“Because it is so open, we can share all our innovations . All the info is on the internet. If you have a workshop, a jet engine and a long enough back yard, you could run one of these things. We are sharing because we are able to.”
The Bloodhound vehicle itself is 13.4 metres long, 2.8m high, and weighs 7780kg fully fuelled. It is powered by a system which sees the 90 kiloNewton jet engine from a Typhoon fighter provide initial thrust, which will take the Bloodhound up to 560km/h, and which is then augmented by the Falcon hybrid rocket system, which generates an additional 122 kiloNewtons of force.
Such is the demand of the Falcon engine, that the ‘fuel pump’ is actually a 600kW Cosworth Formula One engine!
The aim is to reach 1000mph in 42 seconds, and then brake, using parachutes and conventional brakes, turn the vehicle around, and then head back for a second run.
Green describes the potential run.
“The jet takes us up to 560, then the rocket fires, and adds 1000kmh to the top speed in 20 seconds – 0-1609kmh then back to stationary, 16 km away. That concept is enough to fire the average 12 year old’s imagination!
“The hybrid fuels – the main one chemically identical to aircraft tyre rubber, has the oxidiser (hydrogen peroxide) pumped into it through that Cosworth F1 engine.
Breaking it down – the peroxide causes the chain reaction, there’s an enormous increase in pressure – about 12 tons through the nozzle, thus forcing the car forward – I’ve just covered chemistry, thermodynamics, the chemical reaction which causes the car to go, Newtonians laws – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction is his Third Law, Newton’s Second Law is that the rate of acceleration is proportional to the force applied and his First Law is why I need a parachute…
“Suddenly you’ve done all fields of physics – what makes the car go? So in terms of making science exciting you don’t start by saying ‘let’s look at Newtonian physics’ you say ‘hey, let’s talk about rockets!’
“One of the primary teachers involved in a Bloodhound Education project summed it up – ‘How do you get kids to eat vegetables? You hide them in the mashed potato’
We’re hiding the science inside the sexiness of the car. We are now hiding the career interest in the potential career path of science and engineering.
“Bloodhound is going to be global in 18 months, we are going to have the greatest engineering event in the world.”
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Devilish Diesel
Andy Green not only holds the world land speed record, he is also the fastest man… on Diesel.
In 2006, he was behind the wheel of the JCB Dieselmax record-breaker, as it achieved a speed of 350.092 mph (563.418 km/h) at the Bonneville salt flats.
The Dieselmax was powered by two modified versions of the production JCB444 powerplant –a four cylinder diesel engine normally used on mechanical diggers, but in this case rebored to 5 litres from the original 4 litres, and fitted with garret twin-turbo 6-bar turbochargers, intercoolers and aftercoolers. One of the dual engines drives the front wheels while the other drives the rear. Each engine is rev-limited to 3800 rpm.
“It was a different kind of technology altogether. Take two JCB digger engines, bore them out to 5 litres, add a garret twin turbo to the side with 6 bars of boost… that is an insane number – Formula one stops at 5.2 bar! – and 200bar of injection pressure. The engine had an oil capacity of 16 litres, they had to scavenge the oil from the sump, de-aerate it, filter it, cool it, and pressurise it, and push it back through the engine every five seconds, otherwise the cylinders would melt. And all that with the engines lying on their side (to fit the body design), so they did that all with an engine designed to be upright, now lying on their sides. And that was just the engine problems…”
Designed by aerodynamics genius Ron Ayres – the man behind the styling of the BloodhoundSSC – the Dieselmax smashed the previous record by a staggering 180km/h – and potentially could have gone faster, had there been tyres available which could cope with higher speeds.
“Most aerodynamicists said it couldn’t be done, but Ron proved them wrong. He had studied the previous land speed record holders, and worked out from their aerodynamics and power where they’d fallen short. When I passed 300mph, and then reached 350 and had to throttle back to protect the tyres, it surprised me and everybody else, but it wasn’t a surprise to Ron – that’s what he was expecting.”
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1,000 mph car - Focusless
