When engineers start to talk about 200-300mph as low speed for something with four wheels that doesn’t fly, it tends to focus the mind.
We were in a modest building on Bristol’s historic harbourside, just a stone’s throw from the SS Great Britain, getting an update on Bloodhound SSC, the UK attempt on a new world land speed record of 1,000mph.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The project, launched at the beginning of the recession in 2008, has defied doubters who thought it would never get this far – and it almost didn’t.
But recognition from the then Labour administration of its potential to inspire a new generation of schoolchildren to become engineers was a turning point.
A second turning point came when Rolls-Royce, facing a serious shortage of engineering talent, also put its weight behind it. The Bloodhound team needed Rolls-Royce’s commitment to provide a jet engine from the Typhoon Eurofighter.
Now Bloodhound is is getting down to the nitty gritty of sending parts out to be manufactured. “We’ve gone from computer-based design to cutting metal,” said lead engineer James Painter. Some 3,000 bespoke parts need to be made with a deadline of the end of this year for the rolling chassis to be ready.
Project director is Richard Noble, the man behind Thrust SSC which, driven by RAF pilot Andy Green, reached 714.144mph in America’s Black Rock desert in 1997.
Bloodhound, a GBP18m (US$28m) project, has so far spent GBP1.2m on education – half of which came from government funding – and has a team of education ambassadors. Globally some 8,000 schools in more than 60 countries are using Bloodhound to bring to life science, technology, engineering and maths. Of those around 4,800 are in the UK.
“The education is now more or less self-supporting but there’s a long way to go,” said Noble. The educational aspect of Bloodhound will continue long after 2014, the planned date for the attempt to drive at 1,000mph across 12 miles of the Hakseen Pan, a desert in the northern cape of South Africa.
Noble expects a 20-year legacy educational legacy with that part of the project continuing as a charity or similar.
Why is it such an attractive project for teaching? “The FIA world land speed record rules are minimal and challenger cars tend to be very different and therefore because the technology is unlikely to be of value to a competitor, there is no need to be secretive about the technology. So it can be made available just as it happens. This is unique: the defence, motor racing and space industries are unable to share their technology in this way.”
Now that the design has been frozen, the major challenge is the packaging, with brakes being one example.
Green will be able to deploy air brakes and a parachute as Bloodhound slows from 1,000 mph – but also needs more conventional disc brakes. The team looked at aerospace brakes but couldn’t get the packaging right, said Painter, so is now “trying motor racing brakes which seem to be the solution.”
The challenge of building a car weighing 7.5 tonnes, 13m long and capable of 1050mph is throwing up some other challenges. While Green might be able to withstand deceleration forces in excess of 3G, some of the components in Bloodhound can’t be decelerated so forcefully, said Painter.
There are plenty of other challenges. Bloodhound is described as a ‘hybrid’ because its rocket combines solid fuel with a liquid oxidiser to create its power. This approach allows Green able to shut off the flow of oxidiser and extinguish the rocket if required.
The rocket will burn for 20 seconds per run, during which time it will consume 181kg of solid fuel and 963kg of oxidizer to produce 122kN (27,500 lbs) peak thrust (equivalent to 77,500hp).
This will be in addition to the 90kN (20,000lbs) of thrust provided by the Eurofighter jet.
Together, they generate more power than 180 F1 cars, making Bloodhound the most powerful land vehicle ever created.
If that’s not enough, there’s also a Cosworth F1 engine – but that’s only used as a fuel pump for the rocket.
