Inside The Engineering Of The World’s First 1600KM/H Car

Yesterday, a team of British engineers unveiled Bloodhound SSC: the world’s most powerful car, intended to reach speeds of over 1600km/h. Standing beside what looks like a rocket-on-wheels, it’s obvious what a marvel of engineering it is. We spoke to the team’s Lead Mechanical Engineer to find out how the vehicle was built.

Measuring 13.5m in length and weighing 7.5 tonnes, the car’s dual rocket and jet engines will produce the equivalent of 135,000bhp of thrust — making it the most powerful land vehicle ever built. While its predecessor, Thrust SSC, hit just 1227km/h the team behind Bloodhound intend to push it beyond 1600km/h.

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I can’t understand why they’re using a petrol engine to drive he rocket fuel pump.
There’s far more elegant ways of doing it.

Spiny Norman said:

I can’t understand why they’re using a petrol engine to drive he rocket fuel pump.
There’s far more elegant ways of doing it.

Such as?

I ask because the rocket fuel pump onboard a Russian upper stage used to be bad and was recently improved. Because it was bad, it made the stage too heavy and limited the maximum altitude.

mollwollfumble said:

Spiny Norman said:

I can’t understand why they’re using a petrol engine to drive he rocket fuel pump.
There’s far more elegant ways of doing it.

Such as?

I ask because the rocket fuel pump onboard a Russian upper stage used to be bad and was recently improved. Because it was bad, it made the stage too heavy and limited the maximum altitude.

A simple highly-pressurised gas bottle to push the fuel out of the tank.
Or burn a little of the fuel into the turbine section of something like a Garrett GT47 turbo, they’ll make the equivalent of something like 1,000 KW and can be held in one hand easily.

I hope it uses ground effect to keep it on the ground.

> two major sources of thrust: a Rolls Royce EJ200 jet engine, like those used in the Typhoon fighter jet, as well as a Nammo hybrid rocket engine. There’s also a supercharged Jaguar V8 engine aboard, which is used to pump the oxidizer required for the rocket to burn.

That must be what Spiny Norman was referring to.

When going supersonic, I always prefer ramjet to any other jet engine type, because of good performance between Mach 0.5 and Mach 3. Other methods can get up to Mach 0.5 easily (eg. hybrid rocket). Other supersonic engines don’t. Scramjet is hopeless subsonic. Turbojets and turbofans are limited to low supersonic speeds and even there they use up far too much fuel. The EJ200 is a turbofan. The SR-71 Blackbird engine was ideal, but is somewhat complicated for a car.

I can’t see the point in this project really, if you are going to go to the trouble of engineering a car to do 1600km/h, you may as well aim 10kmh high and make the figure significant…

Stealth said:

I can’t see the point in this project really, if you are going to go to the trouble of engineering a car to do 1600km/h, you may as well aim 10kmh high and make the figure significant…

What’s the point of that?
Figures like that were done over sixty years ago. It’s a land-speed record, hence it being done on the ground.

There was an article about this in this months (and the last) top gear magazine. They employed a whole community of goat herders for three years to clear a track 22 km long and 500 metres wide of every pebble, rock, stick and weed.

At the workshop there was a fellow sanding back titanium rivets so they were flush with the body. Apparently at the upper limits of what they are attempting the computer simulations are largely intelligent guesswork but they said that the air moving over the skin will only be moving at 500kmh.

the large fuel pump is probably to give it weight to stop it taking off

the record for manned flight is from the Apollo missions I believe

Spiny Norman said:

Stealth said:

I can’t see the point in this project really, if you are going to go to the trouble of engineering a car to do 1600km/h, you may as well aim 10kmh high and make the figure significant…

What’s the point of that?
Figures like that were done over sixty years ago. It’s a land-speed record, hence it being done on the ground.

Touche

Add an ‘er’ where appropriate.

The article also describe how they had a chemist whose job was testing every component of the car to see how it reacted with the fuels they were using. This has already resulted in some changes to materials.

Stealth said:

I can’t see the point in this project really, if you are going to go to the trouble of engineering a car to do 1600km/h, you may as well aim 10kmh high and make the figure significant…

1600 km/h = 1000 miles/h. So initially that was probably the target speed.

Stealth said:

Spiny Norman said:

Stealth said:

I can’t see the point in this project really, if you are going to go to the trouble of engineering a car to do 1600km/h, you may as well aim 10kmh high and make the figure significant…

What’s the point of that?
Figures like that were done over sixty years ago. It’s a land-speed record, hence it being done on the ground.

Touche

Add an ‘er’ where appropriate.

What we have heyah is a FAILURE … to COMMUNICATE …

a more interesting race for fast cars would be Melbourne to Cairns, you just shut the highway down , only drive of a day and keep spectators back

watching cars drive around on the same track is like watching paint dry

the drivers take two hour breaks

all the cars are tracked so that when they start again they are ahead by the same distance

you then also impose some kind of maximum fuel volume the car should use

AwesomeO said:

There was an article about this in this months (and the last) top gear magazine. They employed a whole community of goat herders for three years to clear a track 22 km long and 500 metres wide of every pebble, rock, stick and weed.

At the workshop there was a fellow sanding back titanium rivets so they were flush with the body. Apparently at the upper limits of what they are attempting the computer simulations are largely intelligent guesswork but they said that the air moving over the skin will only be moving at 500kmh.

LMAO. Yes, you’re completely right, “at the upper limits of what they are attempting the computer simulations are largely intelligent guesswork”. I’ve done computer simulations of similar fluid flow problems but at low subsonic speeds. Even there, there’s a heck of a lot of intelligent guesswork involved. However, that said, the Mechanical Engineering department at Qld Uni has used its hypervelocity wind tunnel to develop a ripper of a mathematical equation to predict thermo-mechanical properties of air around bodies at speeds near 1600 km/hr; I hope they’re using it.

As for the “sanding back titanium rivets so they were flush with the body”, absolutely essential. The whole performance depends critically on how low the “skin friction” is, ie. the drag on the car from air passing parallel to the car fractions of a millimeter away. Keeping that tiny width of flow laminar at these speeds is going to be very very difficult.

mollwollfumble said:

As for the “sanding back titanium rivets so they were flush with the body”, absolutely essential. The whole performance depends critically on how low the “skin friction” is, ie. the drag on the car from air passing parallel to the car fractions of a millimeter away. Keeping that tiny width of flow laminar at these speeds is going to be very very difficult.

It’s something that they certainly have to do, but overall it’s not all that important I suspect.
What is important is controlling the shock wave under and around the car so it doesn’t lift the front up. On the previous supersonic car, the shock wave was so powerful it (apparently) tore up the ground under the car so much that the wheels left no tracks. Pretty powerful stuff.

wookiemeister said:

a more interesting race for fast cars would be Melbourne to Cairns, you just shut the highway down, only drive of a day and keep spectators back

If you’re going to shut the highway down, then only drive at night, say between midnight and 6 am. More awesome.

Melbourne to Sydney Hume Highway could be done along divided roads, where they could get some real speed up. 900 km at an average speed of say 350 km/hr would be a two and a half hour race.

PMSL, just found out about the 24 hr LeMons race (and I don’t mean LeMans) for racecars not exceeding $999 AU. Australian Website http://24hoursoflemons.com.au/. eg. “What if I have no idea what I’m doing? Ah, we don’t either. Don’t sweat it as most have not done this either, so be cool and ease into things. Its just like driving in Bangkok, but without the horns.” and “The specific bad-driving punishments outlined in Section 6 of The LeMons Rulebook are in addition to, not instead of, said tarring and feathering.”

The thing I hate about moderen car races is that you can only tell the cars apart by their advertising slogans.

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

As for the “sanding back titanium rivets so they were flush with the body”, absolutely essential. The whole performance depends critically on how low the “skin friction” is, ie. the drag on the car from air passing parallel to the car fractions of a millimeter away. Keeping that tiny width of flow laminar at these speeds is going to be very very difficult.

It’s something that they certainly have to do, but overall it’s not all that important I suspect.
What is important is controlling the shock wave under and around the car so it doesn’t lift the front up. On the previous supersonic car, the shock wave was so powerful it (apparently) tore up the ground under the car so much that the wheels left no tracks. Pretty powerful stuff.

Very good points.

mollwollfumble said:

wookiemeister said:

a more interesting race for fast cars would be Melbourne to Cairns, you just shut the highway down, only drive of a day and keep spectators back

If you’re going to shut the highway down, then only drive at night, say between midnight and 6 am. More awesome.

Melbourne to Sydney Hume Highway could be done along divided roads, where they could get some real speed up. 900 km at an average speed of say 350 km/hr would be a two and a half hour race.

PMSL, just found out about the 24 hr LeMons race (and I don’t mean LeMans) for racecars not exceeding $999 AU. Australian Website http://24hoursoflemons.com.au/. eg. “What if I have no idea what I’m doing? Ah, we don’t either. Don’t sweat it as most have not done this either, so be cool and ease into things. Its just like driving in Bangkok, but without the horns.” and “The specific bad-driving punishments outlined in Section 6 of The LeMons Rulebook are in addition to, not instead of, said tarring and feathering.”

The thing I hate about moderen car races is that you can only tell the cars apart by their advertising slogans.

Top gear described a Swedish I think cheap car race category. The big equaliser was every car that won was put up for sale at a capped price, hense no incentive to spend big on modifications.

driving of a night means you’ll hit kangaroos etc and have no chance of avoiding them

driving on normal roads introduces unexpected variables

wookiemeister said:

driving of a night means you’ll hit kangaroos etc and have no chance of avoiding them

driving on normal roads introduces unexpected variables

Do you think the “Ultrasonic Roo Whistles” would work well on a supersonic LSR car???

Spiny Norman said:

Stealth said:

I can’t see the point in this project really, if you are going to go to the trouble of engineering a car to do 1600km/h, you may as well aim 10kmh high and make the figure significant…

What’s the point of that?
Figures like that were done over sixty years ago. It’s a land-speed record, hence it being done on the ground.

I suspect he meant 1000 mph…

Stealth said:

wookiemeister said:

driving of a night means you’ll hit kangaroos etc and have no chance of avoiding them

driving on normal roads introduces unexpected variables

Do you think the “Ultrasonic Roo Whistles” would work well on a supersonic LSR car???

it might be better having the driver at the back and the front of the car with a cow push

you probably get a few birds as well

AwesomeO said:

mollwollfumble said:

PMSL, just found out about the 24 hr LeMons race (and I don’t mean LeMans) for racecars not exceeding $999 AU. Australian Website http://24hoursoflemons.com.au/. eg. “What if I have no idea what I’m doing? Ah, we don’t either. Don’t sweat it as most have not done this either, so be cool and ease into things. Its just like driving in Bangkok, but without the horns.” and “The specific bad-driving punishments outlined in Section 6 of The LeMons Rulebook are in addition to, not instead of, said tarring and feathering.”

Top gear described a Swedish I think cheap car race category. The big equaliser was every car that won was put up for sale at a capped price, hence no incentive to spend big on modifications.

ditto here. The $999 does not include the cost of the roll cage.

> Kangaroos.

Worst time for them on the roads is dusk and dawn.

on a straight road it could be better to use a gas turbine rather than a standard reciprocating engine , you’d assume you weren’t changing gears or changing speed very much

mollwollfumble said:

AwesomeO said:

mollwollfumble said:

PMSL, just found out about the 24 hr LeMons race (and I don’t mean LeMans) for racecars not exceeding $999 AU. Australian Website http://24hoursoflemons.com.au/. eg. “What if I have no idea what I’m doing? Ah, we don’t either. Don’t sweat it as most have not done this either, so be cool and ease into things. Its just like driving in Bangkok, but without the horns.” and “The specific bad-driving punishments outlined in Section 6 of The LeMons Rulebook are in addition to, not instead of, said tarring and feathering.”

Top gear described a Swedish I think cheap car race category. The big equaliser was every car that won was put up for sale at a capped price, hence no incentive to spend big on modifications.

ditto here. The $999 does not include the cost of the roll cage.

> Kangaroos.

Worst time for them on the roads is dusk and dawn.

around Walgett they get worse with every hour and are still in huge mobs around midnight

wookiemeister said:

on a straight road it could be better to use a gas turbine rather than a standard reciprocating engine , you’d assume you weren’t changing gears or changing speed very much

The Jaguar C-X75 had twin gas turbine engines.

mollwollfumble said:

When going supersonic, I always prefer ramjet to any other jet engine type, because of good performance between Mach 0.5 and Mach 3. Other methods can get up to Mach 0.5 easily (eg. hybrid rocket). Other supersonic engines don’t. Scramjet is hopeless subsonic. Turbojets and turbofans are limited to low supersonic speeds and even there they use up far too much fuel. The EJ200 is a turbofan. The SR-71 Blackbird engine was ideal, but is somewhat complicated for a car.

I really like the idea of using ramjets but the problem in doing so is that you have to make really sure that both of them (if you’re using two) light-up at exactly the same time with exactly the same thrust or it’ll yaw the car at high speed. But use one suitably sized ramjet and it’d work fine.
But again the problem with that is getting one the right size; there’s not a lot of off-the-shelf units around so getting one that’s just right would be quite a coincidence.