Tag Archives: Bloodhound Project

BLOODHOUND SSC Making Progress Toward a World Land Speed Record Attempt

All Posts, Automotive, Engineering, Land Speed Record, STEM Education, Systems integration, , ,

Peter Lobner

The BLOODHOUND Project bills itself as an international education initiative focused around a 1,000 mph World Land Speed Record attempt.

“The primary objective of the Project is to inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science, engineering, technology and math – by demonstrating how they can be harnessed to achieve the impossible, such as a jet and rocket powered car capable of setting a new World Land Speed Record.”

Since my first post in the BLOODHOUND Project on 2 March 2015, the project team has made great progress in designing, developing, constructing and testing the BLOODHOUND SSC (supersonic car) and its many components and systems.  This will be a very interesting year as the BLOODHOUND Project works up to a world land speed record attempt currently planned for November 2017 on Hakskeen Pan in South Africa.

You’ll find the BLOODHOUND website, with its many resources, at the following link:

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com

You can subscribe to the BLOODHOUND newsletter here:

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/newsletter-signup

The project team has established an extensive video record of their work on YouTube. Starting at their YouTube home page at the following link, you can navigate through a very interesting video library.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBrBl7xmnNBkosxCeHGqPA

On 9 January 2017, the BLOODHOUND Project announced that they had launched a new series of short video programs that will take viewers through the inner workings of the land speed record car. The first video in the Anatomy of the Car series is at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bfL2XC0Fa0

BLOODHOUND SSCBLOODHOUND SSC X-raySource, both images: The BLOODHOUND Project

You can subscribe to the BLOODHOUND videos directly on their YouTube home page.

I hope you will share my enthusiasm for this inspirational international project and take time to understand the remarkable systems integration work being done by the BLOODHOUND Project.

Just How Flat is Hakskeen Pan?

All Posts, Automotive, Engineering, Land Speed Record, , , ,

Peter Lobner

If you will be driving the UK’s Bloodhound supersonic car (SSC) in 2019, you really care about the answer to that question.

Hakskeen Pan is a very flat region in the Northwestern corner of South Africa, and it is the site selected by the Bloodhound Project team for a 16 km (9.94 mile) track that will be used for their world land speed record attempt.

Hakskeen Pan mapSource: adapted from http://southafricamap.facts.co/

My 2 March 2015 post introduced you to the Bloodhound Project and gave you the link to their website where you can get a complete update on the project and sign up for their blog. Here again is the link to the Bloodhound Project home page:

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/project

So, how flat is Hakskeen Pan and how much does it matter to a land speed record car traveling at 1,000 mph (1,609 kph)? The Cape Town, South Africa, survey company Lloyd & Hill surveyed the entire 16 km by 500 meter wide track surface (an area of about 8 million square meters) measuring the elevation in each square meter to an accuracy of 10 mm (0.39 in) or less. Using laser-scanning technology to collect data, and some considerable computing resources, Lloyd & Hill reduced four billion laser measurements into a 3-dimensional surface map of Hakskeen Pan. Key findings were:

  • Hakskeen Pan has a very gentle slope from north to south: dropping 300 mm in 16 km (about one foot in 10 miles)
  • Across the whole surface, the biggest ‘bumps’ and ‘dips’ are less than 50 mm (2 inches) from the average elevation
  • There’s an 80 mm (3.12 in) ‘step’ that occurs in a distance of 180 m (590 ft) running across the Pan, just over 9 km from the northern end of the track, and just where the car will be travelling at 1,000 mph.

BLOODHOUND SSC-scanned area of Hakskeen PanSource: The Bloodhound Project

The Bloodhound SSC has independent double-wishbone suspension on all four wheels. Preliminary dynamic analysis of the Bloodhound SSC’s suspension response to the measured surface irregularities shows that the vehicle should not be subject to loads of more than 1.0 – 1.5 g during it’s world land speed record attempt.   The suspension is designed to cope with up to 4 g.

Check out the details of the Hakskeen Pan site survey and the vehicle dynamic analysis at the following link:

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/blog/andy-green’s-diary-–-august-2015

Also check out the Education tab on the Bloodhound Project website. I think you will be pleased to see how this exciting engineering project is working to engage with and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

23 January 2017 Update – Hakskeen Pan floods

 Hakskeen Pan flooded Jan2017Source: The Bloodhound Project

The Bloodhound team reported:

“This particular flood was caused mainly by the rain in Namibia and flooding from the rivers, rather than actual rainfall on the Pan and surrounding catchment area, as there are many rivers that flow into the Pan.

Having the desert flood like this is very good news for us, as flooding helps to repair the surface from any damage that may have been caused in the final preparation and clearance of the desert, and it helps to create the best possible surface for land speed record racing.”

Read more at the following link:

http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news/hakskeen-pan-update-0