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- An electric car that goes 400 miles per hour. No gas propelled car has ever gone that fast. College students have built the car dubbed Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3 which is the third electric car they have built. These students are at Ohio State University and they hope to break the 400 mph speed record this summer, 2013.
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- In 2008 these students built a hydrogen fuel-cell car that went 286 miles per hour.
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- In 2010 they built an electric car the went 300 miles per hour. ( see video at www.buckeyebullet.com and ScientificAmerican.com/feb2013/bullet )-
- This September these students hope to run their 3rd electric car on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats and exceed 400 miles per hour, for a new land speed record. There is a big , big difference between 300 and 400 miles per hour. There are many technical challenges to be solved.
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- The bullet car is 38 feet long. It uses 4 electric motors, each 400 horsepower, 1,600 horsepower in total. It has a steel frame with a carbon-fiber shell. The cockpit is a modified Indy car chassis. It has only one mile to accelerate to the 400 mph speed. 3 parachutes will slow it down and a backup of aircraft brakes make sure it can get stopped.
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- The driver is 62 year old Roger Schroer.
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- The batteries are prototypes built by A123 Systems. They are iron nano-phosphate lithium-ion batteries. This company went bankrupt last summer after the failure of the GM Chevy Volt and after the bailout of GM by the Federal government. I had 1000 shares at $23 that went to 0.03 cents per share. Fortunately the students got all the spare parts out the factory back door before it closed shop. The Chinese bought the company out of the bankruptcy. The batteries exploded during some car wreck tests. This safety issue could have something to do with the failure. I am not sure.
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- The batteries obviously pull a lot of current. One of the design changes the students had to make was to route the oil-base coolant so that it made more contact with the motors keeping them cooler. Current flow resistance increase with temperature. Cooler meant more horsepower. They had to use thinner tires that had less mass so they would not fly apart at high speeds.
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- The salt flats are flat but they are bumpy. Student had to design a suspension systems that would keep the tires on the ground. Any momentary wheel spin would mean a loss of power.
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- Aerodynamics is a major contributor to the design. Drag is proportional to the cube of velocity. A tail design was desired to help prevent the vehicle from loosing control and flying end for end. But, a tail fin adds drag. Computational fluid dynamics was used by computer because wind tunnels are not fast enough. The students had to find the acceptable trade off between speed and safety.
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- The students have learned a lot. They have learned that IQ is not as important as willingness to work. They have learned that the limits are not in inventing new technologies but in understanding the limits of existing technology and overcoming them. Persistence! Ask why 5 times to understand the root of problems. Over 50 student engineers have gone through this program at Ohio State, Center of Automotive Research, Buckeye Bullet Team.
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- Watch for the speed run in September. We wish the students good luck. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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(1) See reviews #1475 for more on electric cars, and #1313 on the Tesla Roadster.
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RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Friday, January 18, 2013
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