sweetbmxrider
03-08-2011, 09:47 AM
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/_db/_images/BLOODHOUND_SSC_page_header_june2010.jpg
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/car.cfm
Look at the fuel pump:
This sort of pump is – not usual. Forget your fire-engine power…
“Oh, yes”. The B 52 moustache smiles at me gently. “This sort of pump is not… er, usual”.
I look at it. Sitting here on the table, looking innocent. Weighing 51 lbs (23 kg). And capable of shifting a tonne of HTP in 20 seconds at 1,100 psi.
No. Not usual…
I happen to know that this ammonite houses a five-blade stainless steel rotor – or to be accurate, impeller. Which is a whole seven-and-a-quarter inches (18.3 cms) in diameter.
Not a usual pump. Not, in fact, the most advanced pump in rocketry by any means these days – but not a usual pump.
But of course there is a snag. Perhaps not so much as a snag but an inevitable demand of physics. If you’ve created such a – well, I can only call it a sort of micro-pump – to do all this without flying apart at about half the demand, then you are going to have to rotate it quickly.
At 11,000 rpm, to be exact. Even 12,000 rpm should you need to crank up the rocket impulse late in the development programme.
Which requires a great deal of power. An almost incredible amount of power. In fact, 620 bhp.
620 hp to drive an impeller seven inches – 18 cms – in diameter.
Which is almost unbelievable to me. But the physics are the physics – that’s the way it is. And, ahem and pardon me, that innarf going some. Especially if you end up needing 12,000 rpm which will require no less than 800 bhp…
The original Stentor pump was powered by a ‘cold’ rocket (HTP going through a catalyst-pack) driving a single-stage turbine which could produce 1,000 hp. Sadly, Halfords didn’t seem to have one, and trying to reproduce same from scratch would mean that BLOODHOUND might run in 2015 on a good day.
So it had to be a race-car piston engine. So the decision went to a 12 cylinder MCT engine to drive this pump.
Except that now the deal with MCT has sort of crumbled, for reasons I won’t bore you with. Leaving, since the crumbling took a long time, the rocket testing programme well behind schedule, since there is only a limited amount of point in testing the rocket if you are not also testing the fuel-delivery system at the same time.
Stalemate. A damming-up of research. Hitch. “Hell’s nuisance”, as Richard Noble would say.
But now, I can reveal, BLOODHOUND has signed up with a new engine sponsor. With the ink not yet dry on the contract I cannot expose their identity until the official announcement – well, I could of course, but if I told you I’d have to kill you. Suffice it to say that this manufacturer is a household name in – well, I can’t say. But they are very well experienced in creating engines which produce a great deal of power indeed. I personally suspect, ‘tween you and I, that they might have been a tiny tad miffed at first at the idea of their world-class racing engine being regarded as an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) in BLOODHOUND. But if that’s so – and I hasten to add the above is only a personal guess from Outside The Box – they have got over it, and are now providing not only engines and replacement engines but also full technical back-up to amalgamate the electronic engine controls with those of BLOODHOUND. Which for me is firmly back in Category One.
Not many motors around which are capable of this.
Watch this space. And wait for the eerie shriek from the Mojave desert which will announce the Falcon’s first full-power run with the whole pump system operating. Which you’ll probably be able to hear in East Cheam…
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/car.cfm
Look at the fuel pump:
This sort of pump is – not usual. Forget your fire-engine power…
“Oh, yes”. The B 52 moustache smiles at me gently. “This sort of pump is not… er, usual”.
I look at it. Sitting here on the table, looking innocent. Weighing 51 lbs (23 kg). And capable of shifting a tonne of HTP in 20 seconds at 1,100 psi.
No. Not usual…
I happen to know that this ammonite houses a five-blade stainless steel rotor – or to be accurate, impeller. Which is a whole seven-and-a-quarter inches (18.3 cms) in diameter.
Not a usual pump. Not, in fact, the most advanced pump in rocketry by any means these days – but not a usual pump.
But of course there is a snag. Perhaps not so much as a snag but an inevitable demand of physics. If you’ve created such a – well, I can only call it a sort of micro-pump – to do all this without flying apart at about half the demand, then you are going to have to rotate it quickly.
At 11,000 rpm, to be exact. Even 12,000 rpm should you need to crank up the rocket impulse late in the development programme.
Which requires a great deal of power. An almost incredible amount of power. In fact, 620 bhp.
620 hp to drive an impeller seven inches – 18 cms – in diameter.
Which is almost unbelievable to me. But the physics are the physics – that’s the way it is. And, ahem and pardon me, that innarf going some. Especially if you end up needing 12,000 rpm which will require no less than 800 bhp…
The original Stentor pump was powered by a ‘cold’ rocket (HTP going through a catalyst-pack) driving a single-stage turbine which could produce 1,000 hp. Sadly, Halfords didn’t seem to have one, and trying to reproduce same from scratch would mean that BLOODHOUND might run in 2015 on a good day.
So it had to be a race-car piston engine. So the decision went to a 12 cylinder MCT engine to drive this pump.
Except that now the deal with MCT has sort of crumbled, for reasons I won’t bore you with. Leaving, since the crumbling took a long time, the rocket testing programme well behind schedule, since there is only a limited amount of point in testing the rocket if you are not also testing the fuel-delivery system at the same time.
Stalemate. A damming-up of research. Hitch. “Hell’s nuisance”, as Richard Noble would say.
But now, I can reveal, BLOODHOUND has signed up with a new engine sponsor. With the ink not yet dry on the contract I cannot expose their identity until the official announcement – well, I could of course, but if I told you I’d have to kill you. Suffice it to say that this manufacturer is a household name in – well, I can’t say. But they are very well experienced in creating engines which produce a great deal of power indeed. I personally suspect, ‘tween you and I, that they might have been a tiny tad miffed at first at the idea of their world-class racing engine being regarded as an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) in BLOODHOUND. But if that’s so – and I hasten to add the above is only a personal guess from Outside The Box – they have got over it, and are now providing not only engines and replacement engines but also full technical back-up to amalgamate the electronic engine controls with those of BLOODHOUND. Which for me is firmly back in Category One.
Not many motors around which are capable of this.
Watch this space. And wait for the eerie shriek from the Mojave desert which will announce the Falcon’s first full-power run with the whole pump system operating. Which you’ll probably be able to hear in East Cheam…