The fluidless prototype that was built in 2015.
Photo courtesy of Katie Chan.
Overpowering thrust: the Bloodhound SSC Project
By Adam Burke
In the upcoming year, the Bloodhound SSC aims to reach a speed of over 1000 mph in its endeavor to shatter the current land-speed record.
When people hear the name “Bugatti”, or “Lamborghini”, they usually think of speed. Exotic cars such as a McLaren P1 or a Koenigsegg Agera R are revered for their unusually high rates of quickness. However, these feats of automotive engineering couldn’t even match a quarter of the top speed of the newest threat to the land-speed world record: the Bloodhound SSC.
The Bloodhound SSC, a car designed to break the previous land-speed record, is the successor to the Thrust SSC. The Thrust SSC, the current world record holder, made its famous 1,228 km/h (763 mph) run on October 15, 1997 in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The Bloodhound, designed by the same team that worked on Thrust, aims to shatter this record by reaching a theoretical top speed of over 1,600km/h (1000 mph).
It has been twenty years since the current land-speed record was set, and the Bloodhound SSC project has been underway for most of the years since then. Unlike the cars we drive, these projects require extensive materials testing and research to ensure that the car’s parts can withstand the large stresses placed upon it at high speeds. Years of computer design and testing of this nature yielded a “trial-build” unit in September 2015. This prototype was a fluidless model, meaning that only its external parts were assembled. The aim of this project was to ensure that all of its numerous parts fit together properly.
The 2015 fluidless trial build of the Bloodhound SSC during a public display of it. Photo courtesy of Tony Hisgett.
As for the parts, the Bloodhound Project is exceptionally intricate and complex. The chassis itself is assembled from over 3,000 individual pieces, each of which has a role in holding the car together and keeping the driver safe at its very high speeds and the drag forces resulting from air speeding by the car at 1000 mph.
The front of the car, for example, is designed to handle air pressures in excess of 1 ton per square foot. This piece, called the “monocoque”, is designed from a carbon fiber and resin weave. These materials are layered in sheets over one another to gain the greatest possible structural integrity. The top part of the car, designed to contain the engine, is made from an internal metal ribbing covered in a titanium skin. The rear of the car’s purpose is to hold the auxiliary power unit (APU), the rocket assembly, and the fuel tank, and is made from a covered aluminum frame.
The rear of the Bloodhound, designed to hold the rockets and jet engine. Courtesy of Tony Hisgett.
Although the frame is important, the propulsion system is the most integral part of this car. According to the team’s site, the first part of the system, the jet engine, will produce around 90 Kilonewtons (kN) of thrust, around half of the total thrust of the Bloodhound SSC. This repurposed Eurojet EJ200 turbofan engine will aid in accelerating the car to around the speed of sound. At this point, the next two parts of the system, the rockets and the APU, will come into play.
The rockets, a cluster of three hybrid rockets provided by Nammo, a Norwegian company, will provide an additional 123 kN of forward thrust to the Bloodhound. These hybrid rockets will use synthetic rubber as a fuel, and high test peroxide (HTP) as an oxidizer. The final part of the propulsion system, the APU, is a 550 horsepower Jaguar V8 engine. This will be used to power a pump that supplies HTP to the rockets. Overall, these three inputs will allow the Bloodhound to gain sufficient thrust to shatter the previous land-speed record.
The repurposed EJ200 jet engine used in the Bloodhound SSC on display. Photo courtesy of Brian Snelson.
The complexity of this engineering comes at a cost, however. Accounting for design and materials utilized, the total cost of this project is projected to be around 68 million USD.
Following several setbacks related to flooding and delays in its planned test dates, the current scheduled date is unclear. Most sources, however, suspect that the Bloodhound team is planning to run the Bloodhound SSC in the summer of 2018. Its land-speed record attempt will take place in the Hakskeen Pan of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, with British pilot Andy Green behind the wheel.
Overall, the people behind this project have been inspired to persevere by the desire to go faster than they have before. The Bloodhound SSC is thus an endeavor to push the boundaries of what human engineering can achieve, and we might just witness these limits pushed a little further within the upcoming year.
The propulsion system is the most integral part of this car.
The chassis itself is assembled from over 3,000 individual pieces.
The Charger, May 2017
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