Posts Tagged: ‘Transportation’
The video is funny because of the events and the outcomes… But it also makes you ask – what can you do with a rental car? For example, if you do burnouts for two days and return the car with bald tires, what happens? If you enter a rental car in a 24-hour race, what [...]
In the following article, a really interesting question is explored. The question is: Is there a better, more efficient way to launch airplanes? Electric Aviation is the Future of Transport If you think about how airplanes take off now, you can see the potential problem. The pilot positions the plane at the end of the [...]
Let’s imagine that you would like to do something like mail drop-off and pickup in a remote area where no landing strip is available. Or imagine that you would like to extract a soldier from a remote area where there is no landing strip. The traditional way to solve this problem is by using a [...]
Oil is currently at $100 or so per barrel. The current reason for the high price is instability in Middle Eastern countries like Libya. In addition, demand for oil is increasing at a time when new oil discoveries are declining. In the United States (and many other parts of the world), coal is abundant. What [...]
Supercar – The Priapism – Featuring two 450 HP V8 engines
by Marshall Brain | March 2, 2011
What if you can’t get all the horsepower you want from a single v8 engine? One option is to combine two V8s in a single car. That is the design idea behind the Priapism from Sire Custom Performance. You can see the car and hear about its design philosophy here: These videos show the car [...]
How Formula SAE Racing Works – Students build and race 100+ MPH cars
by Marshall Brain | February 24, 2011
Imagine that you are a mechanical engineering student in college. Being a MechE, you would probably want to get your hands dirty making something mechanical. And what better thing to make than a car? Cars are the most complicated mechanical objects that people come into contact with on a daily basis. To ratchet it up [...]
NASA’s new manned deep space spacecraft – the Nautilus-X MMSEV
by Marshall Brain | February 17, 2011
Ever since the movie “2001: a Space Odyssey” came out (back in 1968, before humans had landed on the moon), people have been ready to head out into interplanetary space: Now NASA has drawn up a realistic ship to do this sort of interplanetary travel in real life. It’s called the Nautilus-X MMSEV (Multi-Mission Space [...]
You Asked: What’s the difference between a commercial aircraft engine and a fighter aircraft engine? — Ganapati, Bangalore, India Marshall Brain Answers: At a high level, you can understand some of the differences between commercial and fighter aircraft engines by thinking about the differences between commercial and racing automobile engines. Commercial automobile engines tend to [...]
313 Miles Per Gallon? Volkswagen’s XL1 concept car makes this claim
by Marshall Brain | January 27, 2011
Take one gallon of diesel fuel and drive 313 miles – that is the claim of Volkswagen’s XL1 concept car: VW unveils an ultra-efficient car The XL1, which seats two adults, combines a 0.8 litre two cylinder diesel engine with an electric motor. The car is constructed around a carbon fibre reinforced polymer monocoque to [...]
Recent Postings by Category
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