SKF is supplying critical bearings for Thrust SSC - the British jet powered car which has been designed to be the first to break the sound barrier. Powered by two Rolls Royce jet engines, it does 0 to 100 mph in four seconds, has a top speed of some 850 miles/hour and develops 50,000 lb of thrust (about the same as 145 Formula One cars).
Designed to travel over 100 miles/hour faster than the speed of sound, Thrust SSC uses the very latest technology in terms of design, materials and components. That1s why the bearings for the supersonic car are being supplied by SKF. This, of course, includes the critical wheel bearings which have to support the 34 in diameter solid aluminium wheels which weigh 300 lb each.
The wheel bearings have to withstand the extremely high centrifugal forces created by rotational speeds in excess of 8000 rev/mm. SKF hybrid angular contact ball bearings (with steel rings and ceramic balls) have been specified for~all four wheels on the car. The high speed capability of the 6Omm bore bearings and the low inertia of the ceramic balls can accommodate the demands of accelerating up to Mach 1 and slowing down again - a process which will take the 7 ton car a total of 11 miles on the desert test track.
Project director Richard Noble OBE (who currently holds the world land speed record at 633.47 miles/hour) and his design team have had to overcome many hurdles along the way, both technical and financial, since the inception of the car in 1992. However, Thrust SSC made its first public appearance at the recent London Motor Show, where more than 200,000 of the 420,000 people attending the show visited the stand. Visitors were impressed with the car's appearance (looking rather like a dart mounted between two cigar tubes) and its sheer size (54 ft long by 12 ft wide).
The finish build programme for Thrust SSC is scheduled for February 1996 and the car will undergo low speed trials in the Spring. An attack on the subsonic speed record, with fighter pilot Lieutenant Andy Green at the wheel, will take place later in the year probably at the Black Rock Desert test track in Nevada, USA While the attempt to go supersonic will probably be made the year after that.
For more information contact: Chris Haywood SKF (U.K.) Limited, Bradbourne Drive, Tubrook, Milton Keynes, MK7 SBJ Telephone: 0908 838305 Fax: 0908 647849
 |
 |
 |
||
| Sponsored by | This site best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 | |||
 |
 |
 |
||