JCB Dieselmax
Encyclopedia
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
'Streamliner
Streamliner
A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor "bullet trains". Less commonly, the term is applied to fully faired recumbent bicycles...
' car designed for the purpose of breaking the land speed record
Land speed record
The land speed record is the highest speed achieved by a wheeled vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C flying start regulations are used, officiated by regional or national organizations under the auspices of the Fédération...
for a diesel-engined vehicle.
The car was built for JCB
J. C. Bamford
JCB is a global construction, demolition and agricultural equipment company headquartered in Rocester, United Kingdom. It is the world's third-largest construction equipment manufacturer. It produces over 300 types of machines, including diggers , excavators, tractors and diesel engines...
. As of 2008, it holds the World Diesel-powered land speed record, having been driven to over 350 miles per hour (563.3 km/h) by Wing Commander Andy Green
Andy Green
Wing Commander Andy D. Green OBE BA RAF is a British Royal Air Force pilot and World Land Speed Record holder.-RAF career:...
in 2006.
Design
The car is powered by two specially tuned versions of the production JCB444 powerplant, developing up to 750 bhp each (over five times the power output of the production version) and featuring four cylinders and 5 litres of displacement, accompanied by two stage turbochargersTwin-turbo
Twin-turbo refers to a turbocharged engine, in which two turbochargers compress the intake charge. There are two commonly used twin turbo configurations: parallel twin-turbo and sequential twin-turbo...
, intercooler and aftercooler
Intercooler
An intercooler , or charge air cooler, is an air-to-air or air-to-liquid heat exchange device used on turbocharged and supercharged internal combustion engines to improve their volumetric efficiency by increasing intake air charge density through nearly isobaric cooling, which removes...
. One of the dual engines drives the front wheels while the other drives the rear. Each engine is rev-limited to 3800 rpm.
As the size of the car prohibited meaningful wind tunnel
Wind tunnel
A wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects.-Theory of operation:Wind tunnels were first proposed as a means of studying vehicles in free flight...
testing, the streamlined
Streamliner
A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor "bullet trains". Less commonly, the term is applied to fully faired recumbent bicycles...
shape of the car was refined entirely though the use of computational fluid dynamics
Computational fluid dynamics
Computational fluid dynamics, usually abbreviated as CFD, is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with...
by MIRA Ltd
Motor Industry Research Association
MIRA Ltd, formerly known as the Motor Industry Research Association, is a limited company based near Nuneaton in Hinckley and Bosworth, Leicestershire in the United Kingdom, which provides product engineering, research, testing, information and certification services to the automotive...
, which has enabled the car to obtain a very low coefficient of drag of only 0.147 and a CdA value (drag coefficient × frontal area) of only 0.129 m². The fuel tank, which holds only 9 liters (2.38 U.S. gallons), is located directly behind the carbon fiber cockpit. The fully laden weight of the vehicle, including fuel, oil, ice, water coolant and the driver, is slightly less than 2,700 kg.
The chassis was designed and built by Coventry-based engineering company Visioneering for JCB
J. C. Bamford
JCB is a global construction, demolition and agricultural equipment company headquartered in Rocester, United Kingdom. It is the world's third-largest construction equipment manufacturer. It produces over 300 types of machines, including diggers , excavators, tractors and diesel engines...
, with engine development undertaken by Sussex-based Ricardo UK Ltd. The electrical system for the vehicle was supplied by R&D Vehicle Systems Ltd under contract to Visioneering.
During the 2006 Bonneville
Bonneville Speedway
Bonneville Speedway is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed records....
Speed Week and subsequent FIA record runs, the car was driven by Andy Green, a serving RAF Officer who previously broke, and still holds, the absolute land speed record with ThrustSSC
ThrustSSC
ThrustSSC, also spelt Thrust SSC by secondary sources, is a British jet-propelled car developed by Richard Noble, Glynne Bowsher, Ron Ayers and Jeremy Bliss....
.
Performance
The car began shakedown testing on 20 July 2006 on the runway at RAF WitteringRAF Wittering
RAF Wittering is a Royal Air Force station within the unitary authority area of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. Although Stamford in Lincolnshire is the nearest town, the runways of RAF Wittering cross the boundary between Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire....
with the lower-power 600 bhp version of the JCB444 engine, the team slowly ramping up the speed to prove the chassis and engines. They eventually achieved a speed of over 200 mph on 30 July 2006. Two days later, the car was disassembled ready to be flown to Wendover Airport
Wendover Airport
Wendover Airport is a public airport located one mile southeast of the central business district of Wendover, a city in Tooele County, Utah, USA.-Civilian:...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, former home of the B-29 'Enola Gay'
Enola Gay
Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the pilot, then-Colonel Paul Tibbets. On August 6, 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war...
on 8 August. On 13 August, after several days spent re-assembling and re-testing the car, the Dieselmax made its first official run on the Bonneville Salt Flats as part of Speed Week, eventually attaining an average speed of 317 mph to take the SCTA-BNI event record for an 'AA/DS' Diesel Streamliner.
On 22 August 2006, after being re-fitted with 750 bhp 'LSR' versions of the JCB444 engines, the JCB Dieselmax car broke the official FIA diesel engine land speed record, attaining a speed of 328.767 mph (529 km/h). 24 hours later the JCB Dieselmax car broke its own record, achieving a speed of 350.092 mph (563.418 km/h) over a distance of 1 mile on 23 August 2006. Before attaining these speeds, the Dieselmax was pushed from behind, by a JCB Fastrac
JCB Fastrac
The Fastrac is a high speed agricultural tractor series manufactured by JCB Landpower, part of the J. C. Bamford group of companies.Production began in 1991, with continual development to the present day...
, until it hit 30 mph where it engaged first gear. Before the JCB Dieselmax records, the diesel land speed record was 235.756 mph (380 km/h), set by American Virgil Snyder, in the Thermo King streamliner on 25 August 1973 http://www.eurekamagazine.co.uk/article/4890/Diesel-goes-for-record.aspx
Future
In a live interview from Utah on BBC News 24BBC News 24
BBC News is the BBC's 24-hour rolling news television network in the United Kingdom. The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989...
, Green said that the car was not running at its full potential, due to problems finding suitable tires and that this speed was achieved while the car was still in fifth gear (the car has six). He also reported that the vehicle traveled 11 miles (18 km) on about a U.S. gallon (3.8L) of fuel. The fuel tank holds just nine liters while the ice tank, used for cooling, holds 180 liters.
Although JCB have not made any official statements on the subject of a return to Bonneville, JCB Group Engineering Director Tim Leverton has hinted that they are currently studying the development of tires that would allow them to overcome the nominal 350 mph 'safety limit' they had placed upon their current Goodyear units.
External links
- JCB Dieselmax Homepage
- JCB DieselMax starts tests-Channel 4 news
- Ricardo JCB Dieselmax Engine Microsite
- BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, Dieselmax breaks diesel speed record - The engineering behind Dieselmax, Ingenia Magazine, September 2007
- RDVS - Dieselmax electrical system supplier