How is Engineering at Swansea University involved with the BLOODHOUND project?
Engineering at Swansea University has an extensive track record of industrial collaboration and has significantly contributed to a number of prestigious projects.
From the aerodynamic design of the THRUST Supersonic Car, which currently holds the world land-speed record, to the latest collaboration, aerodynamically designing the BLOODHOUND Supersonic Car.
This will see the College of Engineering’s involvement in pushing the boundaries of engineering and builds on the previous success of working on the THRUST Supersonic Car.
The Computer Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research for BLOODHOUND SSC is taking place at the Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering.
These computational models have already influenced significant design aspects of BLOODHOUND including the front wheel configuration, the shape of the nose, the jet engine intake shaping, rear wheel fairings and wing shape and size. The CFD modelling continues to be one of the prominent tools used to develop the surface geometry of BLOODHOUND.
Dr Ben Evans, in the Zienkiewicz Centre for Computational Engineering, has been part of this adventure and developed computational models of the aerodynamic flows that BLOODHOUND will experience to help shape the vehicle design. Dr Evans provided an update on the next stage of the adventure - building the car.
“Having spent the past 18 months building the world’s most technologically advanced car and doing individual tests on each of its systems, we are now going to start the testing programme for the world’s fastest science experiment!
Already we have had confirmation that the CFD work undertaken at Swansea to design the engine intake has been a success with performance surpassing expectations. Next is to get the car rolling under its own power on the runway in Newquay, Cornwall before the high speed test programme can commence in South Africa in 2018.”