Those of you who have been following the BLOODHOUND project closely will have noticed that there has been some hints recently that the BLOODHOUND SSC design team are looking at a new configuration in the engine room department. It is true that talk within the team is all about "RoJ" or "JoR", but what is that all about?
RoJ
RoJ is the acronym for "Rocket over Jet" and has been the prefered layout of the engines since BLOODHOUND SSC was conceived many months ago. The diagram above illustrates this configuration.
JoR
As Brian Lecomber reported in his "Outside the Box" article Cheese before Bedtime recently, The BLOODHOUND engineers are seriously considering the Jet over Rocket (JoR) configuration. The diagram below shows what this might look like.
So why has this suddenly appeared?
Engineering Director John Piper explained all at a recent team meeting. One of the main advantages of this option is that the car doesn't create as much unwanted lift at the back end in the supersonic speed range (See Ben Evans's July Aero Update for more on this). It does give other advantages too - the sudden firing of the rocket engine affects wheel loading much less, the layout of the components is simpler, even though many of them, such as the fuel tanks, will need to be redesigned, and there is a substantial framework to support the fin.
John stressed though, that this is not a major redesign, the concept of BLOODHOUND SSC remains: front wheels close together, rear wheels wider apart, the driver sits in front of a jet engine and a rocket engine etc etc. The car is evolving, and the designers are looking at the best way to fit all the various parts into the body of the car. When we start building, it will be a combination of the best bits of all this research so far. When we start running the car, there will no doubt be more refinements to the design. The final shape of the car will never be completely known until we've reached our design aim of 1,000mph!
Watch this space!
... or even better, join the 1K Club and come and see for yourself first hand how the design and build progresses!
