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Category: transportation – Page 437

Chinese scientists have developed a new heat-resistant material for hypersonic aircraft, as it can endure over 3,000 C from friction caused by a Mach 5–20 flight within the atmosphere.

A lead scientist said the material outperforms all similar foreign-made ones with its high melting point, low density and high malleability.

The new material enables a hypersonic aircraft to fly at Mach 5–20 within the atmosphere for several hours, as the high heat resulting from the friction between the aircraft and the air reaches between 2,000 C to 3,000 C, a temperature normal metal would not be able to endure.

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Tesla has begun delivering the $35,000, base-priced version of its Model 3 sedan, three customers have told Business Insider. Electrek first reported on April 15 that Tesla had started delivering the $35,000 Model 3, known as the standard-range trim.

The beginning of standard-range Model 3 deliveries is a landmark for Tesla, but the electric-car maker has been unusually quiet about it. While Tesla posted on its website and social media accounts when it began allowing customers to order the standard-range trim in February, the company has only made reference to the beginning of deliveries near the bottom of an April 11 blog post about an update to its product offerings.

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Innolith AG, Swiss maker of rechargeable Inorganic Battery Technology, says they have the world’s first 1000 Wh/kg rechargeable battery. This would triple the range of electric cars. The Innolith Energy Battery would radically reduce costs by not using exotic and expensive materials.

Innolith will make an initial pilot production in Germany and then create licensing partnerships with major battery and automotive companies. Development and commercialization of the Innolith Energy Battery is anticipated to take between three and five years.

It will also be the first non-flammable lithium-based battery for use in EVs. The Innolith battery uses a non-flammable inorganic electrolyte, unlike conventional EV batteries that use a flammable organic electrolyte. The switch to non-flammable batteries removes the primary cause of battery fires that have beset the manufacturers of EVs.

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It was a freezing cold morning just before Christmas 1980 when cattle rancher, Wally Nelson, came across the frozen form of a woman in his front yard.

Wally knew who the woman was. It was his friend, 19-year-old Jean Hilliard who had been dating his best friend at the time. The night was 22 below zero, and the teenager had fallen while looking for shelter after a car accident.

Jean was frozen solid as a block of ice, and Wally understandably believed her to be dead. That is of course until he saw a few tell-tale bubbles emerging from her nose.

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Is our take on the next-generation tandem-duct platform. Flying up to 10 feet off the ground at 45 miles per hour, the Aero-X is a surface-effect craft that rides like a motorcycle — an off road vehicle that gets you off the ground.

The Aero-X can be adapted for a variety of uses: surveying, search and rescue, border patrol, disaster relief, agricultural, ranching, rural transportation and…

Because it responds to your movements just as a motorcycle would, the Aero-X is intuitive to fly. And as it is built with very few moving parts, its cost of ownership is a fraction of even the most basic airplane or helicopter.

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Imagine that instead of adding a motor to a bicycle, parts of the bicycle are designed to function as the motor.

In this case the wheel rim contains the motor magnets and the frame houses the inductive coils. The inductive coils use energy from the battery (hidden in the frame downtube) to repel the magnets on the rim to make the wheel spin.

Lightweight calls this “Maglev Transrapid technology” and they claim that this Velocité eBike can go up to 100 kph (62 mph) with its 500 watts of power! They are currently limiting it to 45 kph (28 mph) to fall with in the limits of a speed pedelec.

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Circa 2017

Researchers are looking at advanced materials for roads and pavements that could generate electricity from passing traffic.

Engineers from Lancaster University are working on such as ‘piezolectric’ ceramics that when embedded in road surfaces would be able to harvest and convert vehicle vibration into .

The research project, led by Professor Mohamed Saafi, will design and optimise energy recovery of around one to two Megawatts per kilometre under ‘normal’ volumes—which is around 2,000 to 3,000 cars an hour.

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