A group of Australian racers are working to break the world land speed record by reaching 1,000 mph in their rocket-powered car, the Aussie Invader 5R.
The team is constructing the completely customized vehicle using advice provided to them by aerodynamics, engineering, manufacturing, and rocketry specialists, according to a report by ScienceNetwork Western Australia. (At approximately $4 million, the cost of developing the 5R is cheaper in comparison to a similar vehicle being built in Great Britain, the Bloodhound Supersonic Car.
“Our car is simple in design, using just one pressure-fed rocket, with few moving parts,” Aussie Invader team member Mark Read told ScienceNewtork Western Australia.
Many of the vehicle’s parts were made using CAD and were tested using computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
Of the many parts going into the vehicle are the wheels, which were developed from blocks of aerospace-grade aluminum. Each wheel weighs 140 kilograms (about 308.5 pounds). If the vehicle does in fact reach 1,000 mph, the wheels will spin 10,000 times per minute.
“This will mean there will be 50,000 g [roughly 110 pounds] exerted on the rim…so if you placed a 1 kg weight on the rim at those speeds, it would weigh 50 tonnes…the wheels just want to pull themselves apart,” Read said.
In Read’s opinion, the 1,000 mph land speed threshold is the last remaining barrier in motor racing. For that record to belong to Australia would be a great achievement for the country.
“If we were to break the world land speed record, Australia would hold both the land and water world speed records, which would be a fantastic achievement for this country, and show us as a leading country in engineering and technology,” he said.
Read thinks the achievement would also bode well for the future of innovation.
“This world faces some massive problems, and to help overcome them we need very clever kids to study science, technology, engineering and maths,” he said.
“If we can interest kids of today to look at these career paths, we will be achieving a lot.”
The Aussie Invader 5R will be driven by Rosco McGlashan, who set the current Australian land speed record of 500 mph. The current World Land Speed record of 763 mph is held by a British team.
