Engineering Challenge for clever people...

[Simon Brindley]

I would love to hear suggestions for a solution to this problem:

The challenge is simple in concept - design a wind-powered vehicle which
is capable of driving directly into the wind.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated - I know there is someone out there
who can do this...!

Please leave your ideas here, or mail them with an an attached bitmap
sketch to "s...@mail.com".
Thanks for your help,
Simon.

[Keith Withey]

It would work with a simple windmill driving road wheels through step-down
gearing. As to the best pitch for the vanes, and the most efficient
gearing - that would take rather more effort to calculate! The main
requirement is that the drag from the vanes mut be less than the road
friction.

Keith

snip

> > The challenge is simple in concept - design a wind-powered
vehicle which
> > is capable of driving directly into the wind.
> >

snip

[staff]

Simon Brindley wrote:
>
> I would love to hear suggestions for a solution to this problem:
>

> The challenge is simple in concept - design a wind-powered vehicle which
> is capable of driving directly into the wind.
>

> Any ideas would be greatly appreciated - I know there is someone out there
> who can do this...!
>
> Please leave your ideas here, or mail them with an an attached bitmap
> sketch to "s...@mail.com".
> Thanks for your help,
> Simon.

Simon, you can not break the laws of physics and thermodynamics....

There is no machine out there than can create more energy than it uses.
What you are asking is physically impossible. The best you could ever
hope to do is break even, but even this is impossible because of
inefficiencies (despite what some people may say, there are no perpetual
motion machines).

Michael Gubesch, P.Eng.

[John Weale]

Simon Brindley <9a...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> I would love to hear suggestions for a solution to this problem:
>
> The challenge is simple in concept - design a wind-powered vehicle which
>is capable of driving directly into the wind.

Sounds like one of those silly interview questions... My first
thought on how it could be done is the vehicle would have to be able to be
anchored to the ground for a while (put on the parking brake), store wind
energy (windmill attached to a battery or fly wheel or ...), retract the
windmill (just have it pivot down), *then* proceed directly upwind until
the stored energy was exhausted. Throw the brakes, pop up the windmill
(you did save some energy to do that, now didn't you?) and repeat ad
nauseum.
This relies on being able to 'put on the brakes' and hold position
against the wind without using any energy while some means is employed to
harvest windpower and store it.
If you're looking for something more "real time" conversion style,
like a sailboat that can sail directly upwind, you'd better be on a river
with a strong current and gentle breeze headed directly upstream.
So, do I get the job or do I have to figure out how to divide the
cake into 8 pieces with only three cuts again :)

John Weale
--
---========================= John Weale(ty...@u.washington.edu)=========---
The world does revolve around engineers... they pick the coordinate system.

[CadWright]

In article <01b41e3b$f77fd620$d56145c2@simonbri>, "Simon Brindley"
<9a...@dial.pipex.com> writes:

>I would love to hear suggestions for a solution to this problem:
>The challenge is simple in concept - design a wind-powered
>vehicle which is capable of driving directly into the wind.

Build a vehicle, add a sail/fan etc. and then push it from the
top of a very big and steep mountain ;-)

TTfn,

Craig___