Human Like A House

Not too long ago I mentioned a 'hybrid' JDM Civic Type R. Below is a picture of both the 'hybrid' and a red Mugen RR Civic for comparison. The Mugen RR is an upgrade of the Type R featuring a lighter and fastest ride on track.

The Old & Busted.


New Hotness.



And in other car related news the we have the Lexus Nuaero concept by Jon Rådbrink presented at the London College of Art graduation show last month.





Featuring a distinctively odd 'batmobile' shape, the design is actually an ingenious solution in many aspects of automobile design albeit the lack of a traditional boot space at the back. Below are some sketchy drawings of mine on trying to make sense of the design based on information released by Rådbrink.



The novel starting point of the design is that it considers aerodynamic efficiency of the structure before anything else unlike conventional car design methodologies which starts off with the chassis platform designated by the manufacturer before carving out the shape of the car. The Nuaero is inspired by the Catamaran with the kinks and and edges eventually rounded and smoothened out to excel in the wind tunnel. The modified Catamaran form the Nuaero takes comprises of an aerofoil like central bloc and two large vertical planes that double up as rudders to maximise stability of the structure when in motion.



Eventually the wheels are housed within the two vertical planes however, these are not just simple wheels, servo motors are installed along with braking components within the rim hub of the wheels.



Steering is achieved through hub steering, not unlike the Tumbler. Despite servos being relatively heavy components, in this configuration the powerplant of the vehicle (I'm omitting the power source in this case which I assume would be mounted in the central aerofoil block) is being distributed to all four corners of the vehicle increasing traction and stability. This allows for weight savings to be obtained at the front of the vehicle which is traditionally where the engine is housed. As servos are being used in this set up, regenerative braking could be implemented which would result in better operating efficiency as the kinetic energy could get channelled back to a battery (which I assume would be the power source this whole braking thing is really just my own speculation/input). However I do have one query:



Consider the Honda solar car above (I'm not really lobbying for Honda, it's just a convenience thing). Imagine negotiating a sharp bend at say 50km/h and how does that the vertical plane hold up against the sudden rush of air? In the solar car, it would seem to be much smoother with a daggerboard style implementation of the cockpit allowing for better manoeuvring through a column of oncoming air current. Ok the solar car might not be the best candidate for such applications (due to it's small contact surface with the ground, it might void the stability issue altogether) but the ovoid shape of the solar car is the focus here.

So why did I decide to feature the Nuaero? Largely because it resembles an oddly styled batmobile and seemed fun to dissect. The Old & Busted-New Hotness thing was actually a line from Men in Black II.

Now, If Looks Could Kill.