MechStuff Archives – Page 10 of 11

Which is the biggest truck(dump truck) ?

August 16, 2015

It’s big… no it’s bigger… sorry it’s the BIGGEST truck in the world !
Whenever I see it, it gives me a feeling like the truck is trying to say me – GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY !!!
You probably enjoyed the childhood by making the construction scenes, playing with the trucks making sounds – Vroom broom…! Our favorite among the collection of toys were the backhoe loader(well known as JCB) & the dump truck because they were different from others. We love to fill the bed with mud, rocks & made mechanical voices while dumping it.

In real world dump trucks are used to haul loads of rocks, dirt, sand, coal etc. And obviously the more a dump truck can carry, the less it costs the mining company per load to haul the resources.
For several years the largest dump truck was the Caterpillar 797B.

This massive beast was so big that it couldn’t be driven even on a highway. Instead it had to be transported in pieces & assembled at the construction site. Unbelievable, isn’t it ?

But, human nature – “never satisfies”. So the title of largest dump truck went to a new vehicle – The mighty BelAZ 75710.

Now this thing is really really at the edge of massive-ness. It is manufactured by BelAZ in Belarus.
So how big is it ?

If u stand beside it, you would barely reach to the center of it’s tires or in a better way – the radius of tire is greater than your height ! Each tire costs $42,000 which also explains why this entire shit costs over $6 million !

It is as long as two buses parked end to end & believe me – it is more heavy than Airbus A380 – the world’s largest passenger airliner !
It is 20.6 metres long, 8.16 metres high, and 9.87 metres wide. The empty weight is 360 tons & it can carry 450 tons of load !

Instead of a single engine, the Siemens MMT 500 drive system is powered by two 65-litre 16-cylinder diesel engines, each with 2300 horsepower. 2 engines working together give a power of 4,600 hp – 4.6 times than the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, the fastest car in the world !

[espro-slider id=223]

Now, if you are wondering why BelAZ chose electric motors to drive this thing; the company wanted to maximise fuel efficiency while also meeting tougher environmental regulations that govern vehicle emissions related to mining operations.

Now this is the first time I have used the exclamation marks so frequently – almost after every line. Well it had to be done. Yea, you know it expresses the feelings !
So once more…
All hail mighty BelAZ 75710 !!!

source:- wonderopolis.org & wikipedia

How do ships float ?

August 6, 2015

Thinking to walk on water ? – really bad idea. Why cant we walk on water ? Why does not everything float ? Why doesn’t a stone or any other thing float even if they are are very small ? & HOW DO SHIPS FLOAT BEING SO HEAVY ? more “How do ships float ?”

Pythagorean Cup – The clever mischievous cup !

July 29, 2015

The first thing which comes into my mind – A must do prank ! 😛

A Pythagorean Cup OR a Greedy Cup is a form of a drinking cup which forces its user to consume less alcohol. It allows the user to fill the cup with wine, alcohol or any other liquid up to a certain level. If the user fills only up to this level, one can enjoy his drink in peace.
But if adds more of it by filling it more than the certain limit , the cup spills its entire content out of the bottom (onto the lap of a greedy drinker). more “Pythagorean Cup – The clever mischievous cup !”

NASA’s new robotic vision – Windbots !

July 26, 2015

Engineers at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) are working on a new class of robotic probe designed to stay aloft for a long time without wings or hot-air balloons in atmospheres of giant planets.

There is no shortage of

something different, challenging & cool things

at NASA & we know that very well. One of them is this- WINDBOTS, the new class of robots.

WHY –

Unlike moon & Mars which are already been explored by the robotic rovers, the giant gas planets like Jupiter & Saturn have no solid surface on which the rovers can land on. Hence there was a need to think about the probes which can stay aloft for long period of time. In 1995, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft dropped off an atmospheric probe that descended into Jupiter under a parachute.
The battery-powered probe survived only about an hour due to high heat and pressure as it fell into the planet’s deep atmosphere.

INSPIRATION –
Every masterpiece of Engineering is been inspired by one or the another form, directly or indirectly from Nature. Here, the team is inspired by the dandelion seed.

A dandelion seed is great at staying airborne. It rotates as it falls, creating lift, which allows it to stay afloat for long time, carried by the wind. We’ll be exploring this effect on windbot designs.

says Adrian Stoica, principal investigator for the Windbots study at JPL.

POWER SOURCE –
The Windbot must be able to use the energy resources available there. Solar would not be a good option as the probe would find itself on the planet’s night period for an extended period. The team thinks it might generate power by the same way some wristwatches make, by shaking. During the study, the team suspects that to harvest energy, turbulence can be used because in a dynamic, turbulent environment there are gradients – differences in energy from high to low – that can be used.

Windbots would also prove helpful to scientists to study turbulent weather on earth like tornados & hurricanes by transmitting data all the while.

The team has recently begun studying their question, thanks to a one-year, $100,000 study, funded by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.

source:- nasa.gov

image source:- assets.inhabitat.com

How rocket engines cooling system work ?

July 22, 2015

Our daily life Internal Combustion Engines used in cars & bikes can be cooled by air & water or coolant circulating around it. But what about rocket engines ? How rocket engines cooling system work ?

The engines of rocket heat up upto 6000°C. At this temperature, the metals would become so hot that they would melt & even some of them would vaporise. Circulating water or a normal coolant around it wasn’t going to help. Finally, rocket scientists have to take the engine cooling to a whole new level. more “How rocket engines cooling system work ?”

How does Geneva drive mechanism works ?

July 18, 2015

The Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. The rotating drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel advancing it by one step. The drive wheel also has a raised circular blocking disc that locks the driven wheel in position between steps.
Because the mechanism needs to be well lubricated, it is often enclosed in an oil capsule.

Geneva_mechanism_6spoke_animation — The Geneva drive

Internal Geneva drive :-
An internal Geneva drive is a variant on the design. The axis of the drive wheel of the internal drive can have a bearing only on one side. The switch time is greater than the time the driven wheel stands still. This is also a main difference between them.

Internal_Geneva_wheel_ani_220px — Internal Geneva drive

Applications :-

What is Switzerland known for ? for its beautiful sceneries, yea… but also for its mechanical watches- Rolex, Omega, Rado. The name derives from the device’s earliest application in mechanical watches.
Also one of the application of Geneva drive is the movie projectors. These were used earlier as the film doesn’t run continuously, instead the film was advanced frame by frame, each frame standing still in front of the lens for a very short period of time. In modern projectors, stepper motors are used.
Other applications of this mechanism include automated sampling devices, banknote counting machines, CNC machines, turret lathes & turret drills.

The external form is the more common, as it can be built smaller and can withstand higher mechanical stresses.

source:- wikipedia.org

Boeing’s new laser powered fusion-fission jet engine

July 15, 2015

Get ready, for this highly UNREALISTIC jet engine…
Boeing has received a patent, US 9068562, which combines inertial confinement fusion, fission, and a turbine that generates electricity. Currently this kind of engine is completely unrealistic given our mastery of fusion.

But perhaps in future this might be an excellent idea.

Lets imagine our standard jet engine of commercial jetliners.Somewhere in the middle of the engine lies a fusion chamber.A very strong number of lasers are focused on a single point.The hohlraum or pellet, which is a mixture of deuterium & tritium(isotopes of hydrogen) is kept at this point.When all the lasers are turned on at the same time, it creates massive pressure.This causes the hydrogen isotopes to fuse.Now according to the patent, the hot gases produced by the fusion are pushed out of the nozzle creating very high thrust.

Also, one of the by-products of the fusion reaction is lots of fast neutrons.The patent explains that there is a shield around the fusion chamber.The shield is made of fissionable material(for eg:-Uranium-235).The neutrons moving at high speed collide with this material resulting in production of high amount of heat.This heat is then transferred to drive the turbine which generates electricity.

Finally we are done with this fusion-fission jet engine thing.

imagesource:-arstechnica.com

MechStuff

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Which is the biggest truck(dump truck) ?

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How do ships float ?

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Pythagorean Cup – The clever mischievous cup !

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NASA’s new robotic vision – Windbots !

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How rocket engines cooling system work ?

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How does Geneva drive mechanism works ?

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Boeing’s new laser powered fusion-fission jet engine

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