Tanks can be +40 tons and even so they can reach speeds of 60 to 70 kilometers per hour (40 mph), however, if we took out all the heavy armor, all the auto-loaders, computers, shells, cannon and everything else that can be taken down, how fast could it go?
The only thing that would be left are the basic mechanical things like the controls, gas, breaks and a platform on which the engine is standing, so bare bones basically.
The trouble with any mechanical device is that every piece plays a part. So… If you put in a more powerful engine, you need a bigger (heavier) transmission or at a certain point the engine will strip the gears with too much torque. Then you need better wheels; you can see photos or slow motion examples of the tires flexing on those overpowered thin drag strip racers - the rims are turning and the sidewalls have trouble absorbing the power. Of course, the nose lifting on rear-wheel drive vehicles is also a problem. It’s not difficult to flip a really powerful motorcycle or do a wheelie because the torque, thanks to Newton, works both ways. If you have nice solid tires, and maybe all-wheel drive, then you also risk just spinning the tires - the torque is powerful enough to break the static friction with the ground and start spinning (and smoking) the tires. And so on. At a certain point, jet or rocket starts to look more productive.
OTOH, Tesla just demonstrated their new Roaster model with something like 0-60mph in 1.7 seconds. The other nice thing about electric motors is they tend to have a wider range at which they can put out effective power, while a gas or diesel has a sweet range where it is most effective, so needs gears to change the torque to match the speed, and then the time to shift those gears.
Plus, generally, wheeled vehicles are not terribly stable when they hit ludicrous speeds.
If you put an engine (like the MB 873 Ka-501 in a Leopard 2) on a “normal” car, that car would collapse from the mass of that motor (2200 kg in the MB 873 Ka-501 example case). The car’s speed would then be zero.
The M1 Abrams tank has about 1,500 horsepower, so roughly such a thing might be as quick as a Pro Stock dragster 0-60 (about 1.5 seconds.) but turbines don’t “spool up” quickly like a piston engine, so probably somewhat slower.
top speed would be drag limited.
they didn’t demonstrate anything. they showed a rendering and claimed that’s how quick it will be.
That’s why Ispecifically said in the first post that you would just remove the armor, shells and all those combat parts, but would leave the strong platform that is holding the engine, so you wouldn’t take a Mini car body and put the tank engine there, but would simply strip of the heavy armor and all that.
Well in this case it would be 0-42, which is it’s top speed. It would be quick to 40 but I imagine it’s gearing-limited, which means even if you shed the weight it wouldn’t be able to go faster than that.
If you could change the gearing it would be a properly fast car, my WAG would be something like a Corvette, but a tank transmission with better gearing isn’t the sort of thing you pick up at Jegs.
Do caterpillar treads impose some sort of cap on usable speed? Seems likely to me, but I am not a mechanical engineer.
I do know that the M-18 Tank Destroyer was famously fast – allegedly 60mph on roads.
The Abrams isn’t limited in its top speed by the capabilities of its engine, but by a governor. Disable the governor, and it can already go faster than that, even with all of the weaponry and armor.
Until its tracks disintegrate from stress.
The suspension and tracks have to be a fundamental limiting factor.
That’s probably why they have the governor on it, yes. It all depends on how much risk you’re willing to tolerate.
I should also mention, by the way, that top speed has very little to do with weight, and in fact in some conditions, a vehicle’s top speed can be increased by increasing weight. It’ll take longer to get up to speed, though.
No, they actually built a prototype. People took test rides in it. No one took a VBOX with them, but it was clearly pretty damn quick (though the claim was 1.9 s, not 1.7).
The Abrams can already go faster than that. Its speed is governed to prevent it from throwing tracks. Track links are tough, but they can only take so much stress before breaking.
Helicopters have similar issues. The thing preventing helicopters from going faster isn’t the power of the engine, but the danger of flinging away its own blades when the linkages fail.
Someone already built a car with a tank engine, a 27 Liter Meteor into a Rover. Here. Apparently, a friend that used to work on the Abrams said that during the development phase of the tank they ran a hull (no turret) with special tracks and no governor over 75 mph. I can’t corroborate this and the only reference to a high speed tracked vehicle land speed record is by a Scorpion tank but the Ripsaw EV2 by the Howe Brothers can do at least 80 mph.
Jay Leno owns a (very) custom car with a Patton tank engine:
Results are equally cool, weird and frightening.This about the toughness of track. I know from experience with my M88 (not a particularly fast vehicle) track requires regular maintenance and inspection, basically with every use, to prevent failure. Also, the (primary technical) purpose of track is weight distribution, not mobility or speed.
I learned to walk track at every stop after having to help an unfortunate driver who drove off track after a separation caused by failure of a wedge bolt.
too late for the edit, to answer the OP, if you were to take the engine from, say an Abrams and successful integrate it into a standard car chassis or frame and drive system, the contraption would basically self destruct on application of the throttle.
Not usually. The problem is retreating blade stall (not a great article, but a place to start). If the helo gets going too fast, the rotor stops developing lift evenly on each side. At that point the vibration goes way up, the lift goes asymmetrical, and the helo rolls over on its back and turns into a pumpkin.
To be sure, there is a designed upper limit for rotor RPM. And if you did somehow spin the rotors faster, eventually centrifugal (I know) force would win and it would shed blades. But that would be true with the helo just sitting still on the ground at zero blade pitch and developing zero lift or thrust.
There is now a bunch of progress in research into high speed helos that can work past retreating blade stall. Here’s one example: Sikorsky X2 - Wikipedia.
The first production model high speed helos will appear within the next 5-10 years.
why?
Non-reinforced parts like the tranny, rearend, etc to deal with the massive torque?
Did anyone else read the thread title and picture Thomas the Tank Engine crushing a car?
