Interesting Facts and Figures

[hodgo]

This is an email I received if it right it mind blowing
The Definition of Acceleration


Read this through slowly and try to comprehend the amount of force produced in just under 4 seconds! There are no rockets or airplanes built by any government in the world that can accelerate from a standing start as fast as a Top Fuel Dragster or Funny Car!

DEFINITION OF ACCELERATION

One top fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows of stock cars at the Daytona 500.

It takes just 15/100ths of a second for all 6,000+ horsepower of an NHRA Top Fuel dragster engine to reach the rear wheels.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger.

With 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture of nitro methane, the flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg F.

Nitro methane burns yellow... The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After halfway, the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 deg F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph (well before half-track), the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence.

Top fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm.

Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimate $1,000.00 per second.

The current top fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.428 seconds for the quarter mile (11/12/06, Tony Schumacher, at Pomona, CA ). The top speed record is 336.15 mph as measured over the last 66' of the run (05/25/05 Tony Schumacher, at Hebron, OH).

Putting all of this into perspective:

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter 'twin-turbo' powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a top fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and pass the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds, the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him.

Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1,320 foot long race course.

... and that my friend, is ACCELERATION!


Hodgo

[Pedro_The_Swift]

ok,, how about highest recorded sustained G's?

from Wiki--

Launch Escape System



Only one emergency use of an LES has occurred. This occurred during the attempt to launch Soyuz T-10-1 on September 26, 1983. The rocket caught fire, just before launch, but the LES was able to carry the crew capsule clear, seconds before the rocket exploded. The crew were subjected to an acceleration of 14 to 17 g (140 to 170 m/s²) for five seconds. Reportedly, the capsule reached an altitude of 2,000 meters (6,500 ft) and landed 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) from the launch pad.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

or this,,

NASA tests launch abort system for space capsules
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: May 6, 2010

In a spectacular $220 million test, NASA fired a new astronaut escape system rocket in New Mexico Thursday, boosting a dummy crew module more than a mile up in just 20 seconds to demonstrate how a future manned spacecraft could be pulled to safety in the event of a catastrophic on-pad rocket failure.

Credit: NASA

Using a solid-fuel motor generating some 500,000 pounds of thrust, the launch abort system ignited with a torrent of orange fire and smoke at 9 a.m. EDT, pulling the dummy crew module to nearly 450 mph in just 2.5 seconds with an acceleration of 16 times the force of gravity.
The motor burned for just six seconds or so, boosting the system to an altitude of nearly 4,000 feet and putting it on a ballistic trajectory with a predicted high point of roughly 6,000 feet.
An attitude control motor with eight computer-controlled exhaust ports helped maintain the craft's stability during the initial climb away from the White Sands Missile Range launch pad.
Ten seconds after takeoff, the attitude control motor began re-positioning the vehicle to a capsule-first orientation and as the craft passed through the apex of its trajectory, the burned-out escape rocket was jettisoned. Drogue parachutes then deployed to slow and stabilize the capsule before three 116-foot-wide parachutes unfurled for the final descent.
The heavily instrumented capsule, which will not be used again, hit the ground two minutes and 14 seconds or so after launch, 6,919 feet from its takeoff point. Touchdown velocity was 16 mph, about 6 mph slower than predicted.
"It's a great day for the country, for NASA and for industry," said NASA Test Conductor Don Reed. "It was absolutely successful. We didn't see anything anomalous. Everything worked as it was expected. In fact, we actually touched down at significantly less velocity than we predicted. The performance was absolutely astounding."

[Pedro_The_Swift]

mind you,, there are very few things that compare to being close to a top fueler at launch,,,

but being close to a SaturnV or Shuttle at launch would be one of them,,

[Benny_IIA]

yer not bad i guess

[Ausfree]

Those statistics on the Top fueller are absolutely mindblowing!! You see them on TV launching at the start of the race and the torque actually twists the body!!

[Pedro_The_Swift]

yea, big trucks do this too,,

[clubagreenie]

I used to think that standing at the fence at the creek was impressive for noise and vibration when they launched. Especially considering I can hear them from home on a clam night (Eastern Creek to Lalor Park). Then I got to stand on the strip at launch. You actually feel nauseus and the fuel smell isn't the greatest on the nose or eyes.

[ScottW]

Has anyone noticed that the pipes on top fuelers and funny cars point up? Ever wonder why? The amount of pressure created by the exhaust provides lots of downforce.
If they point down, they lift the car off the ground.

[SuperMono]

Well......a few points here could be argued, and that could be the start of a statistics war

But because I can't resist.....

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

We could start with which version of 747 and engine is being compared, and what is the throttle setting at the time. I can't really be bothered so:
The cruising fuel consumption of a typical long haul 747 might be in the order of 1.1-1.3 gallons of jet fuel per second (around 12,000kg/hr) which compares reasonably well.
However at cruise the engines are producing around 240,000N of thrust (a lot less than maximum) which using P=F*v is roughly 65,000KW.
Even dividing that by 4 to give the output from each jet engine gives more than 15,000KW, which is an awful lot more than any top fuel car and can be produced for hundreds of hours without exploding.

So don't trust all of those statistics (even those I have provided), just accept that a top fuel dragster is incredible to watch, hear, smell and feel.