These CAD generated images are the latest configuration of the car that the team are working on as at March 2009. Although at first glance it doesn’t look much different from previous images, there has been a great deal of work done on the details of the air duct for the EJ200 jet engine (shown in solid blue), and strengthening the sub frame around the rear wheels.

Other things to note are:
• Just how close driver Andy Green will be to the front wheels, the air intake and the fuel tanks
• Revised Rear chassis to increase its stiffness and suspension to counter toeing out due to drag.
• A diffuser has been incorporated into the bodywork below the jet to mitigate the effects of lift at high mach numbers

The engineering team have also been working on stiffening the chassis. This is a balancing exercise as increasing the stiffness usually results in an increase in weight. The aim is for the chassis to flex by no more than a few millimetres along the length of the car at a target frequency of 30Hz.. As you may appreciate, this is only achievable by increasing the strengthening components enormously, and the resulting weight would be prohibitive.

The animated drawing above was produced by suppliers ARUP, and shows how the current configuration bends under load – this has been magnified greatly so that the effect can be fully understood. These simulations allow the engineering team to add strengthening spars and panels to see just what effect they have on the rest of the car.

Other effects have also been animated. The drawing below shows how the build up of drag on the rear wheels distorts the framework as the speed increases. Again the unwanted effects are greatly magnified so that they can be understood and minimised.