What’s better than having a car with gullwing doors? A car with two sets of gullwing doors.
Today’s invention is simply to equip such vehicles with a second set of slim covers which fit closely on the normal doors but which can be opened in transit.
When driving at high speed, these act as aerodynamic stabilisers, providing variable downforce and some additional steering effect as their degree of opening is automatically varied.
I was inspired by this guy‘s tip-jet helicopter to apply the principle to terrestrial vehicles.
Today’s invention is a new form of motor in which each wheel has a number of jets fitted on the periphery of its rim. These jets are designed to maintain a horizontal, rearwards pointing orientation as the wheel turns.
Each jet is supplied with a gas at a pressure which is regulated to increase as its height above the road increases.
Since each wheel turns instantaneously about the road contact point (assuming good grip) this distribution of force provides a near-maximal torque characteristic.
This would require a tank of highly compressed gas (eg air) to be carried, but is much less ‘lossy’ than supplying the gas to a conventional car engine to drive pistons etc. Drive to each wheel could be optimised by the use of electronic control valves in each wheel.
Today’s invention reinvents the wheel…again. It started by thinking about how animals like the cheetah move at speed by flinging back legs forward over front legs which are gripping the ground -even very rough ground.
A vehicle (blue) is fitted with a large number of axles. Each has a cylindrical sleeve on both ends which rotate with the axle. In the sleeve, a ‘leg’ is located, so that it can be driven axially within the sleeve (perhaps by use of a screw thread driven by a motor on each axle).
The vehicle would have many wheels operating in sequence, as shown -allowing the overlapping legs to reach forward, grip the ground, push backwards and then be withdrawn axially (or rotated) for a new cycle.
This would allow rapid cross-country movement, potentially with no vertical motion of the vehicle body.
Today’s invention is a new form of tyre which can be changed without removing any wheels and jacking up a couple of tonnes of steel.
It is in the form of a number of rubber compartments, each with a metal foot bonded on. These feet are slotted axially into a hub, as show, by slightly deflating the adjacent segments using the valve which each incorporates.
Repressurisation allows the whole tyre to be used rapidly…there is no longer any need to carry a giant spare tyre…a couple of extra segments should suffice.
