Regaining the World Water Speed Record for Britain
24th November 2015 - 7pm starting at 7:30pm
Newton Building, University of Northampton
A multi-media presentation by Nigel Macknight of the Quicksilver project
Technology, history and human endeavour meet in the Quicksilver project “ the determined bid that"s under way to regain the World Water Speed Record for Britain. It is 48 years since Britain last held this prestigious international prize, and the laurels won for the nation by Donald Campbell and our previous record-breaking legends are wearing decidedly thin!
Intent on reversing the slump in our water-speed fortunes, dozens of British engineering companies have rallied behind the Quicksilver quest, and this collaboration is enabling considerable progress to be made with the design and construction of the 350-mph, turbofan-powered superboat upon which British hopes rest. The world record stands at 317.60mph, to long-time holder Australia.
Construction of the Quicksilver craft is well in hand, and computers and computing inevitably play a major part in the engineering involved with, for example, finite-element analysis (FEA) being employed in structural design, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) being employed in aerodynamic and hydrodynamic analysis.
The challenge of travelling on water at breathtaking speeds places an exceptional weight of demands upon the Quicksilver team, and its founder and leader Nigel Macknight. He will be presenting for us a dynamic multi-media update on the project"s progress and background. And there will also be dramatic film-footage of previous attempts, illustrating the high points and low points of 100 years of water-speed history.
This is likely to be in demand so early attendance is recommended!
If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with
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