首页
登录
职称英语
New-Age Transport It looks as if it came straig
New-Age Transport It looks as if it came straig
游客
2024-01-04
55
管理
问题
New-Age Transport
It looks as if it came straight from the set of Star Wars. It has four-wheel drive and rises above rocky surfaces. It lowers and raises its nose when going up and down hills. And when it comes to a river, it turns amphibious: two hydrojets power it along by blasting water under its body. There is room for two passengers and a driver, who sit inside a glass bubble operating electronic, aircraft-type controls. A vehicle so daring on land and water needs windscreen wipers — but it doesn’t have any. Water molecules are disintegrated on the screen’s surface by ultrasonic sensors.
This unusual vehicle is the Racoon. It is an invention not of Hollywood but of Renault, a rather conservative French state-owned carmaker, better known for its family hatchbacks. Renault built the Racoon to explore new freedoms for designers and engineers created by advances in materials and manufacturing processes. Renault is thinking about startlingly different cars; other producers have radical new ideas for trains, boats and aeroplanes.
The first of the new freedoms is in design. Powerful computer-aided design (CAD) systems can replace with a click of a computer mouse hours of laborious work done on thousands of drawing boards. So new products, no matter how complicated, can be developed much faster. For the first time, Boeing will not have to build a giant replica of its new airliner, the 777, to make sure all the bits fit together. Its CAD system will take care of that.
But Renault is taking CAD further. It claims the Racoon is the world’s first vehicle to be designed within the digitised world of virtual reality. Complex programs were used to simulate the vehicle and the terrain that it was expected to cross. This allowed a team led by Patrick Le Quement, Renault’s industrial-design director, to "drive" it long before a prototype existed.
Renault is not alone in thinking that virtual reality will transform automotive design. In Detroit, Ford is also investigating its potential. Jack Telnac, the firm’s head of design, would like designers in different parts of the world to work more closely together, linked by computers. They would do more than style cars. Virtual reality will allow engineers to peer inside the working part of a vehicle. Designers will watch bearings move, oil flow, gears mesh and hydraulics pump. As these techniques catch on, even stranger vehicles are likely to come along.
Transforming these creations from virtual reality to actual reality will also become easier, especially with advances in materials. Firms that once bashed everything out of steel now find that new alloys or composite materials (which can be made from mixtures of plastic, resin, ceramics and metals, reinforced with fibres such as glass or carbon) are changing the rules of manufacturing. At the same time, old materials keep getting better, as their producers try to secure their place in the factory of the future.A This competition is increasing the pace of development of all materials.
B One company in this field is Scaled Composites.C It was started in 1982 by Burt Rutan, an aviator who has devised many unusual aircraft.D It has also worked on composite sails for the America’s Cup yacht race and on General Motors’ Ultralite, a 100-milesper-gallon experimental family car built from carbon fibre.
Again, the Racoon reflects this race between the old and the new. It uses conventional steel and what Renault describes as a new "high-limit elastic steel" in its chassis. This steel is 30% lighter than the usual kind. The Racoon also has parts made from composites. Renault plans to replace the petrol engine with a small gas turbine, which could be made from heat-resisting ceramics, and use it to run a generator that would provide power for electric motors at each wheel.
With composites it is possible to build many different parts into a single component. Fiat, Italy’s biggest car maker, has worked out that it could reduce the number of components needed in one of its car bodies from 150 to 16 by using a composite shell rather than one made of steel. Aircraft and cars may increasingly be assembled as if they were plastic kits.
Advances in engine technology also make cars lighter. The Ultralite, which Scaled Composites helped to design for General Motors, uses a two-stroke engine in a "power pod" at the rear of the vehicle. The engine has been developed from an East German design and weighs 40% less than a conventional engine but produces as much power. It is expected to run cleanly enough to qualify as an ultra-low emissions vehicle under California’s tough new rules. [br] Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 6 about car making materials?
选项
A、Their advances are highly dependent on car industry.
B、They are very important for the development of car industry.
C、Their advances are even more difficult than those of car industry.
D、Steels will be no longer used in car making in the new future.
答案
B
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3334362.html
相关试题推荐
TransportfromBayswaterExampleDestinationHarbourCityExpr
[img]2022m3x/ct_ve01202001m_eillist_0822_220329[/img][br]transporthub[origin
Themajor(economic)activitiesofCheyenne,Wyoming,(include)transportation,
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
New-AgeTransportItlooksasifitcamestraig
随机试题
?高中语文《锦瑟》主要教学过程及板书设计 ??教学过程 ??(一)导入 ??(播放瑟乐《淡月映鱼》)同学们,知道这是什么乐器弹奏的音乐吗?
中国成人判断超重和肥胖程度的界限值中,界限值24≤BMI<28kg/m2为A.体
分部工程具备验收条件时,施工单位应向项目法人提交验收申请报告。项目法人应在收到申
空白收据和支票等凭证要由专人负责保管的要求属于()。A.凭证与记录控制 B.实
某两层单建式地下车库如图,用于停放载人少于9人的小客车,设计使用年限为50年,采
人在每一瞬间,将心理活动选择了某些对象而忽略了另一些对象。这一特点指的是注意的(
课程是指课业及其()。
可由期货公司住所地的中国证盟会派出机构依法核准任取资格的人员是()。A.财务负
治疗III度房室传导阻滞最有效的措施是
施工组织总设计以()为主要对象编制。A.单位工程 B.若干单位工程组成的群体
最新回复
(
0
)