The Dubai Mall: The Biggest Mall

The world’s biggest and most elaborate shopping mall has to be the Dubai Mall, in Dubai (obviously) and it is situated at the foot of the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. The mall is home to more than 1,200 stores and cost more than $20 billion to construct.

[Image Courtesy of DubaiMall]

The shopping mall is four times the size of the Westfield Centre in London and it opened in 2007after the opening had to be delayed twice. When it opened it had 600 retailers, making it the largest commercial project along with the biggest ever mall opening in retail history. The shopping mall spreads out over 12 million square feet, which is about the equivalent of 50 football stadiums.

[Image Courtesy of DubaiMall]

In total there is more than 5.9 million square feet of floor areas. The car park is almost the same size as the shopping mall and holds a capacity of 16 000 cars. Each and every year the Dubai shopping mall sees around 26 million people walk through its doors.

[Image Courtesy of DubaiMall]

The Dubai shopping mall is home to more than just the 1,200 shops, one of the biggest attractions to the mall is the Dubai Aquarium. This also happens to be one of the largest aquariums in the world at a size of 51m x 20m x 11m and has one of the biggest viewing panels offering a view into the aquarium. The aquarium is home to more than 33,000 animals over 85 different species and400 rays and sharks. Visitors to the shopping mall can see a ‘Living Ocean’ and the ‘Rocky Shore’ and meet a penguin colony, otters, piranha fish and catfish.

[Image Courtesy of DubaiMall]

The Dubai aquarium also has a 270 degree walkthrough tunnel made of glass for close up views of the aquarium. The aquarium comes with a lunar cycle lighting system which means that the whole ambiance of the tank is changed and this depends on the time of the day.

On level two of the Dubai Mall is the Reel Cinemas Movie Megaplex and this is one of the largest movie theatres in the whole of the UAE as it is home to 22 cinemas, which play the latest movies. It is also the very first movie theatre to have one cinema that is totally devoted to Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles movies.

[Image Courtesy of DubaiMall]

The Dubai shopping mall is also the place to experience the Dubai Fountain which is on the 30 acreBurj Kalifa Lake. The fountain sends jets of water as high at 500 feet into the air, this is around the same size as a 50 storey building. The fountain is an amazing 900 feet in length and is comprised of five circles, with each having their own sizes, along with two arcs in the middle. The Fountain performs each day to music and a light show.

Via [DubaiMall]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

Army vet creates Tankchair

What happens when the wife of an army vet so tragically becomes paralysed? The Tank-Wheelchair! Army veteran, Brad Soden came up with the idea after his wife became paralysed from the waist down in 1999. He promised his wife he would build her something after she said the words, “Go on without me“, but after “two years and a bunch of beers” he manufactured the Tankchair in his garage, after many engineers told him it just wasn’t possible.

[Image Courtesy of Brad Soden]

The Tankchair is equipped with 12 and a half inch wide heavy duty treads that allow for movement across all terrains, allowing his wife to still look after their farm. “Muddy field, cross it. You want to go fishing with your buddies, go fishing. If it snows, cross the snow,” says Soden, who wanted to create a chair that could tackle all terrains and obstacles.

Soden has no engineering background and didn’t even go to college but years of hard grafting and putting in hard work to research and development he finally came up with his solution to let the disabled live their lives as fully as they used to.

Tankchairs start at $19,500 and come customised to customer specifications, things such as reclined back support or increased braking ability. “Money doesn’t drive me, it’s all about the smiles on the families and those we helped.” And he sticks to his word, all the revenue from chair sales goes straight back into research and development for future improvements on the chair.

[Image Courtesy of Brad Soden]

The frame is made from either steel or aluminium depending on application and is built to last 15-20 years. The two battery powered motors mean the chair can plough up a snowy hill with no problems. Muddy terrain is a breeze to the chair.

“I’m not a big rah-rah type of guy,“ he said in the video. “I get more pleasure watching other people have fun. You see a kid smile, or you see happiness, and the tears of it … I can’t really describe it. Man, I can’t tell you. It’s just really cool.”

[Image Courtesy of Brad Soden]

Via: [Bloomberg News]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

Underground beer fridge

Summer is here and it is the perfect time for those BBQs in the back garden or just hanging out with a few friends and enjoying a beer. If you like your beer cold but you just hate the thought of getting up and going to the fridge to get a refill, you might like this new invention to come from a Danish company that keeps your beers cold outside in the garden. It works by keeping your beer cans in a1.13m tube underground, so essentially eCool is a beer fridge.

[Image Courtesy of eCool]

This new device comes with the name of the eCool and it allows you to store as many as 24 cans of your favourite beer right in the garden underground. This means that it can take advantage of the fact that underground is cooler and so it keeps your beer cool. When the system is installed in the garden it lies underground and you can just pull out a beer and the next automatically comes to the top where it waits for you.

[Image Courtesy of eCool]

The company say that the system could be installed using a shovel, however they do recommend the easy way of installation, this is using a garden drill. This is the perfect system for those who are eco-friendly as the beer is kept cold without having to use any electricity.

[Image Courtesy of eCool]

The eCool system means that you always have a cold beer to hand and it’s very easy to install. It is a total of 113 cm in height, with a weight of 12kg and 22 to 30 cm in diameter. You can store as many as 24 cans in the system and you don’t have to drink them all in the same day, the cans can remain in place for up to one year.

[Image Courtesy of eCool]

The eCool system could be installed on grass or even on a wooden deck, with a hole drilled through it. So before the World Cup starts you might want to consider grabbing yourself one of these if you are having your friends around to watch.

Via [eCool]

Source: http://interestingengineering.com/

Nanpu Bridge: A Bridge to Success

The Huangpu River in China is the last main tributary of the Yangtze River on its way to East China Sea. Huangpu is 113 km long and crosses one of the fastest growing and significant cities in China –Shanghai. Nanpu Bridge is one of the first bridges over Huangpu that connects central Shanghai and the Pudong district on the other side of the river. The district develops fast, just like the city at all, which is one of the main reasons for building Nanpu. It is also expected that the bridge will help for continuing of this development. The bridge, accessible via impressive spiral connections, is also a link between Zhongshan South Road and Lu Jiabing Road. Except all other positives, it is also a touristic attraction and local landmark.
The local people respect Huangpu as a mother river and consider that it is the cradle of Shanghai and something like a spiritual protector of the city. But along with that, the river separates the city and makes the contact between the halves difficult. This is why Shanghai residents have been dreaming about big bridge between Pudong District and Puxi District for long time ago. Since 1920’s if we must be more accurate.
The Songpu Bridge was built in 1975 but it couldn’t solve the problem of the huge traffic around the river entirely because it is too far from the center of Shanghai. This led to the necessity of second bridge over Huangpu River. The Nanpu Bridge project was approved in August, 1986, and the construction began after two years of preparations – in 1988. Two years later the Chinese government decided to turn Pudong District into general development region, which significantly increased the importance of Nanpu Bridge.

The bridge was completely built on 20th of June, 1991, and the official opening ceremony was on November 19th, the same year. After the traffic opening on December 1st, 1991, Nanpu Bridge became the fourth largest cable-supported bridge in the world.
The design of Nanpu belongs to two institutions: Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute, and Tongji Architectural Design and Research Institute. Funding was provided mainly by Asian Development Bank. Its overall cost was 820 million Chinese yuans and became excellent base for the following building of two other bridges: Yangpu and Xupu.
Nanpu Bridge is 8346 m long, but the biggest part of this longitude belongs to its elevated spiral approaches – 7500 m, and the main part across the river is 846 m long. It stands roughly 46 meters above the water level which allows for passing of no more than 55 tons heavy ships.

The bridge is supported by two main H-shaped, 150 m tall towers and double cable planes. The body of the bridge was constructed by using steel and concrete. The lower layer of deck is created by utilizing a large “beam” frame while the upper layer is reinforced with concrete. The bridge surface and the steel deck were electronically welded, after which the junction was reinforced with concrete. This method was used for first during building of Chinese bridges.

via: [shanghaihighlights.com]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

Any surface could become a touchscreen

Thanks to Metaio

We have seen surfaces become transformed into large touchscreens on movies, but now it seems that this tech may not be too far into the future in real life thanks to Metaio, an augmented realitycompany. They have revealed plans of work they are doing on what they have called Thermal Touch. This would mean that people with wearable technology, such as Google Glass, could essentially turn any surface they wanted into a usable interface.

[Image Courtesy Metaio]

Metaio have combined infra-red images taken with a typical camera and this allows them to track heat signatures that are left whenever someone touches a surface. They then combine it with digitally overlaid augmented reality along with computer vision and this gives you a touch interface anywhere you want.

The company behind the new tech said “Imagine pushing directions to your device simply by touching a static map in a shopping mall, building complex or airport; children could bring play to new levels and launch digital content directly from their toys; design professionals could visualize their digital and 3-D creations on their real world counterparts; and service technicians could pull up information just by touching an object in real life.”

[Image Courtesy Metaio]

At the moment the technology is not ready to be introduced to the world; however Metaio have been working on projects to show what could be possible with the use of heads up displays. At the same time they want to fix some of the issues with the current navigation interfaces that are found on some of the wearable products on the market now.

[Image Courtesy Metaio]

Metaio said that the best graphic user interface for wearable headsets hasn’t yet been determined and that up to now makers of devices have been experimenting with what they can do with voice navigation along with companion devices and going as far as projection. To make sure that consumers welcome the new tech it would need to be convenient and of course it would have to be accessible in different scenarios.

Metaio have said that they believe it could be around five years before being able to turn any surface into a touch screen becomes reality. They also said that they thought it may be as long as 10 years before thermal sensors would be included in devices on a common basis. The company did show off a video with some of the possibilities that could be possible with the tech and it does look very exciting.

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

Humans will be put into suspended animation in trials starting next month

It might sound like something straight out of a science fiction movie or but it is true and it is real life, even though scientists don’t want to call it suspended animation. The first of the trials involving humans are about to start with 10 patients at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh. These are people that have suffered from injuries which would be fatal if surgeons were to operate on them.

The team of surgeons will remove the blood from the patients and then replace the blood with a saline solution that is chilled, which would cool down the patient’s body. This in turn slows down the bodily functions, which will delay death due to loss of blood. Dr Samuel Tisherman said “We are suspending life, but we don’t like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction… we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation.”

In 2000 tests were made on pigs and these were very successful. The pigs had fatal cuts and the scientists then dropped the body temperature down to 10 degrees Celsius. The control pigs died but those who had been preserved had around a 90% survival rate following heart restarts. At the moment the technique would be useful when it came to emergency procedures following injuries classed as being severe, and in situations where there would only have been a survival rate of 7%.

The US Army is behind the funding of the project and the whole idea of being able to suspend people came as the result of the Vietnam War. Military surgeons found that one of the leading causes of soldier’s death was losing blood within the first 5 and up to 20 minutes after sustaining an injury. Around one third of soldiers suffered from wounds that they would have been able to survive, if they were in an emergency room. Suspended animation as we know it thanks to sci-fi films, is still a long way in the future, the scientists can only preserve people for about four hours. However this could be plenty of time to save lives.

Via [Electrogeek]

source:http://interestingengineering.com/

The world’s first 3-D printer drone

Mirko Kovac of Imperial College London and his team have merged two technologies that are seeing rapid growth in the commercial world this decade – drones and 3-D printers. The quadcopter drone is essentially a flying 3-D printer which can deposit material that hardens to form a sticky foam during flight.

[Image Courtesy of Arial Robotics Lab]

 The inspiration has yet again come from nature and in particular, the swiftlet, a small East Asian bird which builds nests by depositing threads of its own saliva. Now Kovac and his team at the Arial Robotics Lab have turned drones into flying robotic swiftlets by attaching 3-D printer technology.

The flying printer carries two different chemicals that are kept separate and which produce polyurethane when mixed. A printer module is used to extrude the foam which hardens in the area it is deposited. The idea is that these robots can be used to remove waste from nuclear sites or patch up damage buildings and bridges without the need for time and effort of scaffold construction or dangerous harnessing.

The hexacopter can carry 2.5 kg, but scaled-up versions could carry up to 40 kg, says Kovac. At the moment the robots are battery powered by Kovac has stated his desires to operate them using afuel cell which the robots could recharge themselves by perching in the sun and deploying fold-able solar panels. ”They will build nests to recharge their batteries with solar cells and to observe the environment,” he says.

The team are working towards total autonomy such that the construction plans are input and the printer drones set about their work using GPS coordinates and 16 infra-red cameras to be aware of its surroundings. The robots will also have to perform calculations to compensate for the changing weight of the device as foam is deposited. All the calculations are done by a nearby laptop which automatically sends the instructions wirelessly.

The merging of two such technologies has certainly provided this 3-D printer with a niche and it’s interesting to see such solutions to particular problems.

via: [New Scientist, 3d print]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

Learn About Guns Working

Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station

Normally the hydroelectric power stations are designed to generate electricity by catching and enhancing the natural motion of the water flow of a river. The usual hydroelectric power stationrequires building of semi-natural water reservoir by building a dam wall on the way of a river, which leads to accumulation of huge water amounts. This accumulated water causes huge pressure on the dam wall which is used to generate electricity by letting the water pass through turbine tunnels.

This way utilizes the Earth gravity and the natural water flow of a river for power generation. It requires some expenses only for maintenance of the dam wall and the facilities on it.
But the Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station belongs to more specific type of power plants: a pump storage hydroelectric power station. There is no natural water inflow and the power generating reservoir is filled by few pumps.

This power station is located in St. Francois Mountains in Missouri, USA. It was built by Ameren, a corporation that was born from merging of Union Electricity Company and Central Illinois Public Service Company.

Taum Sauk consists of kidney-shaped water storage atop of Proffit Mountain. To generate electricity, the water is discharged to a lower storage on the East Fork of the Black River. It happens during day time to support the increased energy demand. The huge “kidney” is re-filled with water by using pumps, which are powered by the excess of electricity produced by other energy stations.Tauk Saum is obviously an energy consumer but it is still profitable because of the fact that the night generated electricity has lower cost. In fact, the facility acts more like a huge battery that stores the excess of power.

We may decide that this is new system, but we will be wrong if we do so. The Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station is operational since 1963, or more than 50 years old. Initially the station was driven by two reversible units that utilized the function of both turbine and pump. The overall capacity of energy generation was 350 MW (175 MW for each unit). Those units were upgraded in 1999 and reached overall capacity of 450 MW (225 MW each). The upper reservoir contains around 5.7 million cubic meters of water behind 30 meters tall concrete wall. The water storage is connected to the power plant via 2100 m long tunnel.

While reading the information about Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station I started wondering about possible modification of the system. What about using solar panels to power the pumps? My idea is that the solar energy generated through the day is stored in some sort of big batteries (or by any other suitable mechanism). After the sunset this accumulated solar energy will power the pumps to fill the general water tank and production of energy will flow continuously. And no power from the grid will be consumed. I must admit that I am not an engineer and don’t know if the idea is possible for achieving with current technologies.

via: [wikipedia.org]

Source: http://interestingengineering.com/

3D printed house in just 24 hours

Bahrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California, along with a group of scientists has designed technology that will allow for a 3D printed house in just 24 hours.

[Image Courtesy of Collective-Evolution]

The technology for 3D printing has the name of “contour crafting” and not surprisingly the tech has caught the eye of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, along with NASA too. A huge 3D printer will make the way for designers to create large liveable structures from concrete.

It has been said that contour crafting will bring down the costs of owning a home by making it easier for repairs to be made to properties that have suffered damage. Contour crafting can embed electricity, air conditioning and plumbing into the property during the build.

Just as with typical house building, a foundation has to be laid, starting by leveling out the area for the house to be built on. Around the perimeter of the plot, a trench has to be made and this has to be filled in with concrete and then rails are laid on two sides of the perimeter. The 3D printing device can then be raised or lowered with the help of a crane, while at the same time being fed with the materials for building.

[Image Courtesy of Collective-Evolution]

Bahrokh Khoshnevis said that “using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run.”

There are other examples of companies who have chosen to use 3D printers for gigantic buildings. For instance, we have seen how 3D printing is able to revolutionize building construction in the movie “The Man Who Prints Houses”

More options for this type of technology are being explored by the developers and there is little doubt that the tech does have plenty of potential. Today people tend to think about lots of money being needed for projects such as this, but the developers behind it think that it’s about time this concept was forgotten about so that humans can move on and thrive.

[Image Courtesy of Collective-Evolution]

The technology can be used alongside Hempcrete, a material that can be used in construction and which is versatile and used for insulation in walls, roofing and much more. It can also be put to use with Free Energy, possibly meaning that everyone around the world could live in their home and not have to pay bills. The world is constantly evolving and new technologies and solutions like these may allow for a world completely different to how we know it today.

Via: [Collective-Evolution]

 Source: http://interestingengineering.com/

The whole of the U.S could be powered by solar roads

Solar Roadways, a small US company, are in the midst of developing a road surface with a difference, which may change the way we use energy, the road surface is constructed of solar panels. If the solar road is installed nationwide it would have the ability, potentially, to produce more renewable energy than what is used by the entire country. A prototype has already been made and this was installed in a parking lot. The company are now looking for Crowd sourcing funds in order to be able to make some amendments to the design and eventually take it into production.

[Image Courtesy of SolarRoadways]

The company was founded in 2006 and they have made glass solar panels in the shape of hexagons that come fitted with LED lighting. It can be installed on various surfaces and the company say that the panels would pay for themselves, along with benefiting both homeowners and businesses alike. The solar panels would generate enough energy from all the parking lots and drives so that they could power buildings, while excess energy from the panels would be sold back to the grid.

[Image Courtesy of Sam Cornett ]

In a demonstration the company showed that the solar panels can take even the heaviest of trucks, as they showed a truck of around 250,000 pounds driving over the panels.

Along with being superb sources of energy for buildings, the solar panels would also come with a heating element inside which would be able to melt snow and ice, this would make them a godsend in the winter months as they could help to reduce the amount of accidents. At the same time the surface of the solar panels could be used to provide electric vehicles with power, and perhaps at some point in the future they could even charge whilst the person is driving, thanks to mutual induction panels.

[Image Courtesy of SolarRoadways]

[Image Courtesy of Katherine Simons]

It seems that the solar panels have no end to being useful as the company has said that they found out that headlights from vehicles can produce energy in the solar panels, so even when people were driving around in the dark, they would be providing electricity.

You might think that it would be silly to use a glass surface and then place heavy vehicles on it. However in tests they panels stood this test well. The glass used for the panels is 10% recycled. The panels would be wired so if a fault did appear it would be very easy to detect it and make repairs

[Image Courtesy of Sam Cornett and Craig Fine]

To make sure that there are no ugly power cables showing, the company also designed what they have termed “cable corridors”, these also make it very easy when utility workers need to gain access. At the same time the corridors could double up as holders for fibre optic cables to deliver high speed internet.

The company believes that in the US there is about 31,000 square miles of surface that they could use. If all of this was utilised by the solar panels, the system could essentially produce more than three times the amount of electricity the whole of the country uses. One of the benefits is that there would be a big decrease on being dependent on oil from foreign countries. At the same time the C02 emissions would also be cut down by a fairly large amount.

[Image Courtesy of Sam Cornett]

Solar Roadways have an Indiegogo page and the company is hoping that they are able to raise $1 million. This money is required in order for them to hire engineers; they would then be able to make the final modifications needed, which in turn would allow them to go into production. Providing they do meet their target, installation of the projects could start towards the back end of the year. Of course if they want to cover all US roads, it is going to cost an arm and a leg.

Via [Solarroadways]

 

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

The camera that doesn’t miss a thing thanks to a 360 degree view

EyeSee360 are well-known for producing panoramic cameras for military use, they have been doing it and doing it well for the past 16 years. They have now branched out and adapted the technology they use and introduced the 360Fly. This is a video camera that will be offered to consumers in the fall and will allow them to capture a whole scene in 360 degrees. In short, this is a camera that doesn’t miss a thing thanks to it having a horizontal field of 360 degrees along with 240 degree vertical field.

[Image Courtesy of Samkaplan]

What’s even more astonishing than having the views above, it can record a whole scene and it doesn’t even have to move to do it? All the user had to do is mount the camera on a tripod or even on their equipment, such as on a surfboard or a helmet and it captures everything. So how does the camera manage to capture the whole scene around it without moving?

The lens of the camera captures the image and then footage is sent to through Wi-Fi to a computer or a smartphone and it works on both iOS and Android. The viewer can watch the video in a single shot or it can be clicked and dragged so they can view the entire scene just like they were actually there. The compact camera weighs just 120g but it is rugged and you can take it just about anywhere thanks to it being waterproof to a depth of 5 metres.

The 360Fly is the perfect video capturing equipment for those who like fun and adventure, or even for families. It doesn’t matter whether you are hiking up one of the tallest mountains in the world, snowboarding down the steepest slope or you want to capture the first steps of your first born child, this is the video camera that will ensure you will not miss a moment.

Via [360Fly]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

G-Cans: World’s Largest Flood-Prevention Complex

The G-Cans project is the largest flood protection in the world. Its official name is Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel, but it is most known as G-Cans Underground Templebecause of its support pillars and interior that reminds the visitor of a giant cave. The purpose of this facility is to protect the city of Tokyo from floods. The northern edge of G-Cans touchesKasukabe, a city located in Saitama Prefecture, 30 km north of Tokyo. The necessity of building such facility originated from the danger of overflowing of the rivers and main waterways during typhoons and rain periods.

In fact, the G-Cans Project collects the flood water from several rivers around Tokyo, such as Oochi Kotone, Arakawa, Kuramatsu and Nagakawa, and transports it safely to the Edogawa River. This “exhaust river” begins as a split from the Tone River and has several cities on its way to Tokyo Bay. Thanks to this complex that cost $2 milliard, the Tokyo district settlements are saved from flooding. According to the official information, “The facility is capable of withstanding a once-in-200 years flood.”

The G-Cans complex was built for 17 years, between 1992 and 2009. It has six general points – 5 concrete silos with 32 m diameter and 65 m height, and the main facility known as “The Temple” – a huge water tank with 59 pillars with height of 20m. The Temple is more than twice shorter than the other silos – 25.4 m, but it takes several times larger area with its length of 177 m and width of 78 m. It weighs roughly 500 tons. The Underground Temple has connection to 78 10MW pumps and 14 000 hp turbines that are able to transfer around 200 tons of water per second to the nearby Edogawa River. This river is located at lower altitude than the Japanese capital, crossing the Kanto Plain though the middle just 20 meters above the sea level.

The Temple and the other silos are connected via 6.5 km long and 10.6 m diameter tunnel constructed 50 m below the surface that spans between Showa in Tokyo and Kasukabe in Saitama. When flood occurs the water is filling the silos consequently and the final point of the water “journey” is the Temple, from where it is pumped out to the river. The whole process is observed by a control room.

The underground canal was built by using shield tunneling technology. The essential idea of this technology is a reinforced solid frame to be pushed through a soft ground. This prevents the ground collapsing and allows for building a tunnel within the frame. Of course, mud and soil are excavated from the inside of the frame so that the building could start. The tunnel grows in length by repeating the process until the tunnel is completely built.

The G-Cans complex has no water inside during the dry months so it is used as a tourist attraction. Stairs fixed to the silo walls allow the access to the tunnel. However, if you’re a foreigner in Japan and want to see it, you’ll need a Japanese-speaking friend because all explanations are on the local language.

via: [water-technology.net]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

Grenade Working

Remember this tutorial is for only Learning Purpose

The Electric Lightning LS-218 world’s fastest production bike

Does any vehicle on the road need to have a speed of 218mph full out? What about a motorcycle that offers 200 horsepower and which provides the same amount of torque that you would get from the Hyundai iMax? This is possible thanks to an innovative motorcycle that will be heading to the US this summer that goes by the name of the Lighting LS-218 and will be the world’s fastest production bike.

[Image Courtesy of Glynn Kerr]

There is a lot of good reason to get excited about an electric motorcycle; it will, after all, be the fastest production bike on the planet for starters. The time has finally come when a company is able to deliver an electric motorcycle that offers practical range along with a performance that knocks the socks off anything out at the moment.

[Image Courtesy of Glynn Kerr]

The Lighting was shown off last year when it was given a sneak preview after doing a 20 second victory lap at Pikes Peak. Over the weekend it was show off again at the Quail Motorsport Gathering in California. The photos that have been taken of the bike show the bare shell, there is no battery fitted into it, however the company behind the bike, Lightning, went ahead and revealed some awesome specs to accompany the photos.

[Image Courtesy of Glynn Kerr]

The 218 in the name of the bike is of course in reference to the top speed it can achieve, 218mph. The company behind it are confident that in fact the bike will go faster than this. Whether it does or doesn’t is immaterial really as at 218mph it holds the title of the fastest production motorcycle anyway.

[Image Courtesy of Glynn Kerr]

To make sure that it reaches the top speed it is 200 horsepower liquid cooled and this is located towards the pointed end of the bike, as it does with the very latest hypersports bikes entering the market. The Lightning does in fact offer 168lb.ft of torque, which happens to be almost twice that of the Ducati Panigale.

[Image Courtesy of Glynn Kerr]

The LS-218 has a direct drive system, which means it doesn’t have transmission or a clutch. In low power mode it should be very easy to ride, however the same may not apply should you set about trying to break the land speed records.

There will be different battery packs available and of course these are tailored to suit all budgets; from the smallest at 12kWh to the top rank at 20kWh which will offer a maximum of around 180 miles. Lightning say that it will take 30 minutes to charge the battery using quick charge - how long it will take to charge from 0% to 100% using a standard wall socket is unknown.

[Image Courtesy of Glynn Kerr]

The weight is 495lbs and the running gear will be top notch thanks to the Öhlins FGRT forks and TTX shock, magnesium Marchesini wheels and radial Brembo front brakes.

Would be owners of the bike can customise more than just the battery, a carbon fibre frame and swingarm can be chosen and this will save on weight. The dash can also be customised with an Android touch screen that is fully programmable. The seating unit can also be chosen and customised, plus you can have a custom graphics wrap.

Via [LightningMotorcycle]

Source:http://interestingengineering.com/

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