the wheg shows up here a few times, think of a tire with computer controlled bumps that sees the surface then optimizes approach: less friction
to mimic or achieve near frictionless travel you use a wheg with an ordinary road where there are metal dollops on the road; the wheg computing cleverly matches metal to metal to minimize friction; regular tires are nonaware of the metal portions plus you just add metal pieces to the roading resurface goop to keep functional-- beanangel, Mar 11 2008 the wheg is kind of like this thing Radicle_20Rotation [beanangel, Mar 11 2008] Vehicle losses http://www.lastufka...cars/why/qfrict.htmA discussion of the various losses experienced by a race car [neutrinos_shadow, Mar 11 2008] [If you're googling this, search on "wheg robot" or you a lot of stuff about Wisconsin. Wherever that is.]
I'm kinda missing the point of minimizing friction on a highway - you need a whole bunch of it to go fast (or your wheels will just be spinning in place - think driving on ice).
And whegs seem to be less like tires and more like bicycle wheels without the rim.-- DrCurry, Mar 11 2008 frictionless impoves mileage
a wheg could use normal surface to attain velocity then go to metal surface to keep velocity-- beanangel, Mar 11 2008 Treon, do you actually know what percentage of a car's energy is wasted in overcoming wheel friction when travelling at any particular speed?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 11 2008 Actually, I retract that, since it seems that tread friction is not insignificant. My apologies. However, I would bet my hat against your shift key that whegs are not the solution.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 11 2008 Treon, you really need to work on providing some background information so that your decipherer's can have a clue as to what you're saying. It looks to me like a wheg would be a terribly bumpy ride at a fast rotation, no?-- RayfordSteele, Mar 12 2008 visualize a humaniform robot running at 70 mph I'm thinking that a wheg would be as bumpy as such a robot carrying a person with their vibration n momentum controlling arms
actually the spooky thing is this: the new autonomous robot cars that are recently featured could improve vehicle mileage notably if they just tossed metal flats after them n had whegs
a RR thing i read suggested these have hundreds of mpg compared with trucks as they are metal on metal plus travel at aerodynamically friendly velocities
wheg equipped autonomous vehicles could travel on metal strewn gound at hundreds of mpg at moderate burlington northern like velocity-- beanangel, Mar 13 2008 In what way would this be simpler than laying smooth rails to run rigid wheels on? My experience with active suspension tells me that the necessary processing speed is far above what is currently achievable and the power required to reprofile the wheel would also be prohibitive, even if you just consider the acceleration of the 'tyre' mass. bone.-- Twizz, Mar 14 2008 [Treon], I see no evidence anywhere to suggest that this offers any benefits, other than your own opinion. "I've found whegs... computer-controlled whegs are the way of the future" is missing a logical step or two. I could, for instance, argue that a slug-like locomotion based on melted cheese was even better, all I need to do is avoid presenting any facts or logic.
And what [Twizz] alluded to - build a railway. For one, you won't be bouncing the entire mass of the vehicle up and down significantly at 3Hz [edit: that should be 3x rotational speed], so you'll save a lot of energy over these whegs right away.-- david_scothern, Mar 14 2008 A railway uses only the friction co-efficient between the interacting surfaces to gain a vector in the required direction (a lot of waste energy). Quite obviously, an intelligent use of the vector result of the interaction of two surfaces would be beneficial. This works in the same way that an elephant can crush a skull, yet step gently over dry leaves. However your "dollops" of metal overlook phase intergration. And, if random, overlook any type of energy efficiency.-- 4whom, Mar 17 2008 [4whom], I don't see where the huge energy wastage is on a railway. If you pass more power than the wheels can handle, then slippage, wastage and severe wear results, but that's not how a train starts. Rather, power is carefully managed so that each wheelset is right on the edge of slipping, but still just hanging on. It's a very efficient mode of transport.-- david_scothern, Mar 17 2008 Shaka, when the walls fell-- mecotterill, Apr 16 2008 random, halfbakery