The original Red Bull recipe was developed by a Thai businessman, sold under the name Krating Daeng (Thai for Red Bull) and had about three times as much caffeine as many leading cola drinks. Caffeine isn't energy in the sense of calories. But energy comes in different forms.
For example take static energy and kinetic energy. Kinetic energy can be defined as mass * height * gravity. The easiest example for this is a seemingly harmless bucket full of bolts and spares stored on the top shelf in your garage, being full of static energy. As long as it stays there, it is completely harmless. BUT when this innocent looking bucket of bolts is put in motion, static energy in this bucket is immediately transformed into Kinetic Energy, which can be a killer. Ever had a bucket full of bolts fall on your empty, bald and worthless skull.
Another definition of Kinetic Energy is m/2 * velocity^2. Example: the cricket ball that your neighbor hit through your dining room window and straight onto your still empty skull. Owch. Yes. See ? We are slowly getting there.
Some time ago I had the pleasure to ride with my friends on an expedition to Yala block two. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Good weather, lots of wildlife and plenty of mud .Nice little playground with sand and water where I witnessed some of the most wonderful attempts at Kinetic Energy Recovery (K.E.R.) that I ever saw. It was almost noon and stinking hot when Vino's Mitsubishi j24 (j24 is short wheel base while j44 is the longer version ) got stuck it was up to the trusted land rover defender to bail it out.
First thing remember when practicing K.E.R. is NOT to break transmission parts. The Land Rover drive train is as good as any and better than most, but it is designed to move the vehicle under its own power over any terrain. It is NOT designed to absorb the massive shock loads incurred in K.E.R. So it was no wonder that our brute force attempts at recovering, almost broke the defender and made the poor Vino's jeep a j44.
The philosophy of K.E.R. is to utilize the energy stored in a moving vehicle by transferring it to a stuck vehicle by means of a rope, applying a shock load to the rope and the stuck vehicle, through the ROPE, not through your transmission. This means that you give your tow rope as much slack as possible, launch your vehicle (the puller) at the maximum speed obtainable within the length of your tow rope and applying the momentum, gained by the mass of the pulling vehicle to the one stuck. This is only theoretically good,.
So how do you recover a bogged jeep safely. Try this method which i found on www.landroverclub.net. "Attach your vehicle to 'the sad looking guys' vehicle in the bog by means of a tow rope. Drive backwards as near as possible to the stuck vehicle and then slowly stretch your tow rope by advancing your vehicle. When the rope is stretched, look for a recognizable mark on the ground just below your side window, or make a mark with your boot yourself. Now you know when and where the rope will be stretched. Back up your vehicle as far as possible again and launch it at the maximum speed you can get. BUT, before reaching that mark on the ground, push in your clutch pedal as fast as you can and as far as it will go, so that when the load is applied to your vehicle, it is not going to your transmission. Then you will be using the kinetic energy stored in your vehicle only and you may make some substantial savings on half-shafts, central diffs and gearboxes in general."
Ok what if the above does not work. You can 'try' to find a winch and ‘try’ winching the sucker out. And if this does not even work, leave it where it is, take the top off and plant some nice trees. On the other hand you can give a can of 'red bull' to the owner in hope he might find some 'bull' energy to get him out of mud.
3 comments:
In this particular case the problem was different. No K.E.R would have recovered that 'thing' out of mud especially when its front axel was caught in an old tree root. The more you pull the longer the 'thing' would get (Which we managed to do eventually). The second problem was that what we had was a rope, a long thick rope with little or no elasticity. Had it been a proper recovery strap it would have made a difference (highly unlikely in this particular case).
So what would have been the best course of action at that point? Our first choice would have been a high lift jack which could have been used to clear the axel shaft out of the root and then may be in the same motion pull the 'thing' back using K.E.R. But we did not have a high lift jack. So what to do ? Instead of pulling from behind pull from front. Simple to say but difficult to implement as that was no path to get the recovery vehicle to the front. In the end we did manage to get the 'thing' out of the mess, to its owner’s relief. Personally I would have preferred to leave it there as a memorial to commemorate the stupidity of the owner who drove the ‘thing’ down an unknown piece of terrain at full speed.
good thing the 'owner' does not know about this artical.. I think he may have a word or two to say if he sees this..
Heheee :) A Physics lesson... One that I actually enjoyed! :) Nice writing, bro! And I especially liked the planting of the trees if you can't get the vehicle out part. 10 points for positive thinking! I am sure Vinod will have a LOT to say when he sees this! :)
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