7 ms·

It's a fascinating design, but "Why?" is the question that leaps to mind. Once you get above a certain mass it just seems really beneficial to have a design th

It's a fascinating design, but "Why?" is the question that leaps to mind. Once you get above a certain mass it just seems really beneficial to have a design that is stable at rest. (I'm speaking as someone who has had to pick up heavy motorcycles which have fallen or been knocked over a few times) So what's the benefit of a Gyrocar to compensate for that? A motorbike has the benefit of really dynamic performance coming from the ability to lean in to corners etc, but it seems to me that this thing would work more like a tricycle (ie no countersteer or lean) because the gyroscopes would keep the body of the car level.

nabla9 7y ago
I don't know, but these things are stable at rest. They needs support only after the spinning stops.
- jiofih 7y ago
  The parent probably meant “at rest” as in unpowered.
  - seanhunter 7y ago
    Yeah exactly. The spinning parts at rest as well as the rest of the vehicle. Having to have a wheel descend to stop it from falling over makes you wonder why not just have that wheel there all along? I suppose you could have a kick stand or something but those get a bit sketchy if the thing is heavy (which it would be) and getting it to level initially could be challenging.
dharmab 7y ago
While it's certainly a neat idea given the technology of the time, we have better modern solutions. BMW has fully self-driving motorcycles they use for testing, and Honda has demoed a motorcycle that self-balances at rest.
rzwitserloot 7y ago
Fewer wheels theoretically is better for fuel economy, in that air drag can be reduced more than wheel contact with the road, especially if you are freed to design the body such that there are only 2 points of contact with the road instead of 4. The gyro stabilization should also avoid skidding or aquaplaning sideways. 2 wheels are also theoretically more manuevrable. In practice this stuff mostly wasn't achieved, and there are also plenty of downsides, but then few people tried.
- mbreese 7y ago
  From reading the wiki page, and a few others, I think that the main benefit that was being marketed was that the monorail design could turn with a smaller radius. This would allow you to put track in places where you couldn’t put a traditional two rail track. The gyroscopic effect made it so that the cars themselves could lean (and I believe do so automatically) more than railcars of the age.
  - seanhunter 7y ago
    Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, bona fide electrified, six-car monorail. However I was more specifically referring to the "normal" gyrocar design which doesn't run on rails and is essentially (if I understand it correctly) a large motorcycle with the body of a car and an extra drivetrain powering a spinnig gyroscope on each side to keep the mass from falling over.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    Well, we do have that today; trains can tilt and the cant (tilt) of the tracks can be raised as well. However speeds are now much higher and curve radius is higher as well; China uses 7km curve radii on a 350km/h railway. At this point the main thing limiting smaller curve radii is passenger comfort, because travelers don’t want to be subject to the vomit-inducing forces of a roller coaster. It’s why I am extremely skeptical whenever new land-based technologies promise higher top speeds and lower costs; most costs with these types of projects are land acquisition, and curves necessitate buying more property due to both the intersection of more property and the need to buy out some oddly shaped slivers that may result from a curved rail line splitting a property in two.
bediger4000 7y ago
It looks to me like the answer to "why" is something like: intoxicated by the possibilities of new technology, but not weighed down by too much knowledge or experience, they just tried everything they could think of. As an example, "monocopters" seem like the same sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocopter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocopter
cfn 7y ago
Possibly because back then there were a lot more narrow lanes sized for horses and impossible to drive through in a four wheeled car.
ff317 7y ago
A motorbike will generally both accelerate and brake faster than a car in a straight line (mostly because it's light), but actually loses on cornering speeds against a four-wheeled car because the bike doesn't have as much lateral grip.
- YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 7y ago
  >A motorbike will generally [...] brake faster than a car in a straight line (mostly because it's light) That's generally not true. At best you'd roughly match an average car when balancing your weight perfectly; but typically you can only expect worse results when comparing the two.
  - nwallin 7y ago
    Classical equations of friction gives a constant relationship between weight and maximum acceleration from friction. And that applies fairly well to most pairs of materials. But it applies less well to rubber. Rubber has significant natural adhesive qualities, so a normal force of zero Newtons gives a non zero acceleration. This adhesion dominates low weight acceleration. This is why performance cars tend to have larger tires. See dragsters for the logical conclusion. Without that adhesive quality, performance cars would prefer smaller tires for reduced air resistance. The classical coefficient of friction model is one of "spherical frictionless cows in a vacuum" white lies we tell students to prevent them from getting overwhelmed by the hairiest differential equations imaginable.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ken 7y ago
4th paragraph of the article: > The principal advantage of the monorail cited by Shilovsky is the suppression of hunting oscillation, a speed limitation encountered by conventional railways at the time. Also, sharper turns are possible compared to the 7 km radius of turn typical of modern high-speed trains such as the TGV, because the vehicle will bank automatically on bends, like an aircraft,[1] so that no lateral centrifugal acceleration is experienced on board.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Modern trains can tilt if designed for it, and the track is banked as well. The main issue with curve radii today is that passengers would like a railway where they have a cup of tea or coffee on a table without it spilling. They definitely do not want to be strapped into a vomit-inducing roller coaster.

nabla9 7y ago

I don't know, but these things are stable at rest. They needs support only after the spinning stops.

jiofih 7y ago
The parent probably meant “at rest” as in unpowered.
- seanhunter 7y ago
  Yeah exactly. The spinning parts at rest as well as the rest of the vehicle. Having to have a wheel descend to stop it from falling over makes you wonder why not just have that wheel there all along? I suppose you could have a kick stand or something but those get a bit sketchy if the thing is heavy (which it would be) and getting it to level initially could be challenging.

dharmab 7y ago

While it's certainly a neat idea given the technology of the time, we have better modern solutions. BMW has fully self-driving motorcycles they use for testing, and Honda has demoed a motorcycle that self-balances at rest.

rzwitserloot 7y ago

Fewer wheels theoretically is better for fuel economy, in that air drag can be reduced more than wheel contact with the road, especially if you are freed to design the body such that there are only 2 points of contact with the road instead of 4. The gyro stabilization should also avoid skidding or aquaplaning sideways. 2 wheels are also theoretically more manuevrable. In practice this stuff mostly wasn't achieved, and there are also plenty of downsides, but then few people tried.

mbreese 7y ago
From reading the wiki page, and a few others, I think that the main benefit that was being marketed was that the monorail design could turn with a smaller radius. This would allow you to put track in places where you couldn’t put a traditional two rail track. The gyroscopic effect made it so that the cars themselves could lean (and I believe do so automatically) more than railcars of the age.
- seanhunter 7y ago
  Well, sir, there's nothing on earth Like a genuine, bona fide electrified, six-car monorail. However I was more specifically referring to the "normal" gyrocar design which doesn't run on rails and is essentially (if I understand it correctly) a large motorcycle with the body of a car and an extra drivetrain powering a spinnig gyroscope on each side to keep the mass from falling over.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  Well, we do have that today; trains can tilt and the cant (tilt) of the tracks can be raised as well. However speeds are now much higher and curve radius is higher as well; China uses 7km curve radii on a 350km/h railway. At this point the main thing limiting smaller curve radii is passenger comfort, because travelers don’t want to be subject to the vomit-inducing forces of a roller coaster. It’s why I am extremely skeptical whenever new land-based technologies promise higher top speeds and lower costs; most costs with these types of projects are land acquisition, and curves necessitate buying more property due to both the intersection of more property and the need to buy out some oddly shaped slivers that may result from a curved rail line splitting a property in two.

bediger4000 7y ago

It looks to me like the answer to "why" is something like: intoxicated by the possibilities of new technology, but not weighed down by too much knowledge or experience, they just tried everything they could think of. As an example, "monocopters" seem like the same sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocopter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocopter

cfn 7y ago

Possibly because back then there were a lot more narrow lanes sized for horses and impossible to drive through in a four wheeled car.

ff317 7y ago

A motorbike will generally both accelerate and brake faster than a car in a straight line (mostly because it's light), but actually loses on cornering speeds against a four-wheeled car because the bike doesn't have as much lateral grip.

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 7y ago
>A motorbike will generally [...] brake faster than a car in a straight line (mostly because it's light) That's generally not true. At best you'd roughly match an average car when balancing your weight perfectly; but typically you can only expect worse results when comparing the two.
- nwallin 7y ago
  Classical equations of friction gives a constant relationship between weight and maximum acceleration from friction. And that applies fairly well to most pairs of materials. But it applies less well to rubber. Rubber has significant natural adhesive qualities, so a normal force of zero Newtons gives a non zero acceleration. This adhesion dominates low weight acceleration. This is why performance cars tend to have larger tires. See dragsters for the logical conclusion. Without that adhesive quality, performance cars would prefer smaller tires for reduced air resistance. The classical coefficient of friction model is one of "spherical frictionless cows in a vacuum" white lies we tell students to prevent them from getting overwhelmed by the hairiest differential equations imaginable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ken 7y ago

4th paragraph of the article: > The principal advantage of the monorail cited by Shilovsky is the suppression of hunting oscillation, a speed limitation encountered by conventional railways at the time. Also, sharper turns are possible compared to the 7 km radius of turn typical of modern high-speed trains such as the TGV, because the vehicle will bank automatically on bends, like an aircraft,[1] so that no lateral centrifugal acceleration is experienced on board.

bobthepanda 7y ago
Modern trains can tilt if designed for it, and the track is banked as well. The main issue with curve radii today is that passengers would like a railway where they have a cup of tea or coffee on a table without it spilling. They definitely do not want to be strapped into a vomit-inducing roller coaster.