Comparison of SkyWay with ÖPNV-Aerobus suspension system

Comparison of SkyWay with ÖPNV-Aerobus suspension system

07 September 2015

Suspended monorail routes for transportation of passengers and cargo are known in the world for a long time, and Anatoly Yunitskiy is not a pioneer in this field. For example, an elevated transport system in the city of Wuppertal (Germany) was launched into operation on 1 March 1901. As a transport system that is similar to one of embodiments of Yunitskiy city suspended transport complex, also noted can be the city suspended system of trestle type ÖPNV-Aerobus (in Russian) by a Swiss engineer Gerhard Mueller.

This system was built for demonstration purposes in the framework of the project "German Federal garden exhibition 1975". The exhibition was held in Mannheim from April 18 till October 19, 1975 on the territory of two parks. A suspended double-track route with a length of 3.1 km connected these two parks. During the exhibition, the route transported more than 2 million passengers. Transport railcars moved along the rail, made of aluminum alloy "avial". The rail was suspended on a pre-stressed bearing cable of 52 mm diameter, which, in its turn, was suspended on pylons (poles). The design of the track is similar to hanging bridges (one of the most famous is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco).

After the exhibition, the monorail route was dismantled, as it was planned. Unfortunately, it can be stated that during the demonstration operation, Muellerᶦs system has not found a customer who would want to order its construction for a particular targeted project. Probably, such situation has developed due to the fact that the transport system at that time was ahead of its time and was too innovative, and the cities have not experienced serious traffic problems, so the city authorities preferred traditional "clear and easy" tram or bus. To understand this fact one can look at the statistics of car production in the world from 1970 to 2012 (see table 1).

Table 1

Production of cars and trucks worldwide

Year

1970

1980

1990

2000

2005

2010

2012

mln. pcs.

30

36

45

59

65

72

85

 The table shows that production of cars in 2012, compared to 1970, grew up by 2.8 times. Accordingly, now the transport problems in cities are much more serious than those observed in 1975, and, to be sure of that, it is sufficient for a resident of a big city just to look out of the window.

As for borrowing Muellerᶦs ideas by Yunitskiy, then, frankly, the similarity of the systems in only one – the wheel rolls on the rail, not on the cable, as, for example, in the way of the firm Neyrpic (the Netherlands, from 1963 till 1965). Mueller himself borrowed the general principle of his transport route from suspension bridges.

Well, and another example of borrowing successful design solutions – the Kalashnikov assault rifle (AK-47), which gained the whole world. As it is known, by the results of a test competition, the first AK-47 variant was condemned as unserviceable, however, Kalashnikov got permission for the revision of the weapon. Back in the town of Kovrov, Kalashnikov along with the designer of plant No. 2 Zaitsev, at no time have actually developed a new weapon. By a number of features it can be concluded that his design widely used elements (including the device key nodes), borrowed from other samples submitted for the contest or just pre-existing ones. Thus, the design of the lock frame with a rigidly attached gas piston, the overall layout of the barrel receiver and arrangement of the recoil spring with the guide lug, which was used for locking the lid of the receiver, were copied from the test sub-machine gun of Bulkin, who has also participated in the contest. The trigger could be "borrowed" from the Holek rifle (according to another version it is based on the design of John Browning that was used in the M1 Garand rifle). The lever of the safety lock-fire mode controller, which also served as a dust cover for a breechblock, is very reminiscent of that in rifle Remington 8, and similar "hanging" of the bolt inside the receiver with minimal friction areas and large gaps was characteristic for the Sudaevᶦs sub-machine gun. Used from StG-44 was an intermediate cartridge, from TKB-415 — some specific features of design and technological arrangement of many parts, with the exception of the breech mechanism. It is worth noting that Kalashnikov and Zaitsev managed, "not inventing the wheel", to create a successful design in the shortest possible time by connecting together the borrowed successful separate technical solutions that turned out very effective. On the next round of the competition Kalashnikov provided practically new sub-machine gun, which had little in common with the first variant. As a result of testing, the choice of the Commission was in favor of Kalashnikovᶦs sample. To date, AK modifications make up 1/5 of the total small arms available on the planet, and it was produced in more than 70 million copies. The Kalashnikovᶦs weapon is used even in symbolism of some of the countries – on national emblems and flags. As they say, comments are superfluous, as well as the question: "Who is actually the author of the Kalashnikov assault rifle?"

Anyway, let us get back to the comparison of transport systems of engineer Mueller and engineer Yunitskiy. The use of the rolling pair "cylindrical steel wheel – flat head of steel rail" by Yunitskiy provides several times lower resistance to wheel rolling and much more durable route, unlike the aluminum Muellerᶦs rail with the wheel restring on the rail head. Muellerᶦs railcars had absolutely non-aerodynamic shape (however, at speeds less than 40 km/h it does not play a significant role). Yet, if we are talking about high-speed urban transport, speed can reach 120 km/h and more on the line, and aerodynamics here already plays a significant role – up to 80% of the energy is spent on "repulsion" of air at these speeds. Regarding aerodynamics, Yunitskiyᶦs transport system is again by 7−8 times better. For example, the drag coefficient at unibus is Cx=0.08...0.09 (experimental data), and for Muellerᶦs railcars, like for other railroad carriages and buses, it is Cx=0.6...0.7. At the same time, we do not in any way want to belittle the benefits of engineer Muellerᶦs systems – for his time it was an innovative breakthrough project, decades ahead of that time.

By the way, about charges of plagiarism. Can anyone blame the companies Chevrolet, Citroën, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Iveco, Lotus Cars, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Shelby Super Cars, Tesla Motors, Toyota and many other manufacturers of electric vehicles in the fact that they stole the idea from Englishman Robert Davidson, who has built the first such vehicle 178 years ago – back in 1837?

Consent Request Form

This form asks for your consent to allow us to use your personal data for the reasons stated below. You should only sign it if you want to give us your consent.


Who are we?

The name of the organisation asking you for consent to use your information is:

Global Transport Investments
Trident Chambers, P.O. Box 146, Road Town
Tortola
British Virgin Islands

We would like to use the following information about you:

Why would we like to use your information?

Global Transport Investments would like to send this information to company registry, inform you about its news, for refund purposes.


What will we do with your information?

We store your name, address, ID Data, date of birth into company registry. We will share your e-mail & phone number with IT Service (https://digitalcontact.com/), SMS Center (http://smsc.ru). They will add your details to their mailing list and, when it is news update, they will send you an email or sms with details. We store your credit card number for possible refunds.


How to withdraw your consent

You can withdraw the consent you are giving on this form at any time. You can do this by writing to us at the above address, emailing us at the address: [email protected] or by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of emails you receive.

Privacy Notice – Newsletter Signup

This privacy notice tells you about the information we collect from you when you sign up to receive our regular newsletter via our website. In collecting this information, we are acting as a data controller and, by law, we are required to provide you with information about us, about why and how we use your data, and about the rights you have over your data.


Who are we?

We are Global Transport Investments. Our address is Trident Chambers, P.O. Box 146, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands. You can contact us by post at the above address, by email at [email protected].

We are not required to have a data protection officer, so any enquiries about our use of your personal data should be addressed to the contact details above.

What personal data do we collect?

When you subscribe to our newsletter, we ask you for your name and your email address.

Why do we collect this information?

We will use your information to send you our newsletter, which contains information about our products.

We ask for your consent to do this, and we will only send you our newsletter for as long as you continue to consent.


What will we do with your information?

Your information is stored in our database and is shared with with IT Service (https://digitalcontact.com/), SMS Center (http://smsc.ru). It is not sent outside of the Euro. We will not use the information to make any automated decisions that might affect you.


How long do we keep your information for?

Your information is kept for as long as you continue to consent to receive our newsletter.


Your rights over your information

By law, you can ask us what information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate.
You can also ask for it to be erased and you can ask for us to give you a copy of the information.

You can also ask us to stop using your information – the simplest way to do this is to withdraw your consent, which you can do at any time, either by clicking the unsubscribe link at the end of any newsletter, or by emailing, writing us using the contact details above.


Your right to complain

If you have a complaint about our use of your information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.