Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dwaltrip 2561 days ago
I don't think this is correct as a general statement. Imagine if the walls were made of canvas fabric with appropriate amounts of slack, just as an example of a material that can easily bend.

You would need a cleverly designed frame, but I'm sure there is something that would work. Perhaps many smaller segments joined together.

2 comments

Canvas can bend more easily than rubber or steel, but deforming it still requires some energy. And while canvas would work for the walls, it wouldn’t work for the bogey, and anything rigid enough to work as a bogey would take lots of energy to bend.
To some extent you can say a regular multi-bogey train is undergoing deformation by changing the angular configuration between cars via the linkages. This could technically be extended to have the linkages have every few inches along the bogey instead of between 20-foot segments. We just need a way to transfer energy reliably between deformations and change in acceleration.