TerraLiner:12 m Globally Mobile Beach House/Class-A Crossover w 6x6 Hybrid Drivetrain

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PART N: SUMMARY – Tying it all together


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1. Critical Feedback Welcome


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Well, that's enough for now. I have at least 3 times as much as the above to post in addition. I also have some stuff to post about “Star Awnings”. But here there should be more than enough here to get a good discussion going, and more than enough for those who enjoy technicalities to provide lots of corrections.

Remember, I really do welcome critical feedback, which is precisely why I began posting on ExPo in the first place.

For instance, I would not now be thinking about a segmented front panoramic window for the TerraLiner, if thjakits had not made it abundantly clear that all glass in the TerraLiner windshield should be easily replacable. As it turns out, this suggestion got more ruminating for literally months, until I remembered that Art Deco “streamline” trains had wrap-around, full panoramic windshields composed of flat panels:


10 images



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2. More Segmented Possibilities


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On a more poetic note, I also recently came across this vehicle created by an artist, a vehicle whose nose is nothing but flat, triangular-shaped pieces of stained glass:



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And then of course there‘s the proposal for a a fully panoramic “sky lounge” for the Airbus…..




10 images


If thjakits had not been so insistent about some of the more “practical” dimensions of TerraLiner design, I would not have ruminated so long and hard, and found myself discovering design precedents that might truly be solutions.



The wonderful irony here is that a purely practical consideration – easily replaceable flat panels – has then given me an excellent excuse to “mine” the inherited design language of Art Deco. It has given me an excuse to design a TerraLiner Cab that looks radically different and innovative, and that is simultaneously more practical than the continuous glass panoramic sheets that one usually sees “futuristic” truck designs:


Some examples of futuristic truck cabs


The practical consideration that thjakits insisted upon has given me the perfect excuse to push my central design theme of “Retro-futuristic Art Deco” even further.

But if I had not created this thread, I would not be currently thinking along such lines.


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3. Holistic Design


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Yes, agreed, if you've read all of that, that was sure a great deal to take in, all in one go. But in motorhome design everything has consequences for everything else. Especially if the awnings are intended to do “double duty” as solar power collectors…..:) Once that becomes part of their function, one has to think about the problem of awnings and potential wind damage in a different way, thinking through how one could design a system that would allow the awnings to stay deployed longer, at higher wind-speeds.

It's sort of like creating a painting: you have to develop a way of working “all over”, all at once; all of the painting at the same time. This seems physically impossible, and it kind of is, but that's how you have to learn how to work. Because if you increase the saturation of a color in one place, all of the other colors are thrown off; or if you increase tonal contrast in another place, then suddenly your eye goes there instead, and perhaps that wasn't your intention. So experienced painters learn how to develop a recursive, “all over” method. They begin by covering the entire canvas first with broad brushstrokes and very thin paint. Then the next stage they start blocking in some areas in a more defined way, gradually bringing everything into focus and balance through an additional 10 or 15 steps….. Whereas complete amateurs will work on just one small patch of the painting, leaving the rest of the canvas white, not realizing their profound mistake.

In designing the TerraLiner, over a year ago I realized that I was designing something a bit unique: a motorhome that should in principle be able to go anywhere. A kind of “universal vehicle” fit for all seasons, all climates, all geographies. It soon occurred to me that this might be a fundamental mistake. For instance, a huge Class-A motorhome like the ones illustrated many pages back are a perfectly good choice for a certain kind of person who wants to live a certain kind of RV lifestyle in North America, driving roads fit for Class-A motorhomes. But the same kind of vehicle is going to have a very hard time driving through Latin America, let alone Africa.

So one very basic “broad brushstroke” move at the beginning of the design process was stating flat-out that the TerraLiner would be a “bad road” motorhome, but not an “off-road” motorhome, and not a “wilderness exploration” motorhome. For that, a much smaller 4x4 Unimog, or simply a Landrover, would be a better choice.



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4. The TerraLiner: a Transitional Vehicle that cannot be "Pure Solar"


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What I've just written is another basic “broad brushstroke” move.

Yes, the TerraLiner will be a serial diesel-electric hybrid, and it will have massive solar. But even once solar technology achieves power densities of 800 or 1000 KW per square meter, unless battery technology improves significantly in parallel, a world-travelling expedition motorhome will still need a diesel generator. One could only eliminate the diesel generator if the batteries were truly exceptional, packing the power-per-kilogram of diesel fuel. Otherwise the TerraLiner simply could not cross Siberia in the winter, when there is very little solar power available. Or it might get stuck in the middle of a monsoon, when it rains non-stop for weeks on end, without even one day of sunshine. As suggested above, for a truly extended sojourn through South Asia that lasts 2 1/2 years, at some point the TerraLiner probably will have to sit tight for a few months in just one spot during the monsoon season, probably on the West coast of Sri Lanka August to October, on or near Arugam Bay -- see posts xxx to xxxx. Or the TerraLiner might find itself on the coast of an equatorial country like Ecuador or Columbia, with no power at all, because the DNI has fallen to levels similar to Germany's.

Perhaps eventually batteries or fuel-cells will be created that can deliver 20 KW of continuous power for 3 or 4 weeks non-stop. But they do not exist a present, at least not at affordable prices. And they are unlikely to appear for at least another 10 years, and more likely 20 years.

So the TerraLiner will have a diesel generator. And in the course of really thinking through how solar would actually “work”, I realized that the generator probably has to be a 20 KW model, as big as the ones provided for Class-A motorhomes. Or at least it needs to be this big when travelling in parts of the world where the DNI is low, and the “solar potential” is intermittent and poor.

Perhaps a “generator locker” could be created, with a movable partition, one that would allow different sizes of generator to be fitted into the TerraLiner, depending on the intended destination. If driving around Australia, where constant abundant solar energy is virtually guaranteed in most places (save perhaps Tasmania), then perhaps the generator fitted could be just a 10 KW model. Whereas when exploring Siberia in winter, where the TerraLiner might want to employ the gentleman who runs the “askyakutia” website to serve as local guide, the TerraLiner would have to be fitted with a 20 KW generator – see http://askyakutia.com and http://askyakutia.com/my-services-in-yakutsk/ .

But no matter what the ultimate solution, it seems clear that the TerrraLiner will have to be a “transitional” vehicle, one that is not “pure solar”, at least not at first.


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5. Water Autonomy is more important than Solar Purity



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In some of the recent debate on this thread I've sensed that the European participants – especially the Germans – have a very strong need to push for “Solar Purity”.

This is understandable once you realize how fanatically “green” and pro-solar German society has become. In Germany solar is almost a religion; indeed, perhaps German enthusiasm for solar needs to be quasi-sacral and doggedly irrational, because from a geographical point of view, it makes absolutely no sense. Germany is one of the worst places on earth to try to develop a solar-based energy infrastructure. So the German commitment to solar has to be emotionally charged with quasi-religious intensity; only that way can solar outwit the hyper-rational cost/benefit analysis of the German engineer's brain.

But although I am German, I am also many other , culturally and politically; and I also have a second, Canadian passport. Furthermore, I most definitely am not a German engineer. So there's no value for me in tilting at windmills, trying to achieve the impossible, namely, a completely solar expedition motorhome that is “diesel free” when stationary.

Sure, eliminate the Watermaker, the AWG, the induction stove, A/C, and a few more power-intensive appliances, and the TerraLiner might be able to run all internal systems on 5 KW or less. But for me the consequent sacrifice in comfort would defeat the whole purpose of this design exercise: to see what kind of totally “glamped out” but globally capable expedition vehicle might be conceivable, using technologies that are near-term possible, i.e. technologies that will come on-line in 5 years or less. So too, for me, because of bad experiences with Third World levels of sanitation (i.e. lack thereof), water purity is a top priority. Others may think the TerraLiner should strive of “solar power autonomy”. But much more important for me, is that the TerraLiner should strive for “water autonomy”.

I want the TerraLiner to have systems that will enable it to autonomously produce as much water as possible from rainfall collected on the roof, or a pair of AWGs, or both; and as little water as possible pumped in from a sources on the ground. Maybe one just needs to get really sick for a few months from a disease caught in a Third World country, in order to understand where I am coming from……:)



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6. Why Did I Write and Post All of This, Here on ExPo?


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Now that the shear size and amount of what I've posted has become apparent, no doubt there will be some of you who will be wondering about my motivation.

Put simply, I haven't seen anyone else anywhere on the web “think through” the real-world design limits of a massively solar expedition vehicle. Perhaps books exist that explore the subject, but somehow I doubt it. As seen above, 3 KW solar arrays are still very uncommon, let alone the 5 KW roof array + 2.5 KW awning array envisioned by the TerraLiner. And perhaps as much as 12 KW. As near as I can tell, such a design has not yet been imagined travelling the globe, and so nobody has yet thought through what the structural specifications of its awnings should reasonably be, to take maximum advantage of solar when the DNI is high.

So too, even though Blissmobil specifies roof-top rainwater collection, and in concert with a water maker, promises more water available than an overlander will ever need, and an end to water-rationing, I wonder whether Blissmobil has actually thought through where and when roof-top rainwater collection will actually work. I wonder whether they've thought through how roof-top rainwater collection would function in real-world conditions, especially in hydrologically extreme climates like India's, which goes from parched, rainless desert from one month, to soaking-wet rainforest the next.

The Bissmobil system is a potentially attractive way to provision water in India, because India is the last place on earth one would want to pull water from the ground. India is the "open defecation" capital of the world, and if there are Hindus up high in the mountains, then you can be rest assured that the groundwater in the mountains will be contaminated by fecal matter as well. Same goes for Nepal: Nepal is predominantly Hindu, with only a tiny minority of Buddhists living near the border close to Tibet, e.g. the "Sherpa" ethnic group that lives near Everest. So it's safe to assume that everywhere that's Hindu in Nepal, the groundwater will not be safe to drink, and a filtering system would need to be good enough to filter out not just large bacteria, but also much smaller viral pathogens. The Blissmobil rooft-top rainwater collection system promises potential freedom from such worries. But as we saw in posts xxx to xxx, when we examine the actual climatological facts of India, the Blissmobil system will only "work" if one carefully itinerizes one's route through India with maintaining water-autonomy as a constant objective.

There's a lot going on these posts, as hydrology and climatology intersect with rooftop and awning design, and both intersect solar technology. So I figured the best thing I could do is throw this stuff up on this thread, and if someone has the time and interest to read it all, I might stand to benefit from their novel insights.

And who knows: perhaps someone with exceptional computer skills might find the time to synthesize global maps of rainfall, relative humidity, windspeed, temperature, and DNI, on a month-by-month basis worldwide, creating a big database of animated GIFs that can be zoomed for good detail, with the ability to "layer" types of data (e.g. temperature + rainfall). Here I am thinking of a database of animated of GIFs that would show where and when rainfall or relative humidity are excellent; and so too (and not necessarily conversely), were and when DNI is excellent. All of the information would be fairly fine-grained and monthly, not merely national and annual. It would be animated, multi-layered, and geographically specific information of the kind we saw on "Climatemps.com" -- see http://www.climatemps.com/countries-a.php :



Instead of laying out an entire year in chart format for just one location, as per these still images, it graph information geographically, on a map, and the animated nature of the map would cover 12 months and all seasons. For the TerraLiner to plan its trips and function well on a global scale, exactly this kind of animated synthesis of information would prove indispensible. Trip-planning could take all factors into account so as to maximize time spent in high DNI areas during the appropriate seasons. But simultaneously, also so as to maximize water production via rooftop rainwater collection, and/or one or two AWGs. And in addition, so as to maximize surf-potential, by chasing surf seasons, and possibly, storms.

Again, the diesel generator would still be necessary because crossing Siberia is best done in winter, and there's probably no season when the DNI is good on the coast plain of Columbia, or the coast of the Congo, or central China, or northern Vietnam. But elsewhere, such a database of animated GIFs would help immensely with the route-planning of a solar-assisted vehicle with huge awnings like the TerraLiner.

Perhaps such a weather program with world-wide coverage already exists? I would be very surprised if it did not. If anyone reading this knows of such a program, please post!!!


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7. Fire Away!!


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So those are some more “basic moves”, broad brushstrokes that others may disagree with, but that I hope will seem justified. There's enough material here to keep all you busy reading, watching the videos, and checking out the links for at least he next month or so. So once again, “fire away”!! Any and all criticisms are most welcome.

As stated at the beginning, however, I will not be able to respond to criticisms for at least a few weeks, as I fill in all the images…….

All best wishes,




Biotect


PS – Again, I am an artist and a designer, not a mathematician or engineer, so if at any point in this series of posts I've made a mistake in my calculations, I would like to apologize n advance for the error. I checked and double-checked everything that I wrote. But if I made a mistake, please let me know. And rest assured in advance that all corrections will be gratefully received.



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