Racing with the sun

Racing with the sun

For a look at present-day photographicstudies, stop by 1 Market Plaza, an office building at Market and Steuart streets. Through June 5, 37 color prints will be on view 7 to 6:30 weekdays in the lobby.Hoopla surrounding the bridge's May24th birthday calls attention to its powerful presence and amazing construction. Both get full play in striking historic photographs on view--and for sale--at two San Franciso archives.To get up-to-date details on the bridge'sbirthday events, call Fridns of the Golden Gate Bridge at (415) 421-1987.The GM Sunraycer, designed and built by Detroit-based GM Hughes Electronics, is powered by an array of 7,200 solar cells, covering a total of 90 square feet. On a sunny day, the car can move as fast as 45 miles per hour using solar power alone. Because of cloudy conditions on the day scheduled for the record-breaking attempt, the solar cells produced considerably less than their maximum power output. On the road, the car normally uses a battery to provide extra power for acceleration or climbing hills. Under those conditions, it can reach 60 miles per hour. In the race for the record, the car's battery was disconnected.Likewise, attempts to seal brick walls by applying a coating that is impermeable to water are almost invariably unsuccessful. If water somehow enters the wall, perhaps from the interior side, the coating along with a portion of the brick will pop off in large flakes.With photographic and other techniques, the researchers now regularly check for signs of wear on the stone walls. At the same time, they track the weather and measure the concentrations of various pollutants in the air. They are looking for a correlation between the rate of erosion and the presence of pollutants.

"We look at this thing as a really interesting scientific effort,' says McCristal. "Our motivation is to push some technologies along that we think are important to the future, and we're very interested in stimulating high-school and college students to get into technical fields [associated with automotive engineering].' The car demostrates advances in low-speed aerodynamics, high-efficiency batteries, lightweight motors and solar cells and panels.