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Not being an aerodynamicist, and possibly being completely wrong, I welcome your possible bakery mental body slams for my idea.
Gas is a big deal these days. This being said, a lot of people drive older cars that are boxy and not very aero effecient.
On most open wheeled cars, F1 being the best
(and my favorite )example the wheels and tires must not be covered by fenders and blended into the body, so they are an unsprung aerodynamic nuisance.
The solution in racing is in the endplates design of the front wing. As these are leading the front wheels, they direct the air around the wheels and tires, effectively putting them in a slipstream or a lower pressure the atmosphere vortex, and reducing their negative effect on the car's drag.
Well, if the headlights of older boxier cars were redesigned to extend a foot or two in front of the vehicle, or specially designed aero devices to deflect the air around the car better from two concentrated points (or more), they would create less drag on the vehicles' problem areas, saving that oh so precious fuel.
Front Wing Endplates
http://www.f1techni...8/toyota-fw-fra.jpg
aeropoo [Giblet, Aug 07 2008]
[link]
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It would probably cost more in manufacturing and distribution than it would ever save. |
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Assuming an older, boxy car, is it also safe to assume an older inefficient engine? If so, all the aero additions in the world are unlikely to help. |
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You using different physics then me? |
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As soon as drag is reduced, fuel mileage increases. That is NOW quite undebatable. Simply removing your side rear view mirrors would instantly lower C.D. |
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Some people are willing to pay money to burn less gas into our atmosphere, regardless of cost. |
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A leading wing is in some bad aerodynamic space on a boxy car. My knowledge of aerodynamics is very limited, but in the front of a boxy car is going to be a leading pressure wake just like in front of a the tire in an F1 car, so I think you would need a wing that is to scale so the wing of the F1 would have to be magnified a dozen times or so to allow it to operate in "good" air. |
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So the car doesn't move fast enough for these to help at all is what you mean? |
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The endplates on F1 fron wings see link are what I am talking about. Notice how they are in front of the tires, and the flip ups they have put the tires in the wake of the wing endplates. |
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No, it's not the speed, I think the slower speed actually helps, what I mean is that the front of the car will push a volume of air with it like a snow plow. The tires of the F1 do that also but to a much smaller degree due to their smaller size and better shape. So the air in that area is turbulent and doesn't give a wing clean air to run in. |
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Also I think the F1 endplates are doing more than you think. That sharp angle is not the best for redirecting like what you want as it will cause a bit of drag and create a low pressure area behind the wing. So what it is doing is replacing a high pressure area that would cause the tire to lift and replace it with a low pressure area that adds downforce. If they just wanted to lower drag, they would have put a cone. |
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This is hawking an old idea of mine, but I think you'd do better with some kind of inflatable nose cone that smoothed out all the flow not just a part. |
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//As soon as drag is reduced, so if fuel mileage. That is quite undebatable.// |
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You must live in some mirror universe. |
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Oh yes, I was thinking inversely. |
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Noted. Fuel mileage increased. |
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"Some people are willing to pay money to burn less gas into our atmosphere, regardless of cost."
I think this would be true in terms of pollution put into the atmosphere as well. |
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