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Imagine small snow-plow shaped scoops, that at the touch of a button, descend down to the road in front of each wheel of your car. They are made of a type of hard rubber (cheap and easily replaceable bottoms strips). They essentially drag on (or just above) the surface of the road. Any standing water
on the road gets flung up and to the side right before the tires make contact with the road.
The "plows" are attached to a rod or bracket that is hinged to the car at some point in front of the point of contact with the road. So if the plows hit any bumps or irregularites they can just pivot back and up from the road surface. They are held down via springs, gravity, or maybe the same vacuum actuators which lowered them in the first place? Expensive cars would have sensors to detect the amount of moisture on the road and lower them automatically.
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Annotation:
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[+] For emergency situations, you may take a 1/2 baked suggestion to instead use compressed air blow the water out of the way. Kind of like the airbag system. Rubber plows are simpler, but more likely to cause loss of control. |
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The plows should be attached to the wheel assembly so that they bounce up and down with the tire, rather than the rest of the car. |
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Galbinus, I was thinking the same thing. It would make the plows track the road surface a lot better, although all the weight of the plows, actuators and hinges would be "unsprung" weight, negatively impacting handling. Maybe lasers that scan the road surface ahead and automatically raise or lower the plows? Nah, thats getting way too complicated... |
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Why not use big plows, for deeper water? |
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Better yet, make a rubber "skirt", all the way around the tire, which slides across the road at low speeds. |
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[sophocles], the air blower would have to be substantial to blow the water out of the way... |
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Seems like they would die if you hit a
pothole, or possibly get runover, and
rip off. i dunno interesting concept, but
seems like if it did have such a pivot
that at high speeds when it would be
most needed it woudl be pushed out of
the way by the water. the reason you
hydroplane is because your going so
fast that your wheels dont have enough
time to break the surface tentsion of
the water, and if this plow is hinged it
wont have enough force, but if its not,
bumps could do very bad things. idea
has merit, but i dont think it will work
with real physics. fishbone for now, if
you think of an idea to fix this ill give
you some bread. |
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P.S. [sninctown] at low speed you wont
hydroplane, and you would have to be
goign so fast to hydroplane deep water
that a bigger plow would cause a crash.
or a hell of alot of force on the driver/
passenger. |
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[sninctown] yes. substantial just like airbags, eh? Doable. Combine the trigger/sensor from the ABS brake system with the gas-supply from the airbag. |
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I can't imagine the plows would be down the whole time. Only in an emergency situation. Otherwise, always on they'd be safety & efficiency problems. |
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//Better yet, make a rubber "skirt"// |
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[Curiosity], instead of the hinged mechanism just have a sensor that detects potholes, etc. and a (fast-acting) hydraulic to raise the device if needed. Does this seem plausible? |
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Once upon a time I hydroplaned briefly on a motorcycle at freeway speeds. It made for a very interesting moment. |
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How about having some non-load-bearing wheels immediately in front of the load-bearing ones? The non-load-bearing wheels would be designed to throw water away and could even be counter-rotated during braking. Because they would not have to support the the vehicle, they could be constructed of lightweight materials. |
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//non-load-bearing wheels immediately in front of the load-bearing ones// If they were really non load bearing, they would hydroplane immediately, and essentially float on the water, not accomplishing much. If they were given *some* amount of load, they would just reduce the load on the real wheels, causing them to hydroplane more easily. The plows don't take any weight off the car's wheels, but instead use the force of the water hitting their sloped fronts to provide downward force. |
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The purpose of the non-load-bearing wheels would be to get water out of the way of the drive wheels. Basically the same function as the plow in the main idea, but somewhat more tolerant of bumps and debris in the road. |
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I've actually thought about this a lot, to do it hang a long sheet of plastic off a hinge in front of the tire, then bend the end to a plow shape. Add in small guide block on the inside to lift the end in case of bumps. You don't need the plow touching the ground, which would actually annoy you. What you want is something that will funnel off water over a certain height. |
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What about some kind of metal or plastic comb that would aerate the water making it less dense so the aquaplaning wouldn't happen? |
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This way less force would be on the plow, and it could be swept back on an angle and sprung to absorb bumps in the road. |
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