Aerodynamics is greatly affected by rotating bodies. That is, a knuckleball is slower than a curve or a spinning fastball, a football flies easier when kicked with a bit of spin, and so forth. A lot of this advantage has to do with angular momentum, and stabi lizing a body along its axis of motion, but a lot of it also has to do with fluid motion directly adjacent to the body. It breaks into turbulence much easier if the leading surface is smooth and stationary.
I propose that programmable surface textures could aid the displacement of air around a moving body, thus significantly decreasing air resistance.
If a matrix of hydraulic pumps is placed under a semiflexible surface and programmed accordingly, with textured waves, or rotating dimples like in a golfball, the surface of any object could be adjusted to mimic a spiralling surface, even though there would be no rotation at all.
Cover your automobile with this technology and greatly reduce air resistance.-- daseva, Apr 12 2005 define:alot http://www.google.c...define%3Aalot&meta= [calum, Apr 15 2005] ispell http://www.iespell.com/Browser based, for editing form content before submittal. [reensure, Apr 15 2005] Or ditch the SUV, and save the billions. [+]-- Blumster, Apr 12 2005 It would be a visual feast to watch these vehicles undulating down the road. Especially if they had iridescent paintjobs.-- Soterios, Apr 12 2005 [soterios], definitly a perk. I could even see many textures bieng suitable for resistance control. Like having your own ringtone, the new miniluxury could be having your own unique spiraling patterns. New ones are downloadable, of course.-- daseva, Apr 12 2005 I believe something similar is being proposed for covering aeroplane wings - tiny little features to promote the creation of vortices and reduce drag. So, [+]-- moomintroll, Apr 12 2005 Could you use sound waves to acheive something similar? Could a set of drivers turn the vehicle skin into a set of speakers which could create a fluctuating pattern of standing waves with the same result? The cars would not look so pretty, but they might be more melodious as they yodelled their way down the street.-- Basepair, Apr 12 2005 What if you couldn't see it coming? I mean, like when you're driving in your own motorized subwoofer and your ass gets numb due to selective vibration loss to the point that you start to miss calls when your phone is set to vibrate. If I'm walking along funky free of stress and in a no-friction groove, I may 'tune out' the chameleon-like skin of a car like this and it'd then take me out.
This is evil and should be limited to applications such as worm-hole generators and interstellar slipstream corsairs.-- reensure, Apr 13 2005 C'mon, ya gotta love dimples. (+)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 13 2005 Of course you have to haul the weight of this technology around with you. But the proposed effect seems valid.-- 5th Earth, Apr 13 2005 I once read that dolphins use waves or rippling along their skin surface to aid in their cutting through the water in a superbly deft manner.
They also sweat a wetting solution to reduce friction.-- bristolz, Apr 13 2005 sp. "a lot"-- calum, Apr 13 2005 [+] wow. get to it, already!
Just put a ton of microactuators underneath a skin in a windtunnel, and enlist grad-students to iterate & program new patterns. If nothing else, it'll make some awesome PhD experiences.
(Oh, and ignore the spelling pedants. Just to piss them off, I've got to tell you that "Your doing good.")-- sophocles, Apr 14 2005 Dimples will increase a car's drag, due to the relative magnitude of the skin friction component of aerodynamic drag, as opposed to pressure (shape) drag. Also the spiralling will not reduce drag, instead creating lift (not necessarily upwards) and its associated induced drag. Much like with a golf ball.-- Texticle, Apr 15 2005 I'm going to join the fellatio-fest and note that Romulox will be a valuable addition to our clan.
DesertFox, did I ("ped") talk to you on #2600 back in the day? Or did you happen to pick the same username as he did?-- disbomber, Apr 15 2005 Link for Romulox.-- calum, Apr 15 2005 Heh. Great link.-- Worldgineer, Apr 15 2005 "Alot" I might handle, but misspellings like "stabalizing" (stabilizing), "spiralling" (spiraling), and "eventhough" (even though) are distracting. I recommend a browser add-on called ispell because it helps me alot: see link.-- reensure, Apr 15 2005 Oh, instantaneous archaeologists, feast on my impeccable spelling.-- daseva, Apr 15 2005 Thank you. Your eforts are appreciated.-- calum, Apr 15 2005 you're crazy man.-- daseva, Apr 15 2005 It was here, on the halfbakery, awhile ago, that I learned that as lnog as you hvae the smae bginning and endng leters, peopel can nearley alwayes understad your mesage, eevn thuogh it may anoy tehm to no end.-- sophocles, Apr 15 2005 sotp taht-- Worldgineer, Apr 15 2005 That many hydraulic microactuators to ripple the skin of the vehicle would be an enormous drag on the engine. Also, I think the spiral effect might be less efficient than a wave along the vehicle's axis, at such a frequency that the wave was at rest in relation to the air, or even better, pushing the air back so as to provide thrust. This thing would look very...organic...as it surged and heaved down the road. Downright obscene. Howzat for a phallic symbol?!-- elhigh, Jun 03 2005 random, halfbakery