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I found this group recently and am slowly catching up on various threads. Before going any further I take my hat off to everyone who is sharing. This is awesome.
It seems like many members have some domain expertise. It also seems like most of these eco caps focus on side view profile. My engineering classes did not include aerodynamics but I don't consider myself completely ignorant of practical experience and would like to think my intuition is pretty good. My observation is that trucks (all vehicles really) have two sides and one top. How much air is displaced sideways versus over the top? I know, I know, it depends. Of course. But, air has three main places to go -- left, right, over. I'm dismissing under as the smallest path due to resistance from the road boundary versus free space on the other three sides. So does more air get pushed over the one top than the two sides combined? Doesn't at least some of that air try to close back in over the tapered wedge as it goes by? Isn't that what sets up the corkscrews typical when following pickups in light snow for example?
On a unrelated note, does anyone happen to do CFD work using MATLAB? How about building a small scale wind tunnel to do your own validations on models that a guy on a hobby budget can afford?
Cheers
KB
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