Thread: Truckers
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Old 04-03-2008, 11:54 AM   #4 (permalink)
Otto
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With all due respect to Luigi, his design sucks. Way too busy, aerodynamically.

What's needed is a mold made off the nose and forward fuselage of a large modern jet transport aircraft of similar dimensions to the tractor of one of these trucks, say a C-141, a C-17, a Boeing 757, etc.. After all, the truck cab/cabin is typically a tilt-up rig that is often made of fiberglass. What we have now approximates the fluid mechanics of bricks stacked on bricks. Ungood.

Wheel pants/fairings, an articulated fairing between cab and trailer box, flow fences, Coanda devices, Sinha deturbulators (if they work) and/or vortex generators have all been shown to be major drag reducers for these big rigs.

As bad as even the best common rigs are aerodynamically, just a few of the simple mods would make major improvements in fuel economy. Pick off the low hanging fruit.

There is a fortune to be made in such simple aftermarket devices.
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