Thread: Morelli Shape
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Old 09-06-2010, 11:16 PM   #56 (permalink)
Jim Bullis
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Neil and gang,

Everything said here about what can or can not be done with aerodynamics, where that is based on the overwhelming experience base of the automotive world, is mostly irrelevant.

Clear the air! Figuratively and in actual practice. Just because the fashion is established should not force us to always think about keeping vehicles close to the ground.

The great breakthrough for me that the Morelli paper provided was data on how high a vehicle needed to be to function as if it was in free flow conditions. Insight into this was provided by the way he ran his wind tunnel experiments. I never was all that interested in the shape that I call the Morelli shape since I came to the game thinking free flow as a starting point.

Since it is hard to get high enough to replicate the kind of flow that is expected in wind tunnels, it is necessary to live with some imperfection, and adjust somewhat with that in mind.

Aerohead seems to see that it would not be all that hard to make a four wheeled vehicle with an elevated body. We know from the dynamics shown by the Tango in the Xprize tests that a fairly tall and narrow vehicle can be stabilized quite well, just by gravity effects with a weight distribution that can be readily accomplished with batteries and no engine.
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