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Old 10-31-2010, 08:45 AM   #1 (permalink)
Rokeby
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Under-Car and Wheel Well Airflow Interaction

When I look through the wheel spokes of my Prius, front and rear, I can see
all the way across under the car. This is not the case when doing the same
on other cars. The sight line is blocked by the inner wheel well. The Prius
hardly has any vertical inner wheel well.

Considerations:
* As understand it, from an aero perspective, it is best that once air gets
under the car it pass all the way to the rear.
* Air flow under the car is not strictly front to back. It angles out to the
sides, more so at the front.
* From my observations, the Prius shows less than average water droplets
being driven out of the wheel wells on rainy days/wet roadways.
* The Prius has the air dams in front of both the front and rear wheels.

Could the induced air flow around the tires be enough to keep under-car air
from going through the wheel wells?

There seems to be contradictions here. Since the Prius has more open wheel
wells, you would think that there would be more air entering the wells from
under the car which would show more air/water being blown out.

I'm wondering if adding something like Coroplast to drop the inner wheel well
would be beneficial from an aero/FE perspective.

I find all this very confusing... but then I can't pretend to understand what
makes for good aero in relation to under-car air flow and the wheel wells.


Last edited by Rokeby; 10-31-2010 at 10:31 AM..
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