Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
Perhaps you could do it in Kansas but I don't have that much wind in my garage.
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We wouldn't want to rely on random 'natural' wind or air flow we would want something we have more control over.
We wound need to generate some wind / air flow ... but with the friction / forces needed to move the object reduced by the fo 'mag-lev' we shouldn't need massive hurricane force winds.
I suspect the significantly reduced air flow requirements would make them far easier & cheaper to achieve.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pounsfos
what gauge would you use?
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There are a variety of styles that could be used ... and a variety of options for each style.
In general I see two major categories.
Pull style:
placed in front of the vehicle ... as the aerodynamic drag pushes the vehicle away from the pull style gauge it could read the force being applied ... could be in grams , kg, pounds , whatever... there are a variety of options even in the 'pull' style.
Compression style:
placed behind the vehicle ... as the aerodynamic drag pushes the vehicle backward it will apply more force to the compression style gauge ... kitchen scales measure into the grams, bathroom scales measure in kg and pounds ... and of course any number of more accurate scales could be chosen.
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Ideally the smaller the units the gauge can accurately measure the less wind / air flow would be needed ... if it measures in grams far less air flow / wind would be needed compared to if it measures in kg or pounds.
If there is a specific kind of aerodynamic range upper limit and lower limit CdA of 5.0 or CdA of 20.0 or whatever... that gives us a ball park of the kind of forces we would be seeing from various amounts of air flow / aerodynamic drag force.
If there is a specific kind of resolution of the aerodynamic force we would like to be able to quantify and identify say CdA of 5.00 vs 5.10 ... or 5.01 ... the better the resolution the smaller the steps the gauge / scale would need to be able to support.
We can trade some scale for some resolution ... 10 gram resolution would be a better resolution if it is in a kg type scale than a 100 gram type scale.
If we have scale and resolution demands / desires ... that lets us narrow down the air flow / wind requirements ... and if our garage and budget put air flow / wind requirements or restrictions we can use those to help narrow down out gauge / scale requirements.