Thread: Air dams?
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:33 PM   #23 (permalink)
woodstock74
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead View Post
And there is a very good likelihood that whatever airdam comes from the factory on a new car,has already spent a number of hours of refinement in the tunnel or inside a $billion,neural-net, 3-D, Navier-Stokes CFD program.
I don't know man, I really don't think they're doing all that much tunnel testing/CFD. At least not for the lower tier "econo boxes". If they were we'd struggle to find gains. In my career we'd spend hours in the wind tunnel and be happy to walk out with 1% reduction in drag. But this was on a highly refined race car. People on these forums are finding chunks without resorting to drastic changes (and they're finding huge chunks when they do). This speaks to a fundamental lack of development and refinement. We have to face it, cars are designed these days by accountants and focus groups. Yes, there are the exceptions: where it's profitable and can be used as a selling point.
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