Quote:
Originally Posted by radioranger
you might be onto something because of the air having to go over the vehicle,and reacting with all that is there , windshield etc, if you edged it to the side, the vehicle might slip easier through the vacumn created, , in effect tailgating yourself, but tailgating something that goes through the air easier than the base vehicle. it might be easier to push the air aside instead of up and i don't think you want to push it down , theoreticlly following a clear v shape in front of you . that you are pushing, I think I just destroyed the space time continium
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Years ago we talked about this,but maybe at MaxMPG which is now defunct.
In 1990,at World of Speed,a guy was there,who I believe had just received a MS in aeronautical engineering.He had a streamliner which had a sphere mounted on a shaft which 'preceded' the streamliner's nose.
The premise was that the streamliner would ride within the turbulent wake of the sphere kinda like a rocket-powered torpedo riding within some of it's own exhaust shunted out the nose,or a Russian ice-breaker with 'bubbler.'
I have no record that the bulb was a success.
It's possible that it was too small,and already embedded within the Prandtl surface of discontinuity,hidden from the source-flow.Don't know.
It's certainly possible to do such a thing,but with any crosswind component,it would lose performance,as the vehicle would no longer be occulted by the wake.
The other thing is that you're looking at at least a double-deformation of the forebody flow field and most messengers publish that air should make only a single pass over a structure with zero circulation,and zero separation.The bulb concept would kinda violate the rulebook.