Aerodynamic Truck Front Bumper Options
Hello everyone,
For those who didn’t see my other thread, I have a good gas mileage car as my daily driver, but I need a rough and tough truck for construction, bad weather, etcetera. Well I purchased a welder and I am trying to get ideas for an aerodynamic front truck bumper. Here are my requirements and what I hope to accomplish.
1. Improve aerodynamics while still accomplishing the other items as best as possible.
2. Improve utility of truck by being able to push/pull with bumper.
3. Improve light impact ability of truck by providing for small impacts to be contained within the bumper with no damage. (I.E. hit a deer, push through brush)
4. Improve hard impact (car wreck) survivability of truck and passengers by providing alternative crumple zone in the front bumper. (I.E. Bumper destroyed, but truck can drive away, everyone is ok.) Also bumper will go down lower to “mesh” with lower bumpers on cars.
5. Not overly increase weight of vehicle
6. Look cool. (Well, more like just not look too dumb.)
My basic idea for how to accomplish this is as follows. Remove existing bumper. Create light steel back plate to protect truck. Cover this plane with extruded polystyrene foam to provide aerodynamic shape and crumple zone. Mount new light steel front bumper also in an aerodynamic shape. Mount it semi rigidly (Hard Springs?) such that for small impacts it will act rigid (not activate crumple zone) and for large impacts it will allow bumper to compress right into the foam, limiting the peak deceleration experienced by the vehicle and passengers.
My two ideas for the front outer bumper are as follows. Aerodynamic “Bull Bars” roughly 4-6” in front of complete fiberglass/foam front shell. Bars would be probably 3” in width and shaped like the truncated teardrop. Alternatively a semi flush “normal bumper” covering the lower half of the front, with just the fiberglass/foam front covering the top. Crumple Zone foam will be behind this bumper, and there would be a 2-3” step from bumper to top part.
Other details are as follows. Incorporate operable grill opening. Put aero cover around existing headlights or provide new headlights. Also I will be doing a belly pan, side steps, and rear bumper in a similar manner to complement the front bumper, but I am holding off on their design until I get this design semi-finalized as I want them to complement each other. I don’t know how bad it is to slope up the belly pan from the lowest point in the middle up towards the sides to maintain side ground clearance. Overall ground clearance wouldn’t change, as belly pan would be at the height of lowest cross member. I will eventually be doing tire fairings either way.
I attached some sketches I made to give you a rough idea of what I am discussing. I know you have ideas or comments, so through them out there. Thank you in advance.
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