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Old 01-04-2013, 09:49 AM   #17 (permalink)
ryannoe
Not Ordinary Engineering
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Alabama
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Chaz - Something irritates me about the way you present your thoughts. I'm going to try and bandaid as much of your rash as I can.

Car designers have a lot of missions to fill, regulations to abide by, etc. Why do you think commercial jets have winglets? Do you think winglets are more efficient than just extending the wing longer? It isn't. They are doing this to get the maximum efficiency while staying inside regulation. It would really help aero to cut down on the fuselage but that's part of the aircraft's mission so it can't be changed. All of the low hanging fruit has already been picked.

Also, there isn't much that separates someone sitting in the corporate office designing up the next car and you and I. Once they get what they think is good, I'm sure they sit through a design review and human factors engineers tweek it to less efficiencies to provide "better" curves. I'm sure you know this: they want to provide bad ass engineering, but that doesn't put food on their plate. They need to sell cars.

If the Prius and Insight gets 51 mpg and 51 mpg is better than 28 mpg, why isn't every single car on the road a Prius or Insight? Because the rest of the world doesn't care. They're happy with their sexy Z4's (love the way those look), A5's, or maybe an older Civic. Fact is, looks sold that car, and I'm 99.99% sure they didn't have the Cd posted on the sticker. "Honey, look at this one, it has a flat plate drag of only 0.7!" said NO ONE EVER.


RedDevil - unless you have introduced a new surface, I have my doubts that it is laminar at your rear bumper. Laminar flow is more likely to separate from the vehicle than turbulent flow (which I suspect is what you have). I'd like to hear what happens. Don't forget to post it for us!

-Ryan
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