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Old 05-04-2015, 04:33 PM   #10 (permalink)
ThomCat316
EcoModding Lurker
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL
Posts: 36
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Wow.... I love this place!

As is typical, the community is amazing!

My simplest question is thoroughly answered - at the very least I put a 4"-6" radius on the longitudinal/parallel roof-side edge to improve the handling - good enough for me.

Chaz, thank you for the offer! I can send over a PM when I have a minute with a dimensioned sketch of the truck and the trailer - I haven't had time to put it all together just yet. The idea is similar to your drawing, but with the bed sides cut down for tighter vertical clearance and the front of the trailer blended more smoothly behind the cab. Additionally, the area behind the (single) axle will taper up for road clearance.

Aerohead, I really appreciate the bus drawings - they point out what I already had intuitively suspected, but in a very clear and definitive way! I am planning on keeping the cross-sectional area to a minimum, the tapers gradual, and the rear area relatively small. One interesting point will be at the back of the wheel wells, where the trailer is already getting narrower but the wheels haven't.

Freebeard, I love the full-aero shapes!! Pity is that I have constraints that keep me from taking full advantage of them. I have to have flat roof space for solar panels, standing headroom (while maintaining small cross-section) and storage at the edges of the "overhead" space in the largest sectional area. I don't intend to have an overall height of more than about 7 ft, which leaves no overhead room to speak of. One aerodynamic concession I've planned to make all along is an "ideal curve" taper (top, sides and bottom) from the largest section to the tail, over a length of about 8 ft., with the tail being a squared oval of as small an area as I can manage without detaching the flow.
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