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Originally Posted by ChazInMT
Nay.
1st Issue- The air is already turbulent on the skin of a car, you're only making it more turbulent.
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And change the flow pattern while you're at it.
Driving in the rain showed me that VGs actually work.
Even glider dimple tape WAS working, I'm talking about 1 tot 2 mm high (1/25 to 1/12th of an inch) protrusions here ...
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2nd Issue- The air in the first 2 inch layer of the car is only .05% of the air being moved about by your car.
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But that layer dictates what the rest of the air is doing, and how smoothly it'll do so ...
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In order to make a positive difference, the newly invigorated air would somehow have to not only overcome the drag it just produced, but it would have to somehow create less drag down stream. On any modern automobile, this simply isn't going to happen. Maybe some crap box from the 70's or 80's,
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Yup.
That's why VGs were intended for square boxes: RVs, trailers, ... and the like.
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4th Issue- Cars are not airplanes, they follow vastly different aerodynamic rules. Just the same......
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Gliders operate in much the same speed range though - and they do use dimple or zig-zag tape (be it on aerodynamically cleaner designs)
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Please explain how a reduced stall speed equates to a lower drag?
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Beyond solving local airflow issues and buffeting, VGs are typically used to make the airflow remain attached to high-lift devices (flaps) on the rear of a wing
Essentially they "bend" the airflow.
And that's the useful feature on cars : make the air follow curves and angles where it'd normally detach from (causing high drag)
Or reduce lift under the nose