Quote:
Originally Posted by The Toecutter
I've read those links before.
I'm in the process of modifying the drawing. From the side view, I plan to keep the ratio of Phil Knox's template that it has now, but for the top down view for both the body and the turtledeck, my tail will use the tail from the following airfoil:
EPPLER 863 STRUT AIRFOIL (e863-il)
I'm thinking that might be a good place to start for a first shape. Then when I tuft test it, I can figure out the problem areas.
I've read "The Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles" by Wolf Heinrich Hucho back in college, and know a few things, but without some way to simulate the shape or figure out what the air is doing around it, I really don't know what is going on with the air as it passes the shape, and won't know until I build something and test it. I don't want the first body shell to be a total waste of time though, as I want it to provide a noticable benefit over the naked trike. |
Your trike is gonna be more like a 2-dimensional airfoil than a 3-D bluff body.
A symmetrical airfoil section with an aspect chord-to-thickness ratio of 3.92:1 has been found to be the center of the drag 'bucket',with both minimum pressure and skin friction drag.
You could maybe think in terms of both the body and canopy designed around this geometry instead of the template.
I agree with the others on the front lower angle.I wouldn't do that.
All the intersections will have hook-vortices unless there's a fillet to smooth the intersections.Goro Tamai's book on solar racers would have some data you could use in addition to member comments,of which have,'been there,done that!'.
Rumpler's Tropfenwagen was Cd 0.28 for the closed limousine,and Cd 0.54 for the roofless,open touring car.Without a half-bubble windscreen Cd 0.25 may be problematic.
One of the IHPV members ran a all-Coroplast-bodied trike in 2014 at Battle Mountain,and I want to say that he came through the 5-mile trap at 47-mph.
I'm pretty sure that the wheels were enclosed and he had a bubble screen.
I've got photos in my camera at home.I'll look at those to help trigger my memory.
Fun project!
