Quote:
Originally Posted by sgtlethargic
I believe I've heard on this forum that aerodynamic cars have stability issues. Is that true? How so? What can be done about it?
Thanks
|
I looked around and could not find the old posts that would have addressed this issue.
Wish you would have started this thread with specific posts or threads in mind.
What I recall is some discussion of shifting the center of lift (
often rearward), which in turn affects yawl in side winds.
That is to say a sleek design with attachment may have some lift, but a turbulent drag laden body with wild vortexes may be creating down force (
and at quite a cost).
There was this one medium sized box truck example (
ex. ambulance now a camper) that became the subject of discussion once. We may have mentioned it there, please look it up.
In general, a responsible design will account for shifting centers of lift and shifting center of gravity in side-winds.
To say aerodynamic design causes lift may be a misdirection, perhaps more accurate to say a box-like body takes a lot of fuel to create unnecessary down force with messy vortexes.
And yes under certain conditions this may be more stable, but not with side-winds has been my experience.
Once those vortexes start shifting their vector at askew angles, they start pulling and pushing you around which is it's own form of instability.