Quote:
Originally Posted by COcyclist
[...] I recently purchased Julian Edgar’s book and he quotes several studies of airflow and drag on car wheels. These studies show that totally smooth wheel covers are not the lowest drag option in modern automobiles. [...]
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Yes, I was surprised with what the formal (SAE-level) research papers showed re full wheel covers. I think a key point is that the wheel drag cannot be looked at in isolation eg the Tesla paper that showed how ventilation airflow through the front wheels could benefit overall drag (despite the wheels themselves then having more drag). My gut feeling is that wheel designs should be asymmetric front/back.
Congrats on your testing.
(Incidentally, I have a video coming up on some recent Porsche results on wheel drag and brake cooling. My channel -
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9...mNB9XEmuiCjxcQ)