Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Typical wheel found on US cars trucks and SUVs through the 1990s. Now resides on my trailer.
Auto makers put vents on wheels because they look cool and make the wheel lighter, they don't really start to make any functional difference until you are on a race track. |
Brake cooling has been part of road car wheel design for at least 50 years. For example, a textbook I have on brake design that was published in 1967 mentions it.
In a current context, a recent Porsche paper I was reading on the development of an aerodynamically slippery wheel spends over half that section on the difficulties of developing an aero wheel that doesn't too adversely impact brake cooling. In fact, you can see exactly how much extra drag they accepted in order to achieve adequate brake cooling.
I think every reference (text or paper) that I read when writing the section in my book on wheel drag mentions the importance of brake cooling.