Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Road vehicles operate in the 6 foot deep micro-climate at the ground surface. Isn't that by definition turbulent?
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I'm not acquainted with the term.
There's no mention of it in any extant technical publications, regarding road vehicle aerodynamics.
Earth does have it's own boundary layer which ranges from 500-m thickness, to 300-m thickness, depending on whether 'urban' or 'rural', or in between, but its not 'constant.' We discussed this here decades ago.
This summer. we'll have the 'Dog Days' in which there's no wind, no turbulence.
Any way you slice it though, automobiles are not 'designed' with atmospheric 'turbulence' in mind. Things are what they are, we have no control over what we'll experience from one day to another, so we just live with what we get.
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The 'TURBULENCE' of interest to us is, the turbulence behind regions of flow separation around an automobile's body.
This turbulence is pure entropy. None of it's kinetic energy can ever be converted to pressure recovery.
The entire premise of road vehicle 'aerodynamics' is the reduction, or complete elimination of flow separation.
PhD or not, I believe that Sal Rodriguez has conflated the drag reduction potential of 'dimples', and will come to realize it as more empirical testing proceeds.