Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Teardrops don't have edges?  |
Only a 'half-body', based on a 'teardrop' ( streamline body of revolution ) would have 'edges'; at its lower interface with the underbody.
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The ' 4% ' radii may be from Hucho's reporting on the R&D of the Volkswagen Vanagon, for which they discovered that forebody drag reduction hit 'saturation' with leading edge radii = 4% of body width.
Any additional 'softening' of the corners was rewarded with 'zero' additional drag reduction, hence 'saturated.'
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On 'trailers', some use the square-root of the frontal area to use in the calculation, instead of width or height ( they're just creating an 'square -rectangular' cylinder of equal height and width, to simplify an averaging dimension ).
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I use it in the dimensional analysis of each vehicle, reducing them to a rectangular cylinder, for which to create the bar-graph from which the comparisons can simply be made.
( the one car associated with the 'shortest' cylinder, compared to all of those from those associated with the same drag coefficient, is, by 'default', the 'optimum' , most 'efficient' body shape for the entire field.
It would be your 'template' for modifications.