Anyone 'aeroing' 18 wheelers?
 

I'm designing some aero components for the trucking industry. These things average 6 MPG and run up to 300,000 miles per year so U can see the payback is quite quick.

Happy AERO-ING

Yes: https://www.llnl.gov/str/May03/McCallen.html

Transport trucks are so massively un-aerodynamic, and consume so much fuel, I'm surprised the owner/operators aren't doing it themselves.

Nose Cone
 

Been twenty years since I did this one. It was an add on nosecone for the front of the cabover style truck which fit over the flat front of the tractor above the bumper. I figured any optimization of frontal surface would be better than the flat front face of the cabover. Learned alot about Aerodynamics. On 18 wheelers it's all about yaw angle Y'all.

Basically it wasn't that effective. It did show a small amount of improvment in the test trucks fuel efficiency. I was told by the Arkansas based company who tested it, if Diesel fuel ever went to $2.00 a gallon or more they may well consider it.

Again, that was in 1988, Diesel fuel, I think, was around $1.00 a gallon. This company no longer runs the International Cab Over style tractors either, much to the relief of drivers.

Good luck Mandilon on your Aero mods you are developing for big rigs. I have read that some business's are getting Federal Grant money for this. I sure wish they had some grant money for the light trucks!

Brett

Here's some more to go with this.

As you can see there has been a lot of work done. Some guys work quite hard on their tractors.

What defeats these efforts is the "disposable" nature of the trailer. A truck often takes a trailer to a dock and drops it off and goes out into the yard to pick up another going elsewhere. He/she has no investment in the first trailer so why worry about it.

Also, a lot of what look like van-type trailers are actually containers on modified flat beds. In order to maximize the number of containers on the ships, the containers maintain a very regualr and flat silhouette.

Thanks to sheer volume, Wally-World can dictate. Nobody else can.

Yea I see the problem but... Is there a way to make the side skirts fairing etc bolt on or quick disconnect. The cab mods would stay the same and if most trailers are alike you could make the side fairing swap in about 15 minutes if there were some kind of universal mounts.

Aero-mods are good, but, slowing down is better.
The P.O. has a fleet that is fairly new. Our (here in Norf.) fleet is only 2 years old. The new trucks are better with mpg than the old ones were. Yes the new ones are slightly more aero. But the main difference is the new trucks are regulated to 60 mph. The old trucks average was 9 mgp. Unregulated, go as fast as you can. The new trucks average 12 mpg. Regulated @ 60.
We have 2 of the old style here for spares, when compared side by side there is not much difference in the shapes.
That's my $.02 .S.

I tend to be in awe of just how efficient they are with being built like barns.

In a 53' trailer there's something like 3950 cubic feet of space and a 60,000# payload and with the right truck hauling it they still somehow eek out a handful of miles per gallon at the very minimum.

That's got to be equal to the loads of about 40 to 80 cars... which effectively makes them the equiv of a reasonably loaded car getting 200 to 400 MPG.

BTW, they should all have protective side-fairings for the sake of pedestrians, cyclists and cars... very few in North America do.

Nasa did
 

Nasa tried at aero-ing hope this helps you in your endeavors of helping the truckers.