Drag Reduction of Regular everyday pick up truck
 

I stumbled upon an paper by Prathmesh Sudhakar, Vasyl Grabovyy, and Prasanna kulkarni dated in May of 2009.

I believe it has some information of interest to us Pickup Truck drivers interested in Aero modifications of our trucks...

http://www.ecs.syr.edu/Faculty/elhad...%20truck_2.pdf

I apologize if this is a re-post, I didn't find it on a search...

Very interesting. Especially that it appears that a regular bed cap gives more drag reduction than the sloped aerodynamic one.

And a half height cap is the best of all...

A guess it is all subject to the software you are using too...

Bow -

Cool find. The half-cap has "virtual" 8 degree slope :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-cf...el-5-slope.jpg

I haven't read the document, but I would ask why the truck wheels are "floating" above the ground. There is also a debate as to whether or not to include the wheels, because those are not a "continuous" element under the car. Fred Flinstone cars *do* use cylinders instead of wheels, so those would qualify as continuous elements.

Maybe I will plug these images into Flow Illustrator for fun. If I do, I will remove the wheels and lower the car.

CarloSW2

I can't read that whole paper. I just can't.

I want to see them submit it to SAE, and then I want to read the reply letter stating that it's not even close to able to be considered SAE material. In fact, it looks like a high-school paper in some class which couldn't quite be called physics.

/rant

Aside from all that, there are a few interesting points, I guess.

Also, I did wonder how they handle the bed in a 2D simulation. Using the height of the sidewalls isn't going to give realistic results, unless the truck has a bed cover.

Still, I may put the cap back on my Toyota and see if there's any significant difference. Been thinking of doing that anyway, so I can leave the skis in and stop at the store on the way home.

laugh/cry
 

It great that they did it.
What sucks,is that people keep re-discovering the same thing which has been in the public domain for thirty years.
Higher education doesn't appear to involve homework anymore,and valuable resources are wasted pursuing prey that was tagged and bagged and hung in a museum long ago.
De-fenestrated R&D.

In looking at this paper I can't help but notice that they change not only the bed cover but the shape of the front in each iteration at random. The half bed has a pronounced air dam while the aero bed does not. What would an aero bed look like with an air dam? Amateurish indeed. And what the heck with the huge spoiler thing? As if.

Does anyone still have a copy of this paper? The link is broken now :(

actually, you can view the html version from google's cache, but it doesnt include the figures.

http://www.ecs.syr.edu/Faculty/elhad...20Pickup_1.pdf

They may have changed the name due to hotlinking. I have the main site saved, so if they change it, I'll save the file and upload it somewhere else, so they're not getting pissy about it.

Reading the filenames, it looks like they just changed the name of a folder and the file to "clean up" a bit.

The professor under which this paper was released is a "visiting professor" to Syracuse from Cairo.

Dr. Elhadidi. I have yet to find out anything more about the prof.