Goldfish Mirror - Side Mirrors

[Varn]

We raced there several years. I believe arccosine still does.

Originally Posted by kach22i

I saw a few extra wide rear view mirrors out at the Michigan Classic Vintage Races event at Waterford Hills a few weeks ago.

Photo album:
2011 Michigan Classics Vintage Races - WATERFORD pictures by kach22i - Photobucket

[cfg83]

kach22i -

Maybe instead of a goldfish mirror, you want a boxfish mirror :

Fish-inspired Mercedes bionic car: Most efficient 'This category' aerodynamic vehicle




CarloSW2

[Patrick]

Here's another idea. Take a look at this link: Drag of a Sphere

If we make our mirror housing a 9" diameter sphere, it will drop into the low drag bucket (0.07 Cd) at about 66 mph.

There should be enough room inside to place a nicely sized mirror and electric adjustment mechanism. But you still have the problems of image distortion and cleaning the clear part so you can see through it.

[Peter7307]

botsapper,
Great graphics there.

Which programme did you use for those?

Peter.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Patrick

I think there may be some gains available on the front.
The rounded-front bullet shape has about 1/4 the drag of a flat plate.

The flat plate is obviously the worst-case scenario.
Beyond a bullet-shaped front, what most car mirrors approximate anyway, the gains are made at the back.

A carefully designed mirror-car body blending (Opel Vectra / Vauxhall Cavalier ? can help reduce drag and noise, while being ahead of the mirror plane.

If you look at mirror housings, some are tapered at the rear - at least on the C30/S40/V50 range Volvo used this trick.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by euromodder

If you look at mirror housings, some are tapered at the rear - at least on the C30/S40/V50 range Volvo used this trick.

I have looked up all the models listed and do not see that.

Maybe the black lip curls in a little at the end, hard to tell.

Sample: 2011 Volvo S40
2011 Volvo S40 T5 Sedan Mirror Photo | Automotive.com


I suppose the last 1/2 inch does taper in, I'm sort of looking for an example where the last 2/3 rds of the housing/body tapers inward. Thanks for the short list of prospects in any case.

Maybe for the owners of cars and the makers of cars, keeping the mirror clean is the more important issue. If negative air pressure sucks water back onto the mirror face, it would be a "fail", and on the customer complaint list for sure.

[botsapper]

Which programme did you use for those?

Peter.[/QUOTE]

Quick visualizations with Autodesk 3ds Max.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by botsapper

...and try to optimize it by having a flat plane parallel to the side glass.

Very nice.

It would have to be vented to prevent fogging, right?

[graydonengineering]

One thought I have had is what if you had a flat plate mirror on a shaft that could pivot to horizontal to the wind so they could slice through it like a knife on the fly when not needed, thuse reducing frontal area down to just a few square inches. You could have 2 switches on your steeing wheel to conect to little motors to flip them when needed. You would probably want to keep them perpendicular to the wind like a standar mirror unless driving on the highway.

A little nuts I know but just thinking outside the box here.

[botsapper]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Very nice.

It would have to be vented to prevent fogging, right?

Two anti-fog alternatives; an hermetically sealed unit or an inducted draft anti-fog system...even heated during winter conditions.

Geez, lets use camera/sensor/display systems already.

...remember a time when car designers couldn't use aero-conformal headlights because of round/rectangular seal-beam lamp requirements.