Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
If the vehicle is a car, the purpose of downforce is to allow the car to travel faster by increasing the vertical force on the tires, thus creating more grip. If the vehicle is a fixed-wing aircraft, the purpose of the downforce on the horizontal stabilizer is to maintain longitudinal stability and allow the pilot to control the aircraft in pitch.
Automotive aerodynamics is the study of the aerodynamics of road vehicles. Its main goals are reducing drag and wind noise, minimizing noise emission, and preventing undesired lift forces and other causes of aerodynamic instability at high speeds.
In car design, ground effect is a series of effects which have been exploited in automotive aerodynamics to create downforce, particularly in racing cars.This has been the successor to the earlier dominant aerodynamic focus on streamlining.
Vehicle dynamics is the study of vehicle motion, e.g., how a vehicle's forward movement changes in response to driver inputs, propulsion system outputs, ambient conditions, air/surface/water conditions, etc. Vehicle dynamics is a part of engineering primarily based on classical mechanics.
Similar to the "Belgian tourniquet" in cycling, the "slingshot pass" is the most dramatic and widely noted maneuver associated with drafting. A trailing car (perhaps pushed by a line of drafting cars) uses the lead car's wake to pull up with maximum momentum at the end of a straightaway, enters a turn high, and turns down across the lead car's ...
A retractable front spoiler can reduce the scraping of the car on curbs or other road imperfections, while still reducing drag at high speeds. Powered fans, such as in the Chaparral 2J, do the equivalent of spoilers and increase the downforce, hence the traction and handling of the vehicle (See ground effect). Research continues on the use of ...
In a car, for example, such an engine with cylinders larger than about 500 cc/30 cuin [citation needed] (depending on a variety of factors) requires balance shafts to eliminate undesirable vibration. These take the form of a pair of balance shafts that rotate in opposite directions at twice engine speed, known as Lanchester shafts, after the ...
Edmund Rumpler's 1921 Tropfenwagen was the first series-produced aerodynamically designed automobile, before the Chrysler Airflow and the Tatra 77.. The drag coefficient is a common measure in automotive design as it pertains to aerodynamics.