Jeepers92 wrote:
Great information and engineering from all. The laws of physics and aerodynamics prove that a given object ( camper, car, duck,etc ), moving through air, is affected by weight and aerodynamics. Depending on the vehicle, a graph would show how much energy ( horsepower ..ie fuel ), is required to push it through the air. As speed increases, the energy is mostly used to overcome the air, not overcome the weight. It's how an airplane can fly. So..any ideas about how to also make a verticle V for the front of our tc's ? Has anyone had luck with hood deflectors or front bumper designs? How about experiments with covers for the front jacks? Thanks for everyone's ideas, I learn a lot from this forum.
I did quite a lot of research and counrty boy physics... used NASA data... and yellow pads just to get started.
I worked a lot on weight and drag .... speed and horse power
It turned out that up to 48 mph that the most energy used was to pull the load (weight) and above 48 mph it required more and more energy (Horse power) to push the wind (drag)
I get my best (acceptable) mpg when I don't go slower that 48 mph or faster than 58 mph.
Something that I found interesting:
About 5 years after I did the above analysis I was looking at the aerodynamics of a Prius.... I dug deep into Toyotas engineering data... it turns out that they do all of their efficiency tests at 48 mph.
My brother Doug is a genius... I talked to him about my 48 mph finding and the fact that Toyotas use of the 48 mph for their best ever tests.
He says that I have stumbled on to a "constant"... that the switch in energy used from what is being "pulled" to what is being "pushed" through the wind on any vehicle happens at about 48 mph.
I just get lucky sometimes.
Sleepy
