He goes very in depth on his build, I love it. I was thinking of playing around with air foils when I get my 3d printer. Are there any resources you could recommend? Any entertaining YouTube channels?
Taking the risk to do this is crazy, it's awesome that people like this exist.
For aerodynamics? Really nothing but trial and error. Learning the basics helps but it's only through experience that things start becoming intuitive. If you have a 3d printer and can score some kind of manometer or pitot tube. Make parts for your car and measure their effect. The biggest influence comes from the turbulent recirculation at the back of the car. It basically slows the airflow traveling under the car.
Julian Edgar has an interesting YouTube channel, along with books he's published.
Agent Jay Z has a good channel if you want to learn about jet engines.
Major Hardware has the fan showdown, where you can submit fan designs and he tests them to see how well they perform.
I'm always down to talk and bounce ideas around as well.
Thanks. I watch some of the mechanical showdown episodes and someone already stole my idea of modeling the fan after a jet compressor blade. Alternatively I was thinking of modeling it after a STOL wing. The idea being that it is more in line with the slow speeds. I figure lift is the product of redirecting air flow so maximizing lift should maximize airflow.
The problem with spinning blades is that they fling the air outwards. So I was thinking a forward swept spiral profile based on a compound STOL wing might be the ticket. What do you think?
The reference Noctua fan actually does that! It goes to show that Noctua actually has good engineers, and their fans prove this. Lo and behold the reference fan is the best standard fan, so you are on to something! The cheater fan that sits at the top has an inlet shroud and an exhaust shroud. You can have the fanciest nicest turbine engine in the world, but it's not a jet engine, it's just a turbine. The one little feature that makes a jet engine a jet, is, the nozzle at the exit. That converging section right at the end converts everything that happens in the turbine into a jet.
Check out a fighter jet, like an F18, the jet nozzles converge and produce thrust, then the re-heat/afterburner kicks in and the exhaust flow goes supersonic, then the nozzle opens up and becomes divergent.
Here's a thought, if a fan blade were to function like a fixed wing would it be as effective, or is the fan blade dependent on the yaw angle of the airflow? If the latter is true then it must also apply to a car that's turning correct?
You just gave me a crazy idea, thanks man. Forward swept winglet to guide air to the inner rear of the tire. Did you know that a spinning tire creates a jetting vortex that is proportional to the yaw angle relative to the flow? That means if the airflow is hitting the inside of a spinning wheel and tire at ~25 degrees, instead of a turbulent wake, you get a vortex instead.
You often see cars try to limit tire turbulence by adding winglets, and sculpting the fenders, and adding slats and whatnot. Your own road car likely has flaps in front of the front tires to reduce the turbulence they create. Same with the rears.
However no passenger car designer bothers to exploit the vortex you can generate from a spinning tire. While a vortex still creates drag, it is less draggy than pure turbulence, and the vortex can be used to limit tire turbulence from bleeding under the car. That's because the vortex is outwashing, and tries to fill the low pressure at the back of the tire.
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