Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 13:39:37 -0300 (ADT)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: smitht@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Tim Smith)
Subject: Re: Aerodynamics
At 11:19 AM 4/30/96 -0500, Don Woolard wrote:
>I attended a lecture by Jay Baldwin last night. He discussed the Dymaxion
>car designed and built by Buckminster Fuller in the twenties and thirties.
Thought it was rear engined and rear wheel drive, with steerable rear wheels
very close together capable of turning 90 degrees to car, hence the ability
to turn on a manhole cover.
>
>VW content: The front of the car looked a lot like a more streamlined
>splittie with about 6 split and angled panels on the front. The lecturer
>said that the front was designed to provide a partial vacuum that helped
>"suck" the car along and that the rear engine exhausted its hot air to the
>rear - the hot air expanded as it left and provided a "push" for the car.
>These things helped explain the excellent mileage! What do you think? -
>could this explain why our busses go so fast?
Don't buy the above arguments, maybe the exhaust helped a bit....
Want some fun kids? Next time on the highway at speed, just open the front
doors on your loaf. They will pop out to about 3-4" and stay there. Really
stay! You will not be able to pull it shut. To close push it out as hard as
you can them slam it with the backswing while aided by the airflow. The
doors are lined up with the bow wake and avoiding "seperation" where the
flow leaves the smooth streamlines around the body and starts tumbling,
called "turbulence". This turbulence essentially widens your bus, adding to
air drag by increasing cross section area. Don't try this on congested
highways or with Fluffy the Cat on board neither.
Further to the VW content, Westy style, Super Bucky had set up one as a
camper! I remember drawings of a deep stainless steel sink and stove unit,
high tech manufacture in those days, just like the current Westy units.
Wonder what else was in them, hammocks? Tim Smith
