motorcycle aerodynamics?
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oldnslo
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We're talking about airflow, or wind resistance, Mike. As has been said, horsepower with high drag has more limitations than horsepower with lower drag. Therefore, the Neon's horsepower could be increased to the point it would be faster with less horsepower than the motorcycle. The motorcycle's power to weight advantage is decreased as drag increases.
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totalmotorcycle
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oldnslo wrote:We're talking about airflow, or wind resistance, Mike. As has been said, horsepower with high drag has more limitations than horsepower with lower drag. Therefore, the Neon's horsepower could be increased to the point it would be faster with less horsepower than the motorcycle. The motorcycle's power to weight advantage is decreased as drag increases.
Oh sure, get all technical on me!! LOL....
I guess that's why elephants are slow and mice as fast eh?
Sorry I couldn't resist, just ignore me...
No really, stop reading this post...
... still reading it eh?....
Mike.
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ronboskz650sr
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boingk
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All this ''air out the back'' stuff is pretty damn vague, i say that i put in a word or two to help people understand what it really means. When air hits a surface, it responds according to the contours (shaping) of that surface. The direction of the surface also plays a big part. eg: a flat surface like the front of a bus is nothing compared to the pointed front of say....a lamboughini diablo.
What you ideally want on something is whats called ''laminar flow'', which is where air goes past a surface with nil flow disruption. In other words, when the air flows like the object isnt there. When laminar flow is achieved, the air at the back is less turbulent. ''So what?'' you might ask! Well, if air is turbulent at the rear of an object, then that air will make a force that tries to pull that object back and slow it down.
In theory, you can get laminar flow over every part of a vehicle, but in practice the best is something like 75% of area being under laminar flow. This is the sort of thing that has recently resulted in a cyclist, a CYCLIST, that is a dude pedaling, achieving 128km/h (approaching 80 miles per hour) without the aid of anything except a flat piece of road.
Anyways, enough from me. Motorcycling is unfortunately disadvantaged in its present from, as the rider sticks up and creates a break in laminar flow, plus other stuff on the bike as disscussed in other posts. This limits top speed with a given engine power. In the future, speed shall be gained by ever more powerful engines of lighter weight and smaller size.
Not that we aren't having a blast already hey guys? Haha, hope this has cleared some stuff up, keep on lovin' it!
What you ideally want on something is whats called ''laminar flow'', which is where air goes past a surface with nil flow disruption. In other words, when the air flows like the object isnt there. When laminar flow is achieved, the air at the back is less turbulent. ''So what?'' you might ask! Well, if air is turbulent at the rear of an object, then that air will make a force that tries to pull that object back and slow it down.
In theory, you can get laminar flow over every part of a vehicle, but in practice the best is something like 75% of area being under laminar flow. This is the sort of thing that has recently resulted in a cyclist, a CYCLIST, that is a dude pedaling, achieving 128km/h (approaching 80 miles per hour) without the aid of anything except a flat piece of road.
Anyways, enough from me. Motorcycling is unfortunately disadvantaged in its present from, as the rider sticks up and creates a break in laminar flow, plus other stuff on the bike as disscussed in other posts. This limits top speed with a given engine power. In the future, speed shall be gained by ever more powerful engines of lighter weight and smaller size.
Not that we aren't having a blast already hey guys? Haha, hope this has cleared some stuff up, keep on lovin' it!
Go fast on something not meant for it. Then you'll understand the true meaning of speed.
I don't want to get to far out of my depth here, but I do remember reading about a lot of this a few years ago. I remember something about the old dustbin fairing race bikes,Something to the effect of one of those old bikes putting out like 65 bhp and still beinig able to go like 160 mph. I also recall that those fairings made the bike really unstable in any sort of crosswind. I believe they are outlawed now. I also just did an artwork of an early Buell that looked a lot like it had dustbin type bodywork. I don't think it helped that thing to much with speed. Kind of ugly.
http://westernartandportraits.net/
Yay for physics
From what I've learned it's the vacuum created at the tail end of the object moving through the air that produces all the drag. So wouldn't it make sense to have like a cone stick out the back to fill the void that the air would leave? (apart from looking really weird) there are better ways to do it. Look at a corvette, or most sports cars. They're chopped off almost vertical at the back. They design it this way to produce a turbulent air flow along the back with as little vacuum as possible. It still produces some drag but less than a laminar air flow around a vacuum.