I'm joining the lease of an apartment

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I note that the optimal aerodynamic form at subsonic speeds is a teardrop. Why not make more space in the cockpit?

[Hauldren Collider]

Teardrop is more aerodynamic, but a fatter teardrop is less aerodynamic. I don't really know the physics of it. That's not my department. But minimizing frontal surface area is important.

Also, aerodynamics isn't as big a deal as you might think. This is a point of major debate among buggy engineers: how much does aerodynamics matter? Right now, my team is mostly of the opinion that it's not nearly as important as weight. A smaller surface area means a lighter buggy. We sacrifice some aerodynamics in the name of weight savings.

The exception is the pushbar, which is hugely unaerodynamic. It may be that the weight increase from a retraction mechanism is worth the aerodynamic improvement. We're not sure. But we don't use them anymore, because they're hard to make work with monobodies.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I wonder if there'd be any profit in a fin mounting for that.

[Hauldren Collider]

What do you mean?

Right now our biggest aero problem is our lack of wheel fairings. Wheels are really unaerodynamic because the top of the wheel moves twice the speed of the buggy relative to the ground, and air resistance increases with the square of velocity, so it's basically 4x as much drag. We're working on covers for the wheels but it's surprisingly tricky to do well.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Well I doubt it would pay off, but build up the profile of the pushbar pipes, save the handles, to make them more aerodynamic - at the point they go into the body, especially...

[MRT144]

What do you mean?

Right now our biggest aero problem is our lack of wheel fairings. Wheels are really unaerodynamic because the top of the wheel moves twice the speed of the buggy relative to the ground, and air resistance increases with the square of velocity, so it's basically 4x as much drag. We're working on covers for the wheels but it's surprisingly tricky to do well.

Doesnt the formula for air resistance point out why your feelings on why aero doesn't matter as much as weight might ring true? You guys simply aren't getting enough velocity to make aerodynamics a primary consideration, right? Also, the marginal gains from improved aero at this velocity can always be limited by the human ability of pushing uphill it would seem.

[Hauldren Collider]

Yeah but fairings basically don't weigh anything. Also, there's another reason they're really useful (which may actually be more important): We heat our wheels before rolling. Heating them improves their performance. Fairings reduce the heat loss significantly. The longer they stay hot, the better we roll.

[MRT144]

Goddamnit, now i have the buggy bug!

[Sava]

/nerdgasm

[Aeson]

Do teams ever bring in ringers for the pushers? Would anyone get suspicious if your team was entirely made up of Jamaicans? CoolNerd Runnings

[Hauldren Collider]

No, but holy **** that's a great idea. We should phone up the Jamaican bobsled team.

I just woke up at 3:50 am on a saturday so I can go roll buggies...well, off I go.

[self biased]

[Sava]

whats the BB code for strike-through text?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

< strike >< /strike >

[Sava]

kthx