Hello people of this beautiful community welcome to my blog. It's my first time here and I hope I'm welcome.
You must have seen things like this
Or this
Or this
Or this
And think that they make cars beautiful or they are designs.
Well yes in this aspect
But no😏, they are there to plant your car to the ground and make them go faster. The question is… HOW?
The answer… AERODYNAMICS
In a lay mans understanding, aerodynamics is the Interaction between gas and a moving object. So a static or stationary body don't have much to do with air except collecting dust🤡. The properties of Aerodynamics are Lift (negative gravity) Down force (positive gravity) Thrust( forward motion) Drag(friction with a fliud)
Imaginary time
Imagine a brick on wheels [not this]
I watched a clip where somebody called it a brick on wheels😂. But now you know that that word didn't come from me.
BTB (Back To Business) A literal brick moving on a very high speed will encounter a retardation due to air punching the heck out of its face and that retardation is known as friction. So to tackle that, the tear drop shape ( flat front, big back) was introduced which happens to be the most aerodynamic shape with drag coefficient of 0.5 while a brick has a Cd (drag coefficient or coefficient of drag) of 1
So when a car moves at high speed, the air instead of punching it, it follows the shape of a car. But too much air under the car, can take the car to the sky, that why performance cars are low,
AERODYNAMICS ON CAR TOPS
Wing is the part of a car that... You know looks like this.
It extends more than the frontal area meaning that you can see it out if the car when you look face to face with the car. It divides the air into two: High pressure slow moving air on top of the wing and low pressure fast moving under the wing. The high pressure air create down force, thus, planting the car to the ground.
Spoiler disrupts or "spoils" the air movement.
When air follows the car's streamlined body, instead of creating vortices, the air follows the spoiler up.
AERODYNAMICS UNDER THE CAR
Under tray makes the air move smoothly under instead of punching those mufflers and catalytic converters and axle and transmission and suspension and propeller shaft etc etc etc ( like all the fighters you can see under your car)…… it's simply just only basically a tray at the under of a car the cover all those "fighters".
Splitters stops high pressure air from going under the car because, you know, lift off. It also helps direct air into the air dam and canard.
Diffusers creates what is known as Venturi's effect which is when fluids speed up through a constricted area. Remember fast moving fluids have lower pressure than slower moving fluids. So diffuser won't let you take to the sky.
AERODYNAMICS ON THE SIDE OF THE CAR
Side Skirt prevents high pressure air from going under the car. You know just like everyone, when you go to a place where you don't feel free or you feel caged, you will like to go to a place of freedom, so does air, after been caged on top, the high pressure air will like to go to the side of the car or maybe under, so side skirt stop them like security officer stopping you from going to your friends party.
AERODYNAMICS IN FRONT OF THE CAR
Canards: alright, canard here does not mean an unfounded rumor or a plane or this duck looking bird.
It is simply a flat little board (could be one or two) protruding out from both sides of the car (often performance cars) in front of the front wheels.
They help take air upwards away from the front wheels. Air hitting at that angle also help create a teenzy weenzy bit of down force. The down force is not much but it's helpful.
This is a very quick summary of aerodynamics. If there's anything you felt I missed, feel free to say it in the comment section. Tata for now🙋🏾♂️
