s to keep the pal in the same place when we keep our palm out horizontally. When the speed increase more force has to be exerted by us to keep the hand in the same place. When the palm is kept vertical, more frontal area comes in contact with the air, which is why the drag is more. On the other hand, when we place our palm in a horizontal position the area that comes in contact with the air is less, which is why the drag is less.
More frontal area, so more drag less frontal area, so less drag
It is also to be mentioned that the air force goes up with the square of the speed, meaning if we double the vehicle speed. The total drag resistance increases by four times. At 200mph it takes around eight
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All stock cars have positive lift.
Olden day’s cars with blunt frontend had lift which was somewhat similar to what our hands experienced. The air gets underneath and pitches the nose up. When the car is at high speeds there are more chances for it to topple. Even the modern, bubble cars have lift that is caused by their very efficient wing like shape.
Positive lift is bad. It makes the car to float and becomes hard to control especially at high speeds. It’s far better to have downforce to push the car down against the pavement and increase its traction. It is important for the car to be in our control.
Unfortunately many of the techniques used to make the lift negative and increase the downforce also increases the drag of the vehicle. One depends on the other for it to be generated. It all comes down to a very fine juggling of all these acts. Drag reduction from better streamlining versus drag being increased from more downforce. The emphasis on which one is dependent on the vehicles inherent design and its
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This will decide on whether there should be more downforce or less drag. For anything that must turn it must be stable on the ground for it to turn properly. For this more downforce is to be generated. When downforce is more, it makes up ore time in the corners.
On the other hand, for going on an ultimate straight line, the top speed is the goal. The best possible way is to have less drag. For going straight, these cars just the correct amount of downforce to hold traction and to keep the front end of the car planted on the ground.
In drag racing there is more downforce added to it when compared to the cars that just want to achieve top speed. This is because the power and acceleration is way too high in drag racing cars. It is said that, if a drag car has more downforce than needed then it is wasting its potential.
The drag of a car can be reduced by altering the vehicle body shape. This process if reducing the drag coefficient of a vehicle by altering the vehicle shape is called streamlining. The best vehicle shape with least amount of drag was found to be the tear drop shape. Figure 6- tear drop shape car (Anon.,