-
Welcome to Elio Owners! Join today, registration is easy!
You can register using your Google, Facebook, or Twitter account, just click here.
Altc Designs
- Thread starter AriLea
- Start date
What did you eventually decide on for the entry, I'm leaning towards a front hinge and raise the canopy like on an aircraft.
bowers baldwin
Elio Addict
- Joined
- May 2, 2014
- Messages
- 1,890
- Reaction score
- 4,667
Nice.Perhaps customize the Elio like the way some have done to the VW Beetle? Some at this site.
It will be interesting to see the results of some of those customization with the Elio. Perhaps a different section here for them?
As usual, you are about 'spot-on'! Well, there is some classic history I considered. Many people know about the Messerschmitt bubble-car. It did have a canopy opening. Which was easier to open from a side hinge vs a front hinge. This seemed to go along with the modernized clasical looks of the Atlantric. But I wanted the hinge modernized too. So I've designed it such that it can open to the left OR right. If you open both locks at the same time the top comes clean off. I keep the wiper mechs with the top. Now this gives a very good way to have many options, just have different tops. So one of the tops would be like the 200 Super. I'll attach a super image, but I'll have to dig up my designer sketches for the Atlantric door(s).
Mean while, since we're all patiently waiting for the Elio, here some other interesting images with variations and some aerodynamic simulations.
The blue area in the image above is low pressure. Under the car it creates downforce wihc is ok for racing but not so good for high MPGs. So the hawker nose removes some of that extra air, slowing it down and partially removing the ventury effect causing the low pressure. If you go too low and create an air-dam, again you get lower pressure at a cost.
Last edited:
Gave this to Elio-M, a year ago or so?(I forget when, long time)
I wonder how much an Ultrasonic windshield wiper system would cost?
http://www.gizmag.com/mclaren-ultrasonic-windshield-wiper-washer/30205/
http://www.gizmag.com/mclaren-ultrasonic-windshield-wiper-washer/30205/
Wow, crazy stuff. That method is also used to clean things like jewelry, but used sooo much over time it may well etch the glass or something. Then too, I wonder if a rock, hitting glass while it is 'humming' might break it too easilly. Possibly some rainX and high speed air-puffs would be as effective. All I can say is. test-test and test some more.
I thought I'd finish the Atlantric subject showing the tops I'd mentioned. I could't find any presentable images, so this sketch will have to do. As I said before, this design is less important to me now that the Elio is advancing to pre-production. And I could finish the Atlantric with an Elio drive train. But the project is still viable since it may enable higher mpg's in the 3wheeler platform. In the 80's I'd participated in vehicle development where we regularly exceeded 100mpg with craft similar to the second image below. The one you see is the Viking45, a WWU entry into the Auto Motive Xprize competiton a few years ago. Given an Atlantric, compared to the V45 could be lighter and has less 'frontal area' plus a better 'drag coefficient' it should be able to get a higher MPG at around 120mpg. The V45 and the Elio are at around 1200lbs. Given the form is now set, and suitible drive systems will be available, the chalenge with Atlantric is to keep the weight well below 1000lbs.
I wanted to address this.I'll give you my technologist-non-engineering 2 cents. And understand too, my technology is a little bit old-school.
So, well that actually depends. A skirt is often more for racing downforce than it is to reduce drag. However, if your underside is very turbulant a skirt will help reduce that coupling of the floor to the ground, plus lower the air pressure, which means less forces for other things. The other problem with lower air pressure is the downforce.
Racing wants down force, we commuters want lower total drag. See this;
http://redmouse.hubpages.com/hub/How-ground-effect-works-on-Formula-1-cars
So we can compare an airdam and a Venturi. Also note, there are 3 principle zones in a venturi tube. Intake, middle channel, exit cone.(my terms)
For the two uses(racing and commuting), they are mostly opposite goals. The effect itself is as a low pressure, mostly in the middle zone for the venturi. To have downforce in the venturi you need 1) moving air(more the better), 2) laminar(smooth) flow, 3) decreasing gradient air flow at the back. In the link above is explained as pulling the air out like a vacuum.
Any downforce effect costs induced drag. The extra load itself causes better tread contact but also more rolling resistance, just as if your car were heavier. If at some point you get turbulence which if it is coupled to the car this could cause some lift, with some related induced drag, but also, a little less rolling resistance. Net gain negative.
In racing you can also use an airdam and simply create a low pressure area that way. The air dam could increase turbulence or the frontal area of the car, depending on the implementation. Generally in racing the lower the dam the better. But in this kind of method any turbulence effect occurs in a zone very different from the venturi design. Closer to the ground and possibly somewhat detached from the car.
Anyway, both methods are used differently to lower drag. If you use the dam, you only use what reduces that coupling. That is often exactly at the level of the lowest part of the underbelly. For racing go down to the ground if possible.
For a low drag verturi, first we don't create a real venturi in the first place. Second you don't create any profile similar to one. That's why the Atlantric had that low nose (no funnel in) and a flat bottom all the way out (no exit cone). The style fools the eye into thinking it lifts at the back end. Mostly it doesn't.
Next, for either method and either use, that coupling is bad. Generally eliminate any pits or badly shaped large cavities and make it as smooth and level as possible.
Frankly, making the whole underside higher reduces that coupling, but the higher CG is bad for safety and bad for racing in the corners.
So in some ways racing is similar to high mileage, but in many ways exacty opposite.
There is one possible oddity that works differently. Golf-Ball pits. These are specific shaped pits that lower drag on a form. I don't know how that applies to an underbelly, but it very well may. Sofware does not model underbelly conditions very well, and windtunnels are about as bad. So ideally you would set all your shapes into a full scale rolling chassis, and do a comparitive roll down test for each configuration.
Thank you for the elaboration.