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Showing posts from October, 2015

The Fun but Useless Similarity between an Airfoil and a Tire

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This blog mainly discusses some interesting observations about the mathematical models for an airfoil (aerofoil) and a tire (tyre). My professor stressed that the essential external forces applied to an automobile only include aerodynamic ones and ones through the tires. And I find it quite interesting that some forces acting upon an airfoild and a tire can all be expressed in the form of: F = ka + C For an airfoil, F can be seen as the lift and k the lift coefficient.  a in this case would be the angle of attack (AOA). C  is the result of an airfoil's camber. For a tire,  F   can be seen as the lateral force,  k  the cornering stiffness and  a   the slip angle. C is due to the tire's camber and is known as the "camber thrust". It is also noticed that this linear expression only holds true for a limited range of  a , which is nevertheless where an airfoil or a tire normally opereates. The following two graphs would be helpf...