A system of electric dissectors is being tested to reduce fuel consumption in trucks

Wind resistance increases fuel consumption of almost all vehicles. One way to deal with the wind is to use dissectors. Researchers in Sweden are experimenting with reducing drag on trucks using electric vortex flow generators (aerodynamic dissectors) that create strong directional air swirls to increase lift on aircraft wings.



Such vortex generators can be seen looking at the wing of the aircraft. Small fins are vortex generators on the top of the wing. They create turbulent vortices to increase lift during takeoff and landing. Now, researchers at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, are successfully testing a way to reduce the amount of drag on trucks, creating similar air swirls at the front corners of the car's cabin. But unlike aircraft, where vortex generators are made of solid material, these are invisible and made with an electric field.





KTH research team member Julie Vernet says electric vortex generators can reduce fuel consumption by 5 percent when tested, provided they are installed on a cab above the engine (a design standard for tractors in Europe and Japan).

Vernet says that electric generators are created on the basis of plasma mechanisms, that is, devices that emit high voltage between two electrodes. The surrounding air molecules are ionized and accelerated in an electric field, leading to wind. There are no moving mechanical parts, and unlike vortex generators on an aircraft wing, these devices can adapt to the force and direction of the wind, she says.





Vortex generators work on the basic principle of aerodynamics – if you reduce the separation of air flow on the leeward side of the profile, you can increase lift and at the same time reduce drag.

It is estimated that more than 20% of a vehicle’s energy loss comes from wind resistance. published



P.S. And remember, just changing our consumption – together we change the world!



Source: phys.org/news/2017-03-truck-fuel-turbulence-cutting-electric.html