Automotive Aerodynamics - History

History

The frictional force of aerodynamic drag increases significantly with vehicle speed. As early as the 1920s engineers began to consider automobile shape in reducing aerodynamic drag at higher speeds. By the 1950s German and British automotive engineers were systematically analyzing the effects of automotive drag for the higher performance vehicles. By the late 1960s scientists also became aware of the significant increase in sound levels emitted by automobiles at high speed. These effects were understood to increase the intensity of sound levels for adjacent land uses at a non-linear rate. Soon highway engineers began to design roadways to consider the speed effects of aerodynamic drag produced sound levels, and automobile manufacturers considered the same factors in vehicle design.

Read more about this topic:  Automotive Aerodynamics

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
    —Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)

    “In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    “No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)