Yokohama Added Spoilers To Their Tires For Better Aerodynamics
By Paulo Acoba
Adding aerodynamics directly to the tires not initially considered. But Yokohama is rewriting the rulebook.
Aerodynamics play such a large role in today’s modern vehicles that a car company not pouring proper amounts of money into research and development to improve your fleets overall coefficient of drag is seen as just plain silly. Yokohama announced earlier today (Oct. 15, 2015) that they’re aiding the fight to improve aerodynamics and have introduced a revolutionary innovation that effectively adds spoilers right onto the tire itself.
Aerodynamics, especially around the wheel well, have been dealt with in all sorts of ingenious methods aimed at increasing the efficiency in which tires interact with the wind. Oftentimes that means channeling air over the tires with special ducts, adding air curtains to block air from entering the wheel wells altogether, adding fins on the bumper to push air up and over certain angles and in some extreme cases found in motorsports or high-speed testing, covering the wheel wells altogether.
"The latest development seeks to control aerodynamic flow throughout the vehicle body by using a new fin shape and placement technique that places the fin protuberances at angles near the tire’s shoulder. The fins on the tire’s outer sidewall help to reduce vehicle aerodynamic drag when on the upper part of the tire during its rotation while suppressing vehicle aerodynamic lift when on the lower part of the tire."
Yokohama just hasn’t published all this ground breaking evidence without a bit of simulation testing on supercomputers to back up their data.
"In addition, we conducted a large-scale parameter study in collaboration with a team led by Professor Shigeru Obayashi of Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University; this study used a Supercomputer “K” to run aerodynamic simulations at different parameter values to determine the impact of changes in the parameter values on a desired result. This study led to new knowledge about the optimal placement of fins on the tire surface in order to enhance tire aerodynamics."
Yokohama will go ahead and display all their findings as well as a couple of demo tires at the 205 Yokohama Auto Show which kicks off later this month on October 28, 2015.
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