Saving Fuel in Large Vehicles: Reducing Greenhouse Gases
Posted: Sunday, September 07, 2008
by Jerry Pugh
Fuel economy in large trucks, buses, trailers and RVs has long since been a problem for the transportation industry. One way to reduce fuel economy in Hi-profile vehicles is by reduce drag caused by wind resistance.
Motor vehicles moving down the highway create a disturbance in the surrounding air mass. As vehicle speeds increase the air mass disturbance forms into an air bubble that is forced into a pressure cell in front of the vehicle and terminates in a negative pressure cell behind the vehicle. The pressure cell in front of the vehicle creates a resistance that the vehicle must push through, and the negative pressure cell behind the vehicle is a constant drag that pulls back on the vehicle. To keep these positive and negative pressure cells from forming it is necessary to keep the air mass from separating from the vehicle. . By eliminating the pressure cells, fuel consumption can be drastically reduced. A college and I have been working on a way to direct the air mass straight down the sides of the vehicle, down underneath the vehicle, up over the top of the vehicle, or any place deemed aerodynamically advantageous to the particular vehicle on which they are installed. When you are setting at a stop light in the turn lane in your vehicle and another vehicle goes flying by you and your car shakes violently, that's the bubble of air being forced away from that vehicle. We can force the air to hug that vehicle and reduce the drag induced on it. If we can bring the air back around tight against the rear of the vehicle that might give it a pushing effect. It would reduce the ability of another vehicle from drafting it. One of the problem areas on a tractor trailer is between the tractor and the trailer. We think we can force the air past this area down the side of the truck eliminating the turbulence in that area.
Our system can be installed on Tractor-Trailers, Straight Trucks, Buses, Travel Trailers, Motor Homes and any other hi-profile vehicle. Savings of just 1 mile per gallon would save the nation billions of gallons of gas per year. The increase of one mile per gallon for one tractor trailer would be more than 2000 gallons. per year. Multiply that by the number of truck on the road and you can see the potential savings. Wal-Mart alone has 7000 units and Schneider National trucking has about 15000 units. Between the two of them we could save about 44,000,000 gallons of fuel per year. If this is used on all high-profile vehicles such as SUV's, Mini Vans, Cargo or passenger vans, Motor Home's, Bus's, Pickup Trucks pulling travel trailers, etc. any vehicle with a large front end and travels over 25 mph it will help reduce drag. You translate the savings to all of the vehicles mentioned and we're talking about 2 billion gallons of fuel saved in the USA per year.
Wal-Mart says it is their goal to make their fleet 100 percent more energy efficient by 2015. That means they need to increase fuel economy from 6.5 mpg to 13 mpg. That would keep 26 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air.
This process could be used all over the world, and be installed by your local mechanic for a cost of from one to five thousand dollars per vehicle. You would recover your investment in less than a year. Plus look at the effect you would have on reducing greenhouse gases.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Great informative article. Lots of interesting and 'makes sense' ideas.Thanks so much for sharing.Sandra
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