Drag Coeficient (masini)

Aside from being responsible with catching the eye of the customers, the design of a car is in part accountable for the performances of any given vehicle.

And one of the most important figures car companies are watching for when designing a new car model is the drag coefficient.

The drag coefficient comes in the form of a figure that can have lasting effects on top speed, stability, fuel consumption and more. But what does that figure mean?

WHAT IS THE DRAG COEFFICIENT
A drag coefficient is a number used in fluid dynamics to determine the resistance encountered by an object moving through a fluid. In real life, all fluids have a tendency of resisting object passing through them with a force which acts opposite to the relative motion of the respective object.

For cars, the drag is the force with which the surrounding air pushes against the car as the vehicle travels as if trying to stop it or slow it down.
For an automobile, that means a car moving down a road would be opposed by the air which it travels through with a force that is dependent on the design of the car and the speed it travels at - drag increases with the square of speed.

Because of this, the effects of drag are mostly felt at higher speeds, meaning cars have to be designed in such a way that they reduce the drag coefficient as much as possible.

But a higher drag coefficient also impacts more than the performance of a car at high speeds. The higher the number, the more difficult the car to control, the more fuel it uses, the more acceleration is affected.

Calculating the drag coefficient involves a complicated math formula that takes into account speed, density of the air, and the reference area, meaning the surface of the car. The layout of the wind tunnels where the cars are tested could also affect the drag coefficient.

Design-wise, one of the components that affect the drag coefficient is the front end of a vehicle.
Reducing drag too much when designing a car could lead to an undesired effect: too much lift, which in turn could lead to the vehicle’s traction being affected.

CARS
Generally, a production car has a drag coefficient of between 0.25 and 0.3, while SUVs have a higher figure because of their boxier shapes, between 0.35 and 0.45

El a ajuns la coeficienți aerodinamici de 0,22 care și azi sînt greu de atins

un coeficient de rezistenta mai mic = aerodinamica buna