Active Grill Shutters

[Coss]

I still can't understand why no one has pursued putting a small wind turbine on EV cars to help charging; at speed you would have a constant wind flow. Doing highway speeds you would be getting a 60 or 70mph wind to spin it; in city, 30 to 45mph. It has to have some kind of possibilities; doesn't it?

 

[floydv]

This is taken from the article: "Ford says the 2015 Ford Mustang with 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine will be equipped with active grille shutters because hard-working turbos "need a lot of cooling air fed through the grille."
So Ford says the "hard working turbos need a lot of cooling air through the grill" so they're going to put on shutters to block off air? That sense no makes to me.

I chalked that one up to poor editing.

 

[pistonboy]

The more freely air flows through the grill, the less wind resistance that grill poses. Closed shutters would make it a solid obstacle increasing wind resistance. Of course, the wind entering the engine compartment must exit the engine compartment and that would be primarily downward. Does this downward air interfere with the air already flowing under the vehicle and reduce mpg? This gets into tricky aerodynamics.

 

[pistonboy]

I still can't understand why no one has pursued putting a small wind turbine on EV cars to help charging; at speed you would have a constant wind flow. Doing highway speeds you would be getting a 60 or 70mph wind to spin it; in city, 30 to 45mph. It has to have some kind of possibilities; doesn't it?

It will not work. That wind turbine presents resistance (called drag). This drag, when combined with all the losses of the system, results in a net loss of efficiently.

 

[floydv]

I still can't understand why no one has pursued putting a small wind turbine on EV cars to help charging; at speed you would have a constant wind flow. Doing highway speeds you would be getting a 60 or 70mph wind to spin it; in city, 30 to 45mph. It has to have some kind of possibilities; doesn't it?

That's a variation on many concepts to create a perpetual motion machine, which is impossible since it would violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

 

[floydv]

The more freely air flows through the grill, the less wind resistance that grill poses. Closed shutters would make it a solid obstacle increasing wind resistance. Of course, the wind entering the engine compartment must exit the engine compartment and that would be primarily downward. Does this downward air interfere with the air already flowing under the vehicle and reduce mpg? This gets into tricky aerodynamics.

If the shutters were in front of the grill and designed to be flushed with the front end when closed, I would think that would present less wind resistance. I'm sure there's a modder out there who will try this.

 

[floydv]

The more freely air flows through the grill, the less wind resistance that grill poses. Closed shutters would make it a solid obstacle increasing wind resistance. Of course, the wind entering the engine compartment must exit the engine compartment and that would be primarily downward. Does this downward air interfere with the air already flowing under the vehicle and reduce mpg? This gets into tricky aerodynamics.

Found a video that shows the airstream being diverted nicely on a Ram truck with the active shutters. You can skip directly to 2:15, which is where he talks about the active shutter system. It's notable that the speaker identifies the active shutters as being an important mileage enabler for the Ram (I recognize it's YMMV for the Elio).

 

[NSTG8R]

I'd like to have a set of thermostatically controlled shutters. My Ford diesel takes FOREVER to warm up in the winter (settling for a pizza box for now). It's a '97, so aerodynamics was never a consideration when Ford designed this thing.

 

[NSTG8R]

I still can't understand why no one has pursued putting a small wind turbine on EV cars to help charging; at speed you would have a constant wind flow. Doing highway speeds you would be getting a 60 or 70mph wind to spin it; in city, 30 to 45mph. It has to have some kind of possibilities; doesn't it?

That's how they powered the belly-mounted machine gun on F-4 Phantoms. Of course they were doing more like 600 - 700 mph.

 

[champsman]

I had air operated shutters on my 1963 Mack truck which worked fine for controling engine temps with one slight problem, in the winter they would freese open and needed cardboard to assist with warm-up when they closed after thawing the cardboard would fall off the front of the grill and then you could drive away. Bear in mind there was no such thing as a fan clutch.