A boat tail, a tapering protrusion mounted on the rear of a truck, leads to fuel savings of 7.5 percent. This is due to dramatically-improved aerodynamics, as shown by road tests conducted by the Dutch PART (Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport) public-private partnership platform.

Public highways

A boat tail is a tapering protrusion about two metres in length mounted on the rear of a truck. The boat tail had already proved itself during wind tunnel experiments and computer simulations, both conducted at TU Delft, in theory and using small-scale models. Now an articulated lorry fitted with a boat tail has also undergone extensive testing on public highways.

Emissions

An articulated lorry was driven for a period of one year with a boat tail (of varying length) and one year without a boat tail. The improved aerodynamics, depending on the length of the boat tail, resulted in reduced fuel consumption (and emissions!) of up to 7.5 percent. The optimum boat tail length proved to be two metres.

Read more . . .

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Tags: boat tail, Boat Tail Reduces Truck Fuel Consumption, emissions, fuel consumption, public private partnership, road tests, road transport, truck fuel, wind tunnel experiments

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Automotive, Buying Time, Innovation, Project Energy, Science Digest / Science Daily, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.