Not got a heap of real work done on my bike lately, been distracted by a couple of other little projects.
Woody and I are killing email electrons again working on the yaw of my bike again after the Christmas/New Year break.
One cool thing to come from a recent software upgrade (I think) at the smart end is the ability to show virtual oil streaks on a pressure map (my input is generally limited to a very rough sketch and a cryptic message for the next run).
There is a lot of air crossing the top of the bike and staying attached nicely because of the profile, trying to upset that a bit with a "roofrail" from the canopy back is one of the next two runs.
This at first look will increase roll from the 6 degree crosswind and have little effect on yaw, but........
What i am hoping to achieve is to make it harder for air to cross the bike and upset the crossing air to increase the pressure delta between the two sides of the tail by reducing the pressure recovery on the leeward side and increasing the pressure recovery on the windward side.
Hopefully then we'll start to see some correction from the tail.
The tail extension is off again for now as there is such a small pressure delta that it isnt doing a lot for it's size, if we can increase the pressure delta it may come back, I'm trying one change at a time on the base model rather than just keeping adding changes so that the effects of one change can be easily seen.
Another cool thing is this pressure chart for the midline down both sides;
And from that a pressure delta graph;
This confirms that nearly all the yaw input is at the front of ther bike and very little correction from the rear, because of this I'm trying trying to reduce its input rather than counteract it at the back where there is a very low pressure delta. That is the next run, the base profile is staying the same, front tyre is going to get a bit breezy.
A really handy tool for non educumacated people like me would be a "pressure delta map" that showed the differences of pressure between the two sides as a coloured rendering, , wouldn't it Woody?...
It's probably obvious by now that I am fixated on pressure deltas across the bike, IMHO that is all that is important in a crosswind situation, a high pressure on both sides has no sideways effect, likewise for a symetrical low pressure pattern.
A pressure difference will try to shift that portion of the bike sideways from high to low pressure, the bigger the difference the bigger the push.
The closer to vertical that the two oposing points are the greater the sideways action for the same pressure differential, the only surfaces that have no sideways action from a pressure differential are a horizontal surface or a vertical surface that runs straight straight across the bike.
There is very few of these, a thin line along the top and bottom of the shell and the bottom of the wheel fairings are horizontal, the front and back of the internal wheeltubs and a thin line up the back of the tail are vertical across the bike.
I'ts never going to be "stable" but neither am I, a little less unstable would be nice though.
cheers
jon
P.S. Woody is patient as well as knowing his stuff, nothing worse than a customer with an "opinion"....