Abstract• The purpose of this study is to find a very simple, reliable and

efficient way to save gas on trailer trucks. This study focuses on the end of the trailer because the end of the trailer has the most eddies. When these currents form, it disrupts the clean air flow, which makes drag higher. Spoilers added to the end of the truck can add stability and it can have a better mileage. There is an average of 30,000 gallons of gas used every year. This can result in more than 90,000 to 120,000 dollars spent everyday (depending on the prices of the truck- from 3 dollars to 12 dollars). The back of a tractor trailer truck has a drag coefficient of .02- one of the highest besides the wheels of the tractor trailer truck. This is based on a smooth flow on the back of the truck as said from Wood (2006).

Need• With an unstable financial society and the need for more

gas, society needs to turn to simple and low-cost, efficient ways to fix the rising problem. While cars and pickup trucks have been steadily improving, the gas for trailer trucks have been relatively the same. With new improvements, trucks can improve their own gas mileage.

• To further knowledge with aerodynamics, fluid dynamics and to construct more aerodynamic vehicles because an average tractor trailer truck can use up to 30,000 miles to a gallon

Knowledge Base•The Wind Tunnel was used for all of the tests.

•Most of the drag is shown on the diagram on the bottom right

•Reynolds number- relative motion of a certain flow.

Wood, 2006

Average Drag of Five Major Points

The back of the truck has a drag coefficient of 0.2

The Fogger

Lit Review•Flow control techniques and aerodynamicimprovements developed at the Georgia Instituteof Technology could save the U.S. truckingindustry hundreds of millions of gallons of fuelper year. (Toon, 2004)• A vortex strake can help with the flow of the truck. Percentage of Gas Consumption and Release of

C2O

Trucks have steadily

increased over the

past 10 years

Hypothesis• Ho- The addition of grooves and/or spoiler

would cause the drag to be the same with the control.

• HA- The addition of grooves and/or spoiler would cause the drag to be less then the control.

Future Research• To use different methods to make a more

efficient truck using either spoilers or grooves

• To help save more gas.

Discussion• Using the Pasco force meter- the spoiler

had the least drag.

• The grooves and control had very similar drags.

• The Null hypothesis was refuted.

Conclusion