Old Plane Wreck For Sale

Save by going slower

In this article I propose is to forget for a moment of political and socioeconomic environment of the moment and make an objective calculation based on the laws of physics to estimate the magnitude of the savings. He had already outlined some time, but now advised to revisit the calculation and pay more attention. Obviously, the calculation we do here is extremely simple. There are many phenomena that we will not consider, and may be important.

So rather than look at the final result and calculate decimals at close range, you should consider a measure indicative of where the shots go. A complete calculation (other than impossible to generalize no two identical engines) would be much more difficult and complex, but would not deviate too much from what we do here. So, to get an idea, should be sufficient.


First, we must remember that, traveling at constant speed, the engine only role is to compensate the frictional forces. If it did, the different types of friction that is under the vehicle would make it lose speed.

The different frictional forces must win the car are three:

■ The continued deformation of the wheel as you change the point of contact is called friction force by rolling (not to be confused with the dynamic friction force is different.) ■
internal friction between moving engine parts.
■ And above all, the force of air friction, because the vehicle is out of his way a great mass of gas to move, as explained a few days ago to discuss the slipstream).
We shall focus especially on the third point, which is probably the most important. Consider the first two quickly.



The energy lost to deformation of the wheel is the same for each revolution. Of course, the number of laps made a wheel is directly proportional to the distance traveled, so the total number of turns made by each tire is the same regardless of how fast we travel. So, in a first approximation, the losses for this concept come to be the same, especially if we compare two relatively similar speeds (like 110 and 120km / h).

The internal resistance in the engine is a very difficult to quantify, especially if we try to talk in general. Mainly depends on the revs. Turning slow, loses most of its energy trying to stop all motion stops. Ie avoiding the draft. We note these losses by the different noise emitted by the engine if we let the tachometer drop too low. And above all, for the shocks that occur.