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MELBOURNE, Australia – Streamlined bakkies? Well, that’s the theory behind the design of the upcoming new Ford Rangers because a slippery truck uses less fuel – and Ford has called on F1 design experts to make it happen.
The target was to make the 2011 Ranger the most fuel-efficient truck in its segment so aerodynamicists Thorsten Maertens and Neil Lewington were assigned to Ford from the high-paced world of circuit-racing four years ago and brought with them the know-how and technology to make the global Ranger a more streamlined vehicle.
F1 SOFTWARE
They did a lot for its looks, too – and we in South Africa can expect to see them in October, 2011.
The stream team used the same simulation software as Formula 1 teams and performed more than 1000 full-vehicle aerodynamic simulations to perfect the shape of Ranger for fuel efficiency. Maertens explained: "A key challenge was managing the interaction between air flowing over the roof and the variations of cargo boxes in the Ranger line-up - a significant proportion of the vehicle’s drag.
“Ride height, especially in the 4x4 models, was another challenge. The higher the vehicle, the more atmospheric drag it has to overcome. It’s a big number of ‘counts’ for every millimetre of ride height.”
STREAMLINING A BRICK: A pick-up, by definition, just isn't designed to slip through the air but Ford hired F1 experts to make the 2011 Ranger the most streamlined in its segment.
A drag count, he explained, is a single unit of drag. A drag count of 1 is equal to a drag co-efficient of 0.001 - the measurement of the air resistance to a vehicle’s progress. The bigger the number the hard the engine has to work, the more fuel it burns.
The team pared the Ranger’s drag coefficient down to 0.40 by implementing the most efficient design, which included optimised A pillars, tapered C pillars and – cute one, this! – a little spoiler on top of the tailgate.
The biggest drag reduction came from a front air dam designed to limit airflow under the truck. This “chin” spoiler cut drag by about seven percent, Maertens says, while improving vehicle stability and helping to cool the engine.
Senior dynamicist Lewington added: “Minimising drag has real fuel-economy benefits. With about 60% of engine power needed to cruise at highway speeds being used to overcome aerodynamic effects, that translates directly into more money in customers’ pockets.”
And the last word from Maertens: “In F1, we chase seconds, even hundredths of seconds. On the Ranger, we chased down every last count of drag.”
The target was to make the 2011 Ranger the most fuel-efficient truck in its segment so aerodynamicists Thorsten Maertens and Neil Lewington were assigned to Ford from the high-paced world of circuit-racing four years ago and brought with them the know-how and technology to make the global Ranger a more streamlined vehicle.
F1 SOFTWARE
They did a lot for its looks, too – and we in South Africa can expect to see them in October, 2011.
The stream team used the same simulation software as Formula 1 teams and performed more than 1000 full-vehicle aerodynamic simulations to perfect the shape of Ranger for fuel efficiency. Maertens explained: "A key challenge was managing the interaction between air flowing over the roof and the variations of cargo boxes in the Ranger line-up - a significant proportion of the vehicle’s drag.
“Ride height, especially in the 4x4 models, was another challenge. The higher the vehicle, the more atmospheric drag it has to overcome. It’s a big number of ‘counts’ for every millimetre of ride height.”
STREAMLINING A BRICK: A pick-up, by definition, just isn't designed to slip through the air but Ford hired F1 experts to make the 2011 Ranger the most streamlined in its segment.
A drag count, he explained, is a single unit of drag. A drag count of 1 is equal to a drag co-efficient of 0.001 - the measurement of the air resistance to a vehicle’s progress. The bigger the number the hard the engine has to work, the more fuel it burns.
The team pared the Ranger’s drag coefficient down to 0.40 by implementing the most efficient design, which included optimised A pillars, tapered C pillars and – cute one, this! – a little spoiler on top of the tailgate.
The biggest drag reduction came from a front air dam designed to limit airflow under the truck. This “chin” spoiler cut drag by about seven percent, Maertens says, while improving vehicle stability and helping to cool the engine.
SMOOTH OPERATION: The only airflow in the Ranger's cabin is from the aircon - but the fascia design is still pretty slick.
Senior dynamicist Lewington added: “Minimising drag has real fuel-economy benefits. With about 60% of engine power needed to cruise at highway speeds being used to overcome aerodynamic effects, that translates directly into more money in customers’ pockets.”
And the last word from Maertens: “In F1, we chase seconds, even hundredths of seconds. On the Ranger, we chased down every last count of drag.”
