SOAP bubbles filled with helium are providing a new insight into how to increase the fuel efficiency of cars.
As fuel economy and carbon emissions become more important to car buyers, manufacturers have identified cutting air resistance as a cost-effective way to improve these figures and so boost their product鈥檚 appeal.
Instead of using traditional wind tunnels to examine a car鈥檚 aerodynamics, though, a team led by Angus Lock at , an automotive research consultancy based in Nuneaton, UK, use helium-filled bubbles. Using an adapted wind tunnel, the team blasts the 3-millimetre-diameter bubbles at the car, and records the bubbles鈥� swirling patterns using an array of seven cameras. This allows the engineers to capture the movement of each bubble in 3D for later analysis.
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Traditional wind tunnels excel at showing airflow around objects, says Lock, but the bubble system can provide more granular real-time details about the wake the vehicle leaves behind. 鈥淭here aren鈥檛 any tools used today that can give such an insight into what is going on in the fluid around a vehicle,鈥� he adds.
鈥淭he bubble system can provide more granular real-time details about the wakes behind the vehicle鈥�
The bubble technique has previously been used to look at air movement around models of NASA鈥檚 space shuttle. This is the first time it has been combined with a motion-capture camera system, more usually found in film studios.
