car or truck has higher drag? why?

Question

of the two models, the car and the truck, which one has higher drag? why?

Answer 1

Total drag is defined in terms of a vehicle's 'drag area', which is the product of two measurements: the drag coefficient, which is determined by the vehicle's shape (lower numbers are better), and its frontal area, which is basically how large the vehicle is when viewed from the front.

Trucks tend to have higher drag coefficients (due to their generally boxy shape), and larger frontal areas (because -surprise- they are wider and higher than cars, for the most part). When you multiply the two together, they yield a higher drag area, meaning that trucks have more air resistance to overcome at any given speed. This disparity between the car and truck becomes more pronounced at higher speeds, because air resistance is a function of the square of the speed traveled.

Answer 2

Most generally a truck will have a higher drag coefficient. And on that note I like to point out that putting a net in place of the tailgate (or leaving the tailgate down or off) does NOT help to reduce the drag... The truck is designed to have the least drag with the gate up or closed. A low pressure rolling vortex forms just behind the cab and actually smooths out the airflow over the gate, with the gate down the vortex cannot form thus creating more drag.

Answer 3

I agree! There are some cars that are exceptionally aerodynamic, but not all. There is a much larger group of high-Dc pickups, though. This is mainly due to the shape of the cab- not just the front-end, however. The turbulence caused by the drop behind the cab is another factor. Also, never remove the tailgate to eliminate drag- it's been proven to increase drag, because it increases the turbulence behind the cab, actually allowing the wind to go up the bed & 'hit' the back of the glass.
With lower cabs & ground-effects, etc. some trucks are much better than some cars!

Answer 4

This is sort of an open questions. It really comes down to frontal area of a vehicle. Most of the time it would be the truck, but on rare occasions there are cars with abnormally large front areas that will cause excess drag. This is call a Coefficient of drag or cD.

Answer 5

A closed tailgate sets up a bubble of air that slowly circulates in the bed of the truck. Air coming over the cab of the truck treats the bubble as a smooth cover over the bed, and passes over this "cover" without ramming into the tailgate.

Opening the tailgate breaks up this smooth bubble of air. The air then rushes over the cab, and quickly down into the bed. This creates a lot of turbulence, which results in more drag. So technically speaking, with the tailgate open the shape of the truck is not as aerodynamic as it is with the tailgate closed.

Answer 6

trucks definetly. Unless u got a hummer or anything that is freakin' bulky. spoilers dont help drag either. they just give u more grip