Author: Goro Tamai, Softbound , ISBN: 9780837608600,

 The Leading Edge: Aerodynamic Design of Ultra-streamlined Land Vehicles

293 Pages, 1st Edition, 1999

- Aerodynamic Design of Ultra-streamlined Land Vehicles

This is the first book to summarize the design and construction issues of solar cars and ultralight land vehicles. Goro Tamai draws on his own experience in designing solar cars at MIT to produce a book for the ground-up streamlined land-vehicle designer or constructor, as well as for the solarielectriclultralight vehicle enthusiast. As with any engineering problem, the "best" body shape for solar cars, HPVs, or Electrathoners is not the body of absolute lowest drag. The vehicle system, including the driver, chassis, and energy/drive system must work in concert to produce the maximum output.

The Leading Edge will help designers quantify the tradeoff's, and make logical decisions.

Advanced praise for The Leading Edge:

An excellent review of the problem of low drag ground vehicle aerodynamics, filled with references and design examples.
It allows the reader to understand the issues involved and quickly come up with a preliminary design, leaving time for the oft-neglected detail work and testing."
—Jacek Gromadzki. aerodynamicist. 1997 University of Waterloo Solar Car Team
• Vehicles covered include solar cars, human-powered vehicles (HPV), solar bikes, Electrathon racers, ground-up hybrid or pure electric vehicles, and fuel-economy record cars
• Numerous examples using specific race cars and teams, and how desi ers solved problems
• Full definition of terms, with equations and examples provided for determining key aerodynamic parameters,
• All design and construction issues, from body shape, to wheels, to canopy integration, to solar panel sizing
• How to do in-the-field testing and diagnosis of aerodynamic performance
• Special overview section reviews the history of ultra-streamlined land vehicle development

The Leading Edge is an extensive treatise on the aerodynamics of streamlined land vehicles...It is a valuable contribution towards advancing the technology
in this important field."
—Mark Drela, Professor,
MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

"I wish I had access to this book when I was designing human-powered vehicles. While I've read a lot of the same references. this book pulls them all together and I might have done things a little differently.-
—Douglas Milliken, co-author of Race Car Vehicle Dynamics