"I have read that the longer the distance the air
travels along the body, the thicker the boundary layer
gets and the more unstable it becomes."
If you can get a hold of the SAE paper done on The Goldenrod
streamliner, wind tunnel tests on that car used trip fences to move
boundary layer above the body. It may take some fine reading but you
will be amazed at the vertical measurement of the trip fences tested
in this study (I won't tell because it will ruin the surprised look on
your face when you find out). Modern glider aircraft now use wing
surface patterning to accomplish this but trip fences are easy and
cheap to use. The only problem is how high is too high.
John
|