Hello, everyone and welcome! Beside me is the beautiful Acura NSX
but what's more exciting to me than the way that this car looks is the fact that this exterior is actually completely functional
so in this video we're going to be talking about aerodynamics.
The exterior is the result of thousands of hours and hundreds of tests completed inside of a wind tunnel the result is that all
of the surfaces connect the Airflow as it moves from the front to the back
for example one of the fascinating lines of airflow is the stream that enters the lower opening in the center of the front bumper?
the air travels through an engine radiator then travels out through a hood vent
continuing its path it moves outwards underneath the side mirror and the air is cooled as it moves along the side of the car
next it travels into the side scoop flowing through the engines intercooler before finally passing out through an opening above the rear diffuser the
strategy can really be broken down into three categories
there's cooling for which there are ten heat exchangers on this vehicle. There's downforce
so you've got a rear decklid spoiler a flat underbody leading to a rear diffuser and
finally drag where you want to manipulate the way the air moves around the vehicle for aerodynamic efficiency
starting at the front of the car the air flow entering cools the engine
radiators it cools the twin motor unit and some of that air is also redirected to cool the front brakes
now when that air comes in this wheel
it's going to build a high pressure area and so in order to prevent that turbulent air from disrupting air flow further downstream,
they have this wheel wake management vent
so it pulls in air from the very front and then it creates a thin sheet of air that travels over that wheel well and
then prevents that air from being disrupted keep smooth airflow along the side of the car the air that enters that front engine radiator is
redirected upwards through these hood vents to create downforce on the front of the car
moving along the side of the vehicle you've got two massive intakes on each side to cool the engines intercoolers
to cool the rear brakes the rear subframe is actually hollow and pulls in air from underneath the car that air is then
redirected towards the rear suspension control arms
which deflect the air on to the rear brakes. For a car that can reach 190 miles per hour,
obviously you're going to want downforce to keep it planted and most of that downforce is created on the rear decklid
now this vehicles actually been fitted with an optional
carbon-fiber spoiler for even more downforce now it may sound like there's more downforce on the rear of the car than the front and that's true.
Acura has decided that the optimal ratio for this car was 3:1 rear to front so
75% of the downforce on the back of the car
25% on the front of the car. So how did they come to this conclusion?
Well, there's three reasons first of all the car has a weight balance towards the rear of the car
so you want to match the center of pressure and the center of gravity,
closely also because you're sending more power to that rear axle
you want to make sure that you have downforce covering it to keep high grip and
finally you want to make sure that at high speeds this rear end remains stable to better, understand the aerodynamics
we're going to be using flow visualization paint.
So they actually use this same stuff in Formula One and
basically what you want to see is these long
straight streaks that means you've got good laminar flow so the air staying connected and you get a nice straight flow pathway if you see
it start to mix up that's where you have turbulence and in certain areas turbulence is okay
it means you're reducing drag in that area, but typically for aerodynamic features you want to see these nice straight lines.
So pretty awesome to use this flow visualization paint and actually see the aerodynamics in real life in real conditions a huge
thank you to Acura for having me out
and thank you all for watching if you have any questions or comment for you to leave them below!
