Let me introduce another thread. A colleague had a question come up this morning which neither of us could recall seeing any hard values for. This group is such a great resource, I said I would throw it out.
The question is, does anyone know of experimental results to show how much energy loss of a moving car is due to the tires flexing as they roll, bearing friction in the axles, or air resistance, at different speeds? We both thought that the air effect would increase and become the dominant effect at higher speeds, like 60-70 mph, but don't know where to look for the relative effects at lower speeds.
I attended the Physics in the Automotive Industry conference in Detroit back in 1980, and have the published proceedings. A quick check in that didn't reveal an answer to the question. Any help would be much appreciated.
Rondo Jeffery
Weber State University
Ogden, UT
rjeffery@weber.edu