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Until recently, the aerodynamic design of large transport trucks has often ignored an important contribution to drag caused by the accessory rearview mirrors. In this study, three commercially available truck mirrors are tested full-scale in a wind tunnel at highway speeds. The actual drag forces and the coefficients of drag based on frontal and glass areas are compared for various mirror angles, with and without a convex-mirror attachment. All three mirror types produced significantly high drag forces which were used to estimate the fuel consumption attributed to mirror aerodynamic resistance. A standard rearview mirror, with mounting brackets, set was found to exhibit a drag coefficient, based on the glass area, of 1.81, which would increase the drag of a typical (Cd = 0.7, Af = 4.5m2) truck by about 8.5 percent.

A single passenger concept vehicle, Nexus, has been designed and built at the University of Saskatchewan under contract to Transport Canada. With a fuel consumption goal of 1 L/100 km at modest steady speeds, the choice of suitable small powerplants became critical. Four motorcycle-type powertrains were efficiency mapped and compared using the computer program VEHSIM. A generalized small engine model was developed and compared to actual prototype performance characteristics. Good agreement between engine models and actual vehicle performance is indicated with the largest 250 cc engine delivering 1.6 L/100 km on the road.