Wind

I think the skirts under the trailer don't help either.

 

While skirts seem like they would hurt they don't matter much because they are so low.

Biggest thing you can do is to slow down if the wind is blowing, especially around corners, bridges etc.

Just last week a truck carrying organic peroxide tipped over at the tollgate exit on I80 due to a gust.

 

I agree with the skirts, in fact with the wind loads on the side of the trailer may be countered somewhat by the fact that the trailer skirt being below the center of gravity.

 

You bet me to it! It is quite different. Wings on a plane craft lift by high and low pressures above and below the wings. Air over the wing is going faster and air below is going slower. That happens because of the shape of the wing. So the air is actually pushing the wing up.

 

You just contradicted yourself with your use of lift and push.

It is called lift because the pressure differential is actually lifting the wing up, not pushing it up.

 

Actually this argument has more to do with how we teach physics in school and very little to do with reality.

Problems are simplified into a specific domain and taught as absolute truth until you get to higher level classes where they say 'Oops we lied to you, here is how it really works' where they do the same thing again.

When they teach the theoretical problem is that Bernoulli’s Principle, they fail to add the fact that it holds for a 'perfect fluid' with 0 viscosity.

While the Bernoulli’s Principle, or the difference in path length adds a tiny amount of lift, the angle of attack is the primary source of lift.

Real world examples are aerobatic aircraft that have symmetric wings yet can fly both right side up or upside down. Another example is airplanes with classic airfoils that can fly upsidedown.

The primary purpose of the classic airfoil shape is to keep airflow attached to the wing surface to reduce drag and to ultimately increase the available flight envelope.

But how we teach students one thing, even if it is outdated or only true in a single physical model and then insist it is absolute truth leads to these arguments.

 

Lol...I can't agree or disagree with you because I don't understand what you just said.

 

For those who aren't pilots and don't understand what is going on, its like the wing is pushed up. Nothing is "lifting" the wing up like I am lifting a box off the ground. In the aviation industry, its called lift. I guess you can think of it as air pushing the wing up from the bottom, which is true, and air sucking the wing up from the top at the same time.

Ever blow water out of a glass with two straws as a kid? Using air pressure, high and low, we lift or push the water up.

 

Seagreg has the better explanation.

But given no angle of attack, won't the only force (well, maybe negative force) raising the wing be the lifting effect of the lower pressure above the wing?

 

I talked to a guy that said he got blown over on I25 north of Denver. He had just bought his own truck, too. He was all Gung ho, get er done.

Got blown right off the road on his side. He took 2 years off after that. Those wind accidents go down as a preventable.