quattro Digest, Vol 10, Issue 86

[tom winter]

Yes, frictional losses. As the (dare I admit it) former owner of two '78 VW
busses I can personally attest for the loss of powder due to friction with
the air. Particularly headwinds!

Of course if I had done a turbo quatto conversion to either of them it might
not have been such an issue.

Tom


on 8/26/04 8:08 AM, Larry C Leung at l.leung at juno.com wrote:

> Mike,
> 
> The energy goes into various places besides making the car go
> forwards (or backwards!), mostly due to what is generally called
> frictional losses. Potential energy sinks:
> 
> Heat (into the drivetrain parts, air, lubes in the driveline, etc. -
> largest of the losses)
> Sound (all that whirring noise, that's losses!)
> Vibration (essentially work that's wasted in making parts vibrate up and
> down or whatever)
> Hysterisis (flexural absorbtion in the tires)
> Other mechanical losses (now we're getting into minor bits, shock
> absorber heat, spring flex, etc)
> 
> Since there are more bits to absorb in an AWD car vs. 2WD, there tends to
> be greater losses.
> Don't know what losses are caused by the diffy fluids that shall remain
> nameless in the center of post
> '89 quattros......, although my understanding of those particular diffs
> (also known as Quaiffe's) is it's
> mostly a mechanical set-up, with lot's of little bits, allowing for much
> of the same losses as the overall,
> just on a much smaller scale....
> 
> LL - NY - a.k.a. the Physics Teacher
> 
> 
>> ------------------------------
>> 
>> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 08:27:17 -0400
>> From: Mike Arman <armanmik at earthlink.net>
>> Subject: drive train losses
>> To: quattro at audifans.com
>> Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20040826073546.00ad7bb8 at mail.earthlink.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I have to take issue with the idea that you can "lose" 100 hp in the
>> drive 
>> train.
>> 
>> Where does this energy go? 100 hp is (at 33,000 ft. lbs per hp) over
>> 3 
>> million foot pounds, at 746 watts per hp, it is 74.6 KW, enough to
>> run your 
>> whole house, central A/C, big screen TV and all. This energy simply
>> does 
>> NOT "disappear" in the drive train.
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