After a lot of research, I have found that people have been continually claiming that Wind turbines on Cars would not help whatsoever due to the Law of conservation of Energy. While this statement is correct, I feel that it does not cover all situations. For example, what if the car is in a headwind? What about going downhill? What about when you want to slow down? I was wondering if by designing a system wherein the windmills only are visible when needed, I could theoretically create a system that improves mileage.
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Could you harness power from a wind turbine during deceleration? Sure. Could you do it in a way that made financial sense? Unlikely. Even a freewheeling zero pitch turbine would be a drag on normal operations, and one that somehow moved into and out of the air stream is getting complex to the point of absurdity.
Connecting a generator to the wheels (or driveshaft, etc,) is so much easier as to throw out the idea right away. The easiest connection to friction is the road and the wheels.
Tiger Guy
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What are you trying to achieve with the wind turbine?
Charge the battery - alternator will be more efficient as it is direct drive.
Top up the battery when stationary in the car park? then don't park next to buildings or vans etc...
If you want to slow down then brakes are much more effective and controllable.
Solar Mike
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I want to supplement the brakes with an aerodynamic brake: sort of like how DRS (more like the inverse of DRS) works in Formula 1. – Ruthvik Venkatesan Oct 30 '23 at 14:40
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I also want to supplement the vehicle with more energy during headwinds. (Although this just genuinely would not work because it would just add too much drag) – Ruthvik Venkatesan Oct 30 '23 at 14:40
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Or, place it at the rear of the vehicle to take advantage of the vortices somehow?? – Ruthvik Venkatesan Oct 30 '23 at 14:40