Week 1 - Flow over Bicycle

Aim - TO write a Matlab program to calculate drag force against a cyclist.

Introduction-Every bicyclist has to overcome wind resistance.On a flat road, aerodynamic drag is by far the greatest barrier to a cyclist's speed, accounting for 70 to 90 percent of the resistance felt when pedaling.Bicycle designers and inventors are experimenting for developing alternative bicycle designs with an emphasis on better aerodynamic performance.To do so plots of Velocity vs Drag Force and Coefficiet of drag force vs Drag force are generated in the matlab

general formula to calculate drag force is

Fd=1/2CdAVp

where cd =coefficient of drag

p=density of air

A=Frontal area

V=velocity of bicycle

Plotting velocity vs drag

%Calculation of Drag Force on a bicycleclear allclose allclc%InputsCd = 0.7 %drag coeeficient rho = 1.2 %density kg/m^3A = 0.7 %Frontal Area (Assumption)V = [1:200]; %100 values of velocity Fd = 0.5*rho*A*V.^2*Cd; %Drag Force in newtons%Plotting V VS Fdplot(V, Fd)xlabel('Velocity')ylabel('Drag Force')

output

clear allclose allclc%InputsCd = [0.8:1.5,5] %drag coeeficient rho = 1.2 %density A = 0.7 %Frontal Area V = 7; %100 values of velocity Fd = 0.5*rho*A*V.^2*Cd; %Drag Force in newtons%Plotting Cd vs Fdplot(Cd,Fd)xlabel('Cd')ylabel('Fd')​