Inventor's Fuel-Saving Mud Flaps Make Splash With Truckers
Heavy-duty trucking fleets are using Andersen’s aerodynamically designed EcoFlaps as they look for any extra edge to conserve fuel consumption. The flaps allow 75% of air to pass right through it, reducing wind drag. This can save about 3% per year in fuel. That is not bad for an accessory that will cost a trucker about $100 for two flaps and take about 10 minutes to install, the supplier says.
When the nearby University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s SIM Center used virtual modeling to look at the effects that reducing aerodynamic drag would have for today’s heavy-duty Class-8 trucks, researchers found that for every percent of wind-drag reduction, there was a corresponding half-percent reduction in fuel consumption.