The Impact of Air Resistance on the Fuel Consumption in Real Conditions within the Transport Operation
DOI: 10.26552/com.c.2016.2.57-61
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Summary
This paper investigates the impact of air resistance and other driving resistances on vehicle fuel consumption under real-world traffic conditions. Motivated by the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, from road transport, the study aims to quantify how specific factors—such as driving speed, air temperature, and aerodynamic coefficients—affect fuel efficiency. The authors characterize the four primary resistances acting on a moving vehicle: air resistance, rolling resistance, gradient resistance, and inertia resistance, providing the mathematical formulas and physical principles governing each. The experimental design utilized a Suzuki SX4 with a 1,500 cm³ engine. To isolate specific variables, measurements were conducted on a 6.42 km highway section and a first-class road between Bytca and Zilina. The study maintained consistent vehicle technical conditions, including tire pressure, and used cruise control to minimize driver behavior variability. The experiments assessed fuel consumption under varying driving speeds (110, 120, and 130 km/h), air temperatures (10°C and 34°C), and window positions (closed vs. open). The results demonstrate that fuel consumption increases significantly with driving speed due to the squared relationship between speed and air resistance. Increasing speed from 110 to 120 km/h raised fuel consumption by 9.6%, while increasing to 130 km/h resulted in a 30.8% increase compared to the baseline. Air temperature also played a role; a drop from 34°C to 10°C increased fuel consumption by 8.8% at a constant 120 km/h, attributed to higher air density. Regarding aerodynamic coefficients, opening the driver’s window had a negligible impact at lower speeds, increasing consumption by only 1.9% at 100 km/h and 1.8% at 120 km/h, but caused a 2.9% increase at 130 km/h. On first-class roads with traffic constraints, lower temperatures increased fuel consumption by 14.89% under comparable driving conditions. The study concludes that while engine efficiency and catalytic converters can reduce harmful pollutants, they cannot eliminate CO2 emissions. Therefore, reducing fuel consumption through minimizing driving resistances is essential. The findings highlight that optimizing driving speed and maintaining favorable aerodynamic conditions are critical strategies for lowering fuel consumption and associated environmental impacts in transport operations.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-19 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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