You’ve missed the rotational forces from the central barrier...

This isn’t quite the equivalent because in your tornado-hit house you’re talking about a couple of open windows without segregated space but I understand the aerodynamics of pressure, force, lift etc.

I’ve learned something this evening - I genuinely thought the skyscraper aerodynamic solutions were for static forces, rather than resonant. I’ll take your word that’s not the case.

The 300 CE is a thing of beauty and almost unbreakable if looked after. Even if someone managed to break it, it’s not ruinous to fix. 6-cylinder is the one to get.

Yup, I think that renders my mathematical thought exercise pretty much redundant. The security concerns hadn’t crossed my mind - they’re taken care of for us by other professionals but that’s not the case for road haulage. Game over then.

I’ve seen that before - noise baffles at airports. They work - for directing noise upwards....

Sadly, I think I knew this was the answer and many others have supported your view. One write-off every now and again is cheaper than building complexity into many thousands of trailers, even if it is just a series of manually operated hatches with locks. Which themselves need weatherproofing, thief-proofing,…

Absolutely. Newton vs. Bernoulli. Psi can be amazingly low when the overall force on a large structure is big enough to cause a massive failure. Brought down one or two bridges in the UK too...!

Thanks for your professional answers. I’m not sure which role you have in transport but you’re clearly not an amateur - I’m a pilot and these kind of wind/force/limitations exercises are something I’m interested in regardless of whether they’re on the ground or in the air.

That’s not quite the case and I won’t bore with you the mathematics behind it. Indeed, there would have to be some space not filled with freight but it might not have to be the full height of the trailer.

£8k to £9k in the UK, but we have the luxury of a very closed RHD market. No one else close to our shores wants a RHD model so they’re either exported or sold for half what what they go for everywhere else.

I understand this. I’m in the airline industry and we work with cost/capability compromises all the time. I was really wondering if it was such an imposition to poke some holes in a trailer to allow it to operate safely in what we in the airline industry call ‘all weather conditions’ as opposed to ‘Take it out Joe,…

They do it every time though. ‘Closed to High Sided Vehicles.’

You’re suggesting turning the side of the trailer into a rapidly inflatable aerofoil which would direct the wind lengthways, creating a low pressure force opposing the wind...

It was a thought exercise really. You could screen off your pressure relief areas with zipped canvas sheets internally to protect the rest of the cargo, but I guess you’re speaking from industry experience there - a cost of one write-off every now and again vs. modifying hundreds of thousands of trailers...

I’ll have to throw this one into the equation but the Benz is better built. If you want a modern, daily classic the W124 is arguably better than the E38, but it’s a close call in my books.

Heh. Sure, there are situations where you absolutely couldn’t do this. Those pallets of newspapers aren’t going to look too good after they’ve been open to a horizontal rain storm for a few hours, and your semi of priceless antiques won’t thank you for it either, but most stuff is crated up, or palletised and…

My favourite, the Kensington special, favoured by young trust fund ladies all over London in the ‘90s.

CoG I mentioned. The photographs of the ones on the bridge always seem to show an empty trailer, but there’s no way to tell if it’s already been cleared by the recovery crews.

Once I went down the rabbit hole I realised it was going to be totally impossible to calculate other than momentary forces.