There are little papers, which have "done the math", as it is an interaction of many components and people tend to measure or, let's use a more "unscientific" word you used, "experience" the overall system answer, as in:
Gavin, H. (1996). "Bicycle-Wheel Spoke Patterns and Spoke Fatigue.",
J. Eng. Mech., 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(1996)122:8(736), 736-742.
and/or by riding many different wheels and speaking to other cyclists, who happen to be engineers. Which happens more often than one thinks after reaching higher levels in the sport [1].
There is little money for that kind of research. TU Delft is the only university I know investing here. I'd be happy about anybody pointing me towards groups doing that, as I'll finish my Dr.-Ing. (as an engineering PhD is called here) in Germany this year.
Furthermore, jacquesm's comment nailed it: It's an aero compromise, as many (jackmott, thedufer, slashdotdash, etc...) already more or less said: Multiobjective Optimization at its best.
Ah good, that paper mentions Jim Papadopoulos. I did a small experiment with him back in '95 on perception of weight on the frame.
Looking at that paper, I've got a couple of comments:
1) I'm not clear where they're getting lateral forces when a bicycle is cornering, unless the rider is hanging off the side of the bike motorcycle style. (which is generally unnecessary as bikes have enough clearance to corner at ~45 degree lean angles).
2) It's unfortunate that they didn't instrument a trailing spoke as well, so that they could disentangle the torsional strains from the radial strains.
3) While the tangential/torsional strains are high, it's not clear what the loaded zone is there, nor how much energy is being stored in the wheel due to power pulses. I suppose I could pull out my old FEA model and port it to see.
There is little money for that kind of research. TU Delft is the only university I know investing here. I'd be happy about anybody pointing me towards groups doing that, as I'll finish my Dr.-Ing. (as an engineering PhD is called here) in Germany this year.
Furthermore, jacquesm's comment nailed it: It's an aero compromise, as many (jackmott, thedufer, slashdotdash, etc...) already more or less said: Multiobjective Optimization at its best.
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[1]: http://teamgiantalpecin.com/team-giant-alpecin-to-accelerate...