F1technical.net

I think this reading might be really interesting. It definitely was to me.


http://www.racecar-engineering.com/arti ... urel-hill/



Comment.-

Very cool, though Id be interested in how they measure drag and downforce. I would tend to think that it would be hard to measure these forces as accurately as a sting in the wind tunnel would.

On the other hand the results should be more accurate because the environment is closer to a real racetrack.

Tim

They measure drag with coastdown. Downforce, don't really know. Height sensors maybe..

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

Is that your new team, JT... ?

Just needs a turn.

The tunnel is pretty cool. We used coast down test in college since we didnt have access to a wind tunnel and our Colorful fluid dynaimcs skills left something to be desired. You can learn a lot from just a few sensors.

Nah, not my team. Just not anything super fancy. Coastdown testing is pretty straightforward and popular at many levels.

Nice to have your own secluded tunnel for it though I guess.

A scale tunnel with belt etc is never ever going to give you the results alone.You are working in a set of constraints that will inevitably reach it´s limits simply because the variables are too many and you are testing too far away from real world figures.The big advanatge should be the repeatability of the testing.
A real tunnel at least does away with scale effects and the crook of having a moving belt.You will surely be able to derive a very good aeromap with some preparation (hydraulic jacks to adjust rideheightsprecisely and of course precise rideheight measuring.
A circular or oval tunnel would be the the best ,wouldn´t it? That would have been a nice addition to MTC I´d think.But unfortunatelly nobody told Ron.
security is an issue admittedly.But it would be ulta accurate even when the driver will collapse sooner or later going round and round...

Going round you are at a constant yaw. Wouldn't that affect the thing? Probably a long straight, half circle, etc would be better.

So what MTC needs is an underground superspeedway or does that count as testing?

That should be costing the same as a wind tunnel

High banked circular track like this with a enclosure

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-f_0z3H ... r_embedded[/youtube]

no not banking you want slip angle you want yaw as this is when you need the downforce ,right?.
The big advantage compared to a Winddtunnel is the running cost.To move the air is really expensive isn´t it?

you would not need a winddtunnelmodel or you could run it as a RC car ... in the same tunnel if you wanted....

The data would be really representative of real world figures wouldn´t it?

Team looking for a tunnel?

Team Lotus

Closest tunnel?

110 mile, Withcall Tunnel, Lincolnshire, U.K. 1 mile long