Rolling-road wind tunnel will be open to all
A
Windshear product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Nov 27, 2007
Facility will be available for hire to all motorsports teams and auto manufacturers, providing services previously available only to top Formula 1 teams.
Early in 2008, the most advanced wind tunnel of its kind will open its doors for business in the USA.
Windshear will be the world's first commercially available full-scale single-belt rolling-road wind tunnel in existence.
Located a few kilometres east of Charlotte, North Carolina, this groundbreaking new venture is currently under construction and is scheduled to begin accepting customers in March 2008.
According to company officials, Windshear will operate the one-of-a-kind facility 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a staff of 25.
The facility will be available for hire to all motorsports teams and auto manufacturers, providing services previously available only to top Formula 1 teams.
Although two similar rolling-road facilities exist in Europe, and numerous scale-model tunnels that operate worldwide, what makes this new facility unique is its business model; Windshear is being made available to all F1, Indy, stock car racers and auto manufacturers.
Most other facilities found around the world are proprietary operations, owned and operated by manufacturers, or racing teams, for their own use.
Windshear was designed to accommodate 100% full-scale vehicles, and provide constant airspeeds up to 290km/h, with temperatures controlled to within +/-0.55C.
The high-tech rolling road will be 3.2m wide and 9m long, and be able to accelerate from 0 to 290km/h in less than 1min.
The "road" is actually a continuous stainless-steel belt just 1mm thick, and it is designed to last up to 5000 operational hours.
During testing: "through-the-belt" sensors measure the aerodynamic down force under each tyre while a sophisticated onboard data acquisition system collects other test-critical data.
High quality, repeatable data as well as security and privacy are the standard for Windshear.
Every step of the way, from determining customer requirements to customer check-in to vehicle setup to vehicle testing, Windshear's experienced and skilled personnel will work to ensure that all customer needs are met quickly and professionally.
Windshear's state-of-the-art wind tunnel and 290km/h rolling road promise to provide a stable, verifiable, and repeatable environment for motor sports testing - in a highly secure and private working environment.
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