hardingfv32 wrote:The fundamental issue are easier to manage in a 60% tunnel. That is fact.
A more specific generalization just for you:
Todays 'best' tunnel designed to test a 60% F1 model provides more accurate results when developing a current F1 car than the 'best' current tunnel designed to test a 100% F1 car/model.
Brian
I can, to a degree, understand your line of reason here - but I still don't agree with it. I think the presumption of "all things being equal" isn't particularly valid here.
Let's take wall effect and size as an example. If you were in a fixed sized building, then yes - a smaller scale model would be less susceptible to edge effects. But since when is that a case?
It's like anything else - you cut a functional spec and then do whatever you need to achieve it within what's in your control. For a 60% scale model - to negate edge effects within say "1%" of whatever parameter you deem appropriate... let's say it takes a 15' wide tunnel. So be it, you build a 15' wide tunnel. For a 100% tunnel perhaps its 25'. So you build 25'. Is it more money? Yes - but you spend that to get the increased accuracy of the full scale model.
In fact I'd go so far as to say that keeping your functional spec the same between both cases and having the money to do either way - a 100% scale model is always going to be more accurate than 60%! The only time it isn't is when there's no money to build the appropriately designed 100% scale tunnel - in which case a 60% scale answer is better than no answer.
Make sense?
Grip is a four letter word. All opinions are my own and not those of current or previous employers.
