Wind tunnel talk 2012

[grano123]

I was just wondering as to who makes, constructs or supplies the wind tunnels to the various F1 teams?

Do they build them in house perhaps? It would seem there must be an awful lot of electronics and other fancy stuff involved, which must cost a lot of money I assume.........so one would have thought it could be something commercially available?

[hardingfv32]

Here is a magazine on for the Wind Tunnel industry! Maybe you can learn something in there. This is 2010, but I also found a 2009 issue. Some Fi stuff in then.

http://issuu.com/magazineproduction/doc ... 2010_ezine

Brian

[ESPImperium]

Wind tunnel suppliers to the teams in F1:

Red Bull: In House
McLaren: In House (they have 3 tunnels, 2 F1 grade and 1 automotive grade)
Ferrari: In House
Mercedes: In House (They have 2 tunnels)
Lotus GP: In House [this one is underground]
Force India: they use McLarens, however have plans for their own
Sauber: In house
Toro Rosso: they use Red Bull Technology, however are building one in Faenza
Williams: In house
Caterham: They use Williams, and are using the 40% of the time that Williams dont use for a deal worth €4m a year, they are also using Fondtech in Italy as well to make up their time.
Hispania: Mercedes GP #2 tunnel, but are only using it about 10% to 15% of the time.
Marussia: they use Mclaren, this means that McLaren have their 2 F1 grade tunnels at close to full capasity at all times.

[shelly]

I think you forgot to mention ferrari using toyota's (dallara's in the past)
Mclaren also has used toyota's I think

I alos believe top teams have made a couple of trips to windshear in the recent past (but that's for 100% tests)

[Steven]

Williams have also used Toyota's tunnel and rig, at least they were in 2010.
TMG have 2 windtunnels by the way, one with PIV and one without.

Williams also have 2, I'm not sure about the others from the top of my head though.

[ESPImperium]

Forgot about TMGs 2 tunnels.

Ferrari have used the TMG tunnel for correlation beteen Maranello and Cologne, WIlliams have used TMG for the same usage. I also belive McLaren also used the TMG tunnel for a full scale day as well for the development of the MP4/26 instead of taking a day of straightline testing.

One thing i know is that the best wind tunnel in motorsport is owned and ran by Audi, it has the usual rolling road and it has more, it can use multiple scales from 40% to full scale and have wind speeds of to 375kmh and tempratures from +55C to -30C. It cost them a reported €55m to build.

Thats all that i have found on it from Magazine articles as not much is known about it otherwise.

[shelly]

I do not think tmg have been used just for correlation. I think it has been used for developement also, ant to put in extra wt hours to exploit the rules at full.

I do not know if audi's tunnel is a full rolling road suitabel for f1.
Seeing it has also thermal capability makes me think it is a different type of tunnel, not suitable for f1 work. I do know if they do their dtm work there: does anybody know?

[Richard]

Of course nothing that bespoke or complex would be "off the shelf" nor will a manufacturer have the capability to build one entirely in house.

I suspect they'll be designed and developed by a handful of specialist designers and manufacturers of the various specialist parts. They'll undertake carefully choreographed manoeuvres to maximise the number of projects they work on while trying to avoid conflicts of interest with the car manufacturers.

After all a manufacturer will want so have the very best team, and the very best people will need previous experience of the very best projects.

[viktorz]

I was just wondering as to who makes, constructs or supplies the wind tunnels to the various F1 teams?

Do they build them in house perhaps? It would seem there must be an awful lot of electronics and other fancy stuff involved, which must cost a lot of money I assume.........so one would have thought it could be something commercially available?

It is too expansive ))

[MadMatt]

Ruag (Switzerland) used to be the place where Sauber did their aero tests (1:2 scale). I visited the place this year, its very impressive (I wish they had let me take pictures) ! Now they have (as it was written) their own wind tunnel.

EDIT : This is a picture of their small wind tunnel where they used to test Sauber's F1 cars :



Ruag also has this big wind tunnel where they also test jet fighters, missles, and so on :

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Honda/Mercedes AMG tunnel in Brackley





Anyone have an idea as to which team has the best wind tunnel?

[MadMatt]

You can never know who has the best. Its all about understanding what you've got and getting the most precise and realistic results you can. Maybe its the team who has got a small 1:2 tunnel that will get better results than a team with a 1:1 tunnel because they don't understand or analyze correctly the results !

You can never know I think, but I would say that if you've got a 1:1 scale wind tunnel, with moving floor, and the ability to rotate the car around its Z axis, I think its a good start ! Then you can add the possibility to put 2 cars at the same time inside and simulate maybe rain conditions, everything is possible !

[WhiteBlue]

The most important aspect of wind tunnels are the huge energy bills they cost to operate. The bigger the scale the higher the energy bill. This is one reason why the base line scale in the resource restriction agreement has been set at 60% although constructors like Sauber have 100% scale rolling road tunnels. It discourages other competitors to invest in even bigger tunnels of maximum scale.

Scale btw. is no guarantee that tunnel results correlate with the reality. There are many thinks you cannot simulate like cornering. Tunnels need to be calibrated or you will get wrong results. Toyota, Honda, Williams and recently Ferrari have suffered extended periods of tunnel de calibration when they moved to bigger scales.

[PlatinumZealot]

It is much easier though. BEcause once you change the scale you have to use even more indirect methods to correlate to the track.

[elf341]

The tunnel that BMW built for Sauber I think is one of the most recent and advanced tunnels.

They could purportedly put in two full size cars one behind the other (to simulate backwash aero).