Small scale Air tunnel testing?

[bandit86]

With a leaf blower and some plastic model cars some home style aerodynamic testing could be done, anyone ever try it? Maybe a strain gauge, or just a spring stretch measured to see improvements. I would love to see some numbers on a classic bug, lowered and the windshield tilted back, cheaper and taste to do than a real one.

Just a thought

[ecomodded]

I like the idea but think a smoke wand that could be mounted to do real driving testing would be more precise. One day i would love to drive with a smoke wand showing air-flow over and off my roof as i imagine it would be.
It would be nice to video tape the air-flow at hwy speed.

[Sven7]

The air coming out of the leaf blower is probably going to be wayyyy too turbulent to get meaningful results from. You could always spritz water on the model and see which way it gets blown off but I don't know of any better way to test it. Neil Blanchard put together like five leaf blowers to test his 1/4 scale (?) foam model, but even 1/18 is very small.

Now if you have a 1/4 scale car model lying around, lets' talk!

[Frank Lee]

Get a grant from Pepsi for research- they don't care if it has a shot or not.

[bandit86]

I tried some grant sites but most don't cater to Canadians. I could theoretically overcome turbulence by using a long straight tunnel (4inch drain pipe)

[paulu]

Originally Posted by bandit86

With a leaf blower and some plastic model cars some home style aerodynamic testing could be done, anyone ever try it? Maybe a strain gauge, or just a spring stretch measured to see improvements. I would love to see some numbers on a classic bug, lowered and the windshield tilted back, cheaper and taste to do than a real one.

Just a thought

Didn't Mythbusters use oat flakes in a water tank to show the flow over a scale model of a pickup when they were seeing if tailgate down saved gas?

EDIT :Yep! Episode 43-2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBus..._Tailgate_Down

[BackroadBomber]

It's worth a shot. You could use a hanging-type pocket fish scale to measure drag.
Digital Hanging Fishing scale with currency detector products, buy Digital Hanging Fishing scale with currency detector products from alibaba.com

[jakobnev]

You might want to watch these for inspiration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFGbeLy7aEM