Quote:
Originally Posted by Buddy
Auto companies spend millions on high-tech wind tunnels. But why couldn't we develop low-cost, drive-in wind tunnels, on the same model as local car washes or oil-change places? This would probably be a concrete building with 4 bays, and the user could rent a bay for a specific time period and reasonable cost. This would allow the budding EcoModder to see right away if a particular modification is in fact producing the desired result. The interior of the bay would have to tunnel (rounded) in shape, and have powerful fans with horizontal louvers. The last piece of equipment would be a hand-held, wand-like, smoke generator. Where are the entrepneurs that can make this a reality?
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Would love to see it happen, but I think it is a pipe dream
You are talking about a very large inverstment and very few high paying customers. We here are not representative of the general car buying populace.
Good wind tunnels are extremely expensive, very large and very complicated. Hucho devotes almost 80 pages to their design in his "Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles."
There have been some proposals for homebuilt tunnels adequate to test scale models, but the data does not scale well for small models.
The poor man's wind tunnel is the open highway with tuft testing and video cameras.