Why build a wind tunnel?

Mercedes Benz felt the need for speed and built not just one wind tunnel but two wind tunnels that are specifically designed to recreate extreme weather conditions at their indoor facility at Sindelfingen. The climatic extremes of -40C to 60C temperatures together with simulated hurricanes, heavy snowstorms and tropical rainfall are all included in the repertoire and for good measure the wind speed will go to a maximum of 265 km/h.

These new toys for the Mercedes Benz engineers to play with will enable them to create and test new vehicles and components under every possible weather condition they could ever experience in the real world.  Potential problems in design or composition will now be able to be recognised early in the new car development process.

Both tunnels will be capable of testing a wide range of vehicles in the saloon and sports car category and will have a specially integrated twin-axle roller dynamometer at drive speeds up to 265 km/h.  The cold tunnel will be used for conducting tests between -40C and 40C temperature range.  The hot tunnel will operate with a temperature range of -10C to 60C.

Mercedes believe that in the future,  prototypes of their vehicles will only make it out onto the road for road testing after they have reached an advanced development stage through vigorous testing in their extreme conditions wind tunnel facility.

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Mercedes Benz felt the need for speed and built not just one wind tunnel but two wind tunnels that are specifically designed to recreate extreme weather conditions at their indoor facility at Sindelfingen. The climatic extremes of -40C to 60C temperatures together with simulated hurricanes, heavy snowstorms and tropical rainfall are all included in the repertoire and for good measure the wind speed will go to a maximum of 265 km/h.

These new toys for the Mercedes Benz engineers to play with will enable them to create and test new vehicles and components under every possible weather condition they could ever experience in the real world.  Potential problems in design or composition will now be able to be recognised early in the new car development process.

Both tunnels will be capable of testing a wide range of vehicles in the saloon and sports car category and will have a specially integrated twin-axle roller dynamometer at drive speeds up to 265 km/h.  The cold tunnel will be used for conducting tests between -40C and 40C temperature range.  The hot tunnel will operate with a temperature range of -10C to 60C.

Mercedes believe that in the future,  prototypes of their vehicles will only make it out onto the road for road testing after they have reached an advanced development stage through vigorous testing in their extreme conditions wind tunnel facility.

Related Motoring Information

Related Motoring Information

Tags: 10c, 40c, Car Category, Car Development, Climatic Extremes, Development Stage, Drive Speeds, Dynamometer, Extreme Conditions, Extreme Weather Conditions, Light At The End Of The Tunnel, Mercedes Benz, New Toys, New Vehicles, Snowstorms, Sports Car, Tropical Rainfall, Twin Axle, Weather Condition, Wind Tunnel Facility, Wind Tunnels