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Welcome to the Inside Track with ARC. The Auto Research Center is a specialized research facility serving the motorsport, automotive production, commercial, government and bicycle industries. The ARC global headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana which hosts a 50% scale wind tunnel, 7-post, drivetrain test rig, bicycle test facility and CFD cluster center. ARC offers a wide range of solution type packages to further speed and efficiency.
ARC WIND TUNNEL WALL SIMULATION LAUNCHES OCT 28, 2016
On October 28, 2016, ARC will become the first commercially available testing facility in the world to offer race track wall simulation in a wind tunnel. This piece of technology will give a more accurate look at the airflow around a car during the turn in and turn exit phases while close to a wall. This will allow race car aerodynamicists to study these critical phases of car behavior. Race cars often run near the wall at various ovals and close to walls on street course. The wall will be available for use with any kind of vehicle that runs at the ARC wind tunnel.
During development of the wall simulation, many variables were documented and tested to ensure an accurate replication of the real world. Using track data, the wall size, position, material, and methods to control boundary layer conditions were all considered and accounted for. Thus, the aerodynamicist can be certain the conditions will correlate to the track.
Book time in the ARC wind tunnel today and learn about other wind tunnel technologies that helps puts ARC's customers at the front of the pack.
AERORODYNAMICS AND THE AUTONOMOUS FUTURE
There is no doubt that Autonomous Vehicles are the wave of the future. With autonomous cars already equipped with NHTSA level 2 and 3 control, the push to reach level 4 is very strong. While, full autonomous control will change many chassis subsystems, the body design will still have to be aerodynamic and appearance driven for consumer sales.
 Sensors needed for autonomous vehicles will need to be hidden or styled into the design of the vehicle. Thus, aerodynamics considerations during the styling phase will increase in importance. Some test mules that are highly noted in the media often have basic one-box styling for simplification purposes. The basic car style will remain in fashion. Drag reduction will still be key to increasing range before fueling or recharging. Cabin noise and cooling requirements may change, as more control is given to the vehicle, allowing the occupants to focus on other media and will cause designs to adapt towards maximum comfort. ARC is moving towards accommodating the needs of this exciting development category.
To learn more about ARC's offerings for the Production Vehicle Industry, visit the ARC website, call 317-291-8600 or email at sales@arcindy.com..
USING ARC'S SCALE MODEL TESTING FLEET, IT'S EASIER THAN YOU THINK
The effects of increasing fuel economy are widely known to everyone in the commercial industry. ARC's testing packages allow OEMs, Aftermarket Vendors and Fleets to get the most out of their truck. What does it take to put on a wind tunnel test at ARC? For OEMs it often makes sense to have custom scale models built to match their upcoming or current product line, but for aftermarket suppliers and fleets the cost to do custom builds can make budgets tight. This is where ARC's scale model fleet comes in.
Working with ARC's staff, the tractor and trailer combinations are chosen to accomodate fleet targets. From there the customer picks from a selection of parts available to get the truck 'setup' selected, this can range from side skirts to refrigerated unit auxiliary parts that mount on the outside of the vehicle.
With the setup sheet completed for the test, the focus moves to deciding upon and creating test development parts that are needed. Once again ARC has a large stock of publicly available parts that can be tested on the specified tractor and trailer setup. For new part development, customers can draw the shapes they desire and have ARC finish the design to fit to the ARC scale model or ARC can handle all the CAD design. The test parts are then fabricated in-house at ARC for maximum privacy with experienced model makers.
After that, all that is left is for the customer to show up to their wind tunnel test. ARC provides all data collection tools and the customer leaves with a full summary and photo collection. If EPA Smartway part approval was included in the test process, ARC then uses the test data to produce the documentation needed for submission to the EPA.
To learn more about ARC's offerings for the Commercial Industry, visit the ARC website, call 317-291-8600 or email at sales@arcindy.com.
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TECH ZONE
How do air curtains work?
Wheel housings are a major influence on overall vehicle drag, sometimes up to 30% of overall vehicle drag. Air curtains are a simple, yet very effective, way to reduce drag by managing airflow. They work by taking air in from the front fascia outboard corners and passing it through a duct that point the air at the tire outer shoulder to clean up the airflow passing around the outside of the wheel. Proper design can produce up to and beyond a 3% reduction in overall vehicle drag.
Getting the proper design is the tricky part of air curtains. CFD is absolutely critical to getting the right duct shape. Using CFD's advantage of being able to produce large amount of air flow visualization images, the air can be pointed in the right direction to minimize the amount of air disturbance. From there the design is validated during wind tunnel testing to ensure results correlate.
TECH ZONE is an additional area of our newsletter where each month a customer question will be answered by the related expert at ARC. Please send in any questions you might have, from wind tunnel test instrumentation, CFD workings, to tuning your shocks.
Ask your questions at techzone@arcindy.com
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