Mercedes Benz has inaugurated two new climatic wind tunnels at its Sindelfingen site, designed to bring extreme weather conditions indoors.
It seems that now Mercedes Benz can create its own weather because these two new wind tunnels can bring temperatures from minus 40 to plus 60 degrees Celsius, hurricanes with wind speeds of up to 265 km/h, tropical rainfall and heavy snowstorms. Beside this, they can even provide a realistic simulation of a mercilessly hot sun.
With a temperature range of minus 40 to plus 40 degrees Celsius, one of these two tunnels is designed as a cold tunnel.
On the other hand, the new hot tunnel, offers a temperature range of minus 10 to plus 60 degrees.
Each of them is equipped with an integrated twin-axle roller dynamometer that allows speeds of up to 265 km/h – and thus with sufficient reserves for even sports cars to be tested on the rig here.
These new climatic wind tunnels replace the cold tunnel that has been used until now, in which temperatures down to minus 20 degrees Celsius and speeds of up to 64 km/h are possible, as well as a hot tunnel in which the maximum limits are plus 40 degrees Celsius and a top speed of 100 km/h.
Beside all these, a further advantage of the new climatic wind tunnels, is that they are designed to accommodate the use of hydrogen and therefore eminently suitable for all alternative drive systems of the future. Special sensors and an effective air extraction system mean that fuel-cell powered vehicles can also be subjected to exacting test programmes here.
Source: Inautonews
