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Force and Pressure Measurement Systems

15:40
49:10
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At 15:40 in

How Does A NASCAR Wind Tunnel ACTUALLY Work? Behind The Scenes in an Official Testing Facility!

What happens here

Gary explains the method of data collection: a balance system located in the basement, beneath the rolling road, anchors the car and measures six distinct numbers simultaneously. These include three forces (drag, side force, lift) and three moments (yaw, roll, pitch). This comprehensive force measurement is the most precise feedback obtained from the tunnel. Additionally, hundreds of pressure taps are embedded in the floor, allowing the race teams to analyze the pressure profiles under the car and understand how ride height and other modifications affect aerodynamics. Gary also addresses a common misconception: the yaw performance of a NASCAR car is primarily controlled by the front of the car, not the tail.

Goal: Understand how aerodynamic forces and pressures are measured.

Tools and materials

  • Balance System — Anchoring the car and measuring forces
  • Pressure Taps — Measuring pressure profiles on the tunnel floor

What they say

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a wind tunnel on site. They had so many projects uh coming down the pike that the wind tunnel was simply way down the timeline. And I could see that it was going to be years before this wind tunnel was built. And I was hearing rumblings uh from other race teams about um if we didn't build a wind tunnel, maybe they should. So that was enough stimulus for me to say, "Okay, my contract's up in 01. I got to build this thing before somebody else does." So that's when I went off on my own. And uh I'd had several years of design of what would the Hendrickk wind tunnel look like. And so this was just a tweak. Uh I had to save a few more bucks because I didn't have Rick Hendrick's budget. So a lot of the things in here are different. And in fact, that could have been a problem because uh when you're not building things the way most people build things, um you have to prove that that works. And that was the beautiful thing about having racers and technical people to come and to test in our tunnel because they don't care about mirrored glass and marble floors. All they care about is the function. If the wind tunnel works, they will come back. If the wind tunnel doesn't work, they're not coming back. And I said, "Fair enough." So they came in, they tested, they liked the numbers compared to the non race car wind tunnel at Lockheed. That was in time for aircraft. The GM wind tunnel in Warren, Michigan, that was designed for production cars. The NRC wind tunnel up in Ottawa was kind of an all-purpose tunnel. Uh those tunnels are a great design, exactly what they're designed for, but their one weakness was

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