Last month, the team took Infinium for several hours of wind tunnel testing at Jacobs Engineering's facility at Allen Park, MI. The purpose of the test was for our aerodynamics division to conduct intensive flow visualization studies and learn more about the airflow properties of Infinium in order to improve upon it's design for our next car. "It was definitely a very valuable experience" said Robert Forsyth, a junior in Aerospace Engineering. "We did a very thorough analysis and we strongly feel that there is significant room for improvement".
Smokin' Santosh
Along with the traditional yarn and smoke visualization tests, the team also tried something new this year: oil pattern flow tests. A very slight coating of oil mixed with fluorescent dye on the lower surface of the car produced streaks when subjected to 65mph gusts of wind. The properties of the streak lines indicate the local characteristics of the flow. The fluorescent dye in the oil and a blacklight, both of which were generously donated to the team by Tracerline, combine beautifully to greatly increase the visiblility of the streaklines.
Oil patterns on the fairing
"Most of the resistive force on a solar car comes from the aerodynamic drag. Thus, managing the air flow around the car to mitigate this drag while satisfying all of the complex design constraints is one of our biggest priorities", explains Santosh Kumar, the team's Engineering Director.
The scale and depth of the wind tunnel test will certainly aid the team's quest to design and build the most aeroodynamic car for the 2011 World Solar Challenge. To that end we would like to thank the following sponsors who helped make the test a success:
