w Audi’s climate control A
udi has revealed how it has made use of its new climatic wind tunnel,
usually only used for production cars, to develop its R18 TDI for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours. The climatic wind tunnel, which is in the Audi Wind Tunnel Centre in Ingolstadt, creates temperatures between -25 and +55degC, allowing Audi’s engineers to generate very hot or freezing cold wind speeds of up to 300km/h (185mph), while it is also possible to simulate sunlight and rainfall. Audi’s R18 TDI is the first of its
racecars to use the tunnel, but the manufacturer felt that because the R18 is the firm’s first closed Prototype since 1999 it needed to explore the challenges a car with a roof might feasibly face during the 24-hour race. Work on the R18 in the tunnel
The climatic tunnel is normally reserved for production car test programmes, but proved invaluable for testing cockpit temperature rises in high ambient temperatures and for developing the car’s anti-fog windscreen system
focussed on three main areas: optimising the airflow through the cockpit, the windscreen and testing the wipers. ‘The results of everything we have tested in the climatic wind tunnel up to now have been confirmed during testing on the race track,’ said Christopher Reinke, R18 technical project leader. Audi also reports that because of
the work it carried out in the tunnel it was able to make do without a heavy and power-sapping air-conditioning system in the car, while it was also able to simulate the effects of rainwater and even solid materials, such as sand and rubber, on the body.
Solar radiation Dr Martin Muhlmeier, head of technology at Audi Sport, said of the test programme: ‘We made many valuable discoveries in this area on the full-scale car in the climatic wind tunnel and modified several things, especially in the airflow area, ‘The reflective film on the roof was
also validated with findings from the climatic wind tunnel. These are all important details to guarantee a good climate around the driver in the cockpit [of the racecar].’ The silver film helps to prevent the
cockpit heating up too much due to solar radiation. ACO regulations state that cockpit temperatures must not exceed 32degC when driving if the maximum ambient temperature is 25degC while, if it is warmer than that, the cockpit melts.
www.racecarengineering.com • August 2011 39
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