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Lola Windtunnel Fabulous Facts

• The Lola wind tunnel contains 1,200cubic metres of air encased within 130tonnes of 10mm thick steel ductwork. And, this ductwork is shaped in a "closed-loop" with a variable cross-section so as to recirculate the same air but keeping most of it moving slowly whilst speeding it up only where it passes by the model on test.

• The air in the wind tunnel weighs about 1.5tonnes and so when the air has been accelerated to normal testing speed (50m/s or 112mph) the air has the same total momentum as a large Mercedes traveling at highway speeds.

• At 50m/s (112mph) the air pressure in the test section is higher than atmospheric pressure by about 15mbar which is the same as the pressure difference due to sucking a drink up through a 150mm long (or 6inch long) straw. Spread over large areas this modest increase in air pressure can generate large forces.

• The kinetic energy in the airstream that passes through the working section every second (at 50m/s) is such that it would require 450kW or 600horsepower to continually supply air to the tunnel if it were drawn from a stationery source (e.g. sucked into the tunnel through a large inlet-funnel).

• Because the same air is re-circulated, the tunnel is about 67% efficient meaning that the electric-fan only has to provide 33% of the power described in (4). So, once the tunnel has been accelerated to speed it only takes some 200horsepower to keep the airspeed steady.

• At this speed the 14-foot-diameter fan is spinning at 560rpm and a huge radiator within the wind tunnel removes the heat generated by pumping the air around ~ keeping the temperature and airspeed (the test conditions) perfectly constant for maximum repeatability.

• The fan blades were manufactured in carbon fibre by Lola and Lola has since supplied similar (larger) blades to British Aerospace for other wind tunnels. Each of the six blades is worth £50,000.

• The conveyor belt on the floor of the test-section (in the tunnel) runs at the same speed as the air passing above it. So the car is held stationery whilst both the air and the ground pass by (the same "relative" motion as in real life).A complex "balance" (a set of measuring scales) records the change in weight of the model due to the airspeed and a computer calculates the distribution of aerodynamic forces from these measurements.

• During a typical year the conveyor belt travels about 180,000km or 112,000miles (halfway to the moon).

• The wind tunnel consumes 160,000kWH (kilowatt-hours) of electric power per annum which is about 20times the electricity used by a typical British home in the same period. And, at peak power the tunnel can consume 450kW which is the same as 170 electric kettles. The whole tunnel can be run by just one operator overseeing more than a dozen computers used to control it.

For more on the Lola windtunnel please click here - http://www.lola-group.com/content.asp?ContentId=8&nav=Capabilities&Page=Wind+Tunnel