Mercedes-Benz Inaugurates New Climatic Wind Tunnels: Weather at the Touch of a Button

STUTTGART, GERMANY – July 18, 2011: Mercedes-Benz has inaugurated
two new climatic wind tunnels at its Sindelfingen site, designed to bring
extreme weather conditions indoors. Temperatures ranging from minus 40 to
plus 60 degrees Celsius, hurricanes with wind speeds of up to 265 km/h,
tropical rainfall and heavy snowstorms are all part of the standard
repertoire available here to the test engineers. If needs be, they can even
provide a realistic simulation of a mercilessly hot sun. The new climatic
wind tunnels make it possible for the engineers to optimise new vehicles or
components for all possible weather conditions at a very early stage of the
development process. So in future, real-life road tests, in arctic cold or
the blazing heat of the desert, will only take place with prototypes that
have already reached an advanced stage of development by being thoroughly
tried and tested under the most extreme climatic influences. This enables
Mercedes-Benz to achieve the highest possible quality. The clear ambition
to do so has been a key element in the philosophy of the world’s oldest
automotive manufacturer for the last 125 years.

Cars these days first take shape on the computer. The initial crash
tests, aerodynamic studies or suspension testing, too, are undertaken as
electronic simulations in a virtual world, long before the first prototype
is built. Simulations like this can never, however, replace the use of test
rigs or real-life tests.

In order to close further the gap between simulation and real-life
testing, Mercedes-Benz has now taken two new state-of-the-art climatic wind
tunnels at its Sindelfingen site into operation, following two years of
construction work. This marks the completion to schedule of the next stage
of expansion for the Mercedes-Benz Technology Centre. Research,
development, design, planning and production teams work together at the
Sindelfingen location in a close network that is unmatched by any other
automotive manufacturer in the world.

One of the two new climatic wind tunnels is designed as a cold tunnel,
with a temperature range of minus 40 to plus 40 degrees Celsius. The new
hot tunnel, on the other hand, offers a temperature range of minus 10 to
plus 60 degrees. Each tunnel 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.

The 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.

Dr Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG
responsible for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development: «Even in
the arctic regions of Sweden, the temperatures in winter are not always as
low as we would like them to be for our test drives. Likewise, nor can we
always rely on getting the extreme high summer temperatures we need for
testing, even in America’s infamous Death Valley. In our new climatic wind
tunnels we can create whatever climate conditions we want at any time of
year, whenever we need them. And we can do so with very tight tolerances,
so the measurements can be reproduced at any time. That’s just not possible
out in the open air. «

As Ulrich Mellinghoff, Head of Mercedes Safety Development adds: «We
don’t want to use the new climatic wind tunnels as a substitute for road
testing, but we can now do less of it and are also far better prepared when
we do go out. For example, if we have 20 different engine heat shields, we
can already eliminate many of them in the climatic wind tunnel because they
don’t have the desired effect. We will then go on to do real-life testing
with just the most promising two or three variants. We therefore spare
ourselves a lot of very time-consuming road tests early on, and yet our
prototypes are still at a much further advanced stage of development. And
that means that we can meet our very challenging objectives much
sooner.

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