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Just kidding. There is no car obesity epidemic. But there’s indeed a big ass treadmill that was built. That part was as serious as a brain tumor. Haas Automation has created this treadmill in hopes to improve aerodynamics of NASCAR racers. Not the actual racers, like the drivers. We mean the actual cars. Sorry for that misunderstanding. Can we continue?
Its 1 mm thick steel belt can rotate at 180 mph. The treadmill also features sensors under the track that can run diagnostics on each individual wheel. When the facility opens later this year, the treadmill will be rented out to motorsport teams and organizations. And the Jolly Good Giant is looking for a new gym.
— Andrew Dobrow
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What would be the difference between this and something like rollers on a dyno?
You can test/tune the suspension holistically, as opposed to measuring each corner without regard to how the body translates that motion to the rest of the suspension.
Plus, my understanding of dnyo rollers is that they are usually only in motion on the driven wheels.
The article mentions it’s intended to help improve the car’s aerodynamics. The ground will be moving beneath the car at 180mph as the car itself sits essentially still in the atmosphere. Good luck on the aerodynamic tests.
Come on guys its fake ffs
No, this thing goes in a wind tunnel. There are only 3 of these in the world, and this is the bigget in North America. So the ground and the wind can go 180 mph. The queston is, who is crazy enough to drive the car?
My question is, is what happens if the car exceeds 180 mph? who is going to pay for all the damages done to the car? Another thing, the wind tunnel is to test aerodynamics, and they have tests for everything else. Probably be a lot cheaper to run through those tests than the treadmill and the car exceed 180.
I’m done
I would imagine that the treadmill is useful because it can measure the added aerodynamic effect of the road surface moving under the car, as well as spinning wheels. Rapidly spinning wheels MUST have some effect on aerodynamics, since any single point on the wheel will be following a path similar to a ball bouncing forwards, albeit not losing any energy. Believe it or not, when a wheel is rolling, no part of it ever travels backwards. As for the driver or questions of excess speed, I’m willing to guess that no one will be IN the car, it will probably be secured to the device, with the engine and transmission controlled remotely.
wtf is the point of this? NASCAR is rubbish, going round in circles for ages then a crash happens and the racing up to that point is negated. if you want to test aero settings then use a wind tunnel, if you want to test suspension settings drive the car on a real nit of tarmac.
americans are idiots
Jim Bob your the idiot. This will test the whole car and all the reactions and interactions with the racing surface giving the engineers detailed info on every wheels interaction with the road.