Wind tunnel testing is way cooler and more precise than I ever imagined. Ford is working to offer a new all-terrain tire for the new Ford F-150 Tremor. You may think it’s just about getting the right tire size and tire construction, but there is a lot more to it than that. Check it out!
The Ford team is looking to verify that changing from General all-terrain tires to Pirelli all-terrain tires will not negatively affect fuel efficiency. How can you measure this with enough precision and confidence? This is where the Ford wind tunnel comes into play.
What you see here is a rolling road wind tunnel. The wind is provided by a giant fan. The team usually turns up the wind and the rolling road to about 80 mph for this type of testing. However, they also test sports cars and racing cars at this facility. They can turn up the wind to 155 mph or more. How big is the fan? It’s big enough to walk through.
Big Fan Stats
Officially, this fan is 26-feet in diameter. Each blade is approximately 5.5 feet long. It can generate a wind of up to 155 mph for a production vehicle in the configuration you see here. The opening can be made smaller for racing vehicles in order to increase the wind speed up to 200 mph. At this top speed, the giant fan uses around 5 MW of power. This is as much electricity as it takes to power about 4,000 homes at once. The 5 MegaWatt translates to approximately 6,700 horsepower.
Imagine that the pickup truck is sitting on a giant turn table. This turn table incorporates a giant treadmill that acts as a rolling road. The turn table can rotate, so that the team can test a side wind load if necessary. There is no powertrain testing done at this facility – Ford has another dyno wind tunnel for that purpose. The drive shafts are disconnected on this F-150 so the wheels can spin freely.
The truck is mounted to the turn table using four hard mounts that are also 3D measurement devices. These hard mounts deliver the data. This is how the Ford team measures the forces involved and the wind resistance of the vehicle. These mounts can go up and down, so they can be used to squat the vehicle if it’s required.
What about the wind tunnel smoke? This is always where my mind goes when I think about the wind tunnel. We saw this as well. The Ford team has a wand that emits smoke. The wand can move around so the team can visualize the air flow. I wanted to see how the air flows over the open 5.5-foot bed of this F-150. The wind speed we observed was close to 25 mph. At this speed, the smoke clears the entire bed. There does not appear to be a lot of air flow that gets “stuck” inside the empty bed. The air is a lot more turbulent on the side of the truck, especially around the exposed all-terrain tires.
This is how Ford verifies that the next factory-approved tire option on your off-road pickup truck is dialed in and as efficient as possible.
Please join me in the video below for all of the details.
