MERCEDES BENZ The Stuttgart based automaker has a cold tunnel for the temperature range between 40 C 40 F to 40 C 104 F and a warm tunnel for the range be tween 10 C 14 F and 60 C 140 F Thanks to two axle roller dynamometers and speeds of up to 265 km h 165 mph even sports cars can be tested Mercedes Benz does not view the facilities as a sub stitute for road testing but as offering the major ben efit of clearly reducing the number of road tests and being able to approach them with far better prepara tion Variants of individual components can already be rejected under laboratory conditions The accel eration is tangible because the engineers no longer have to conduct lengthy preliminary road tests Even so the resulting technical maturity of the prototypes is higher In addition to vehicles with IC engines the company can test models with fuel cells in its climatic wind tunnels Air conditioning ventilation or compo nent tests are equally in focus as the simulation of long downhill driving in high summer temperatures in order to test the loads acting on the braking sys tem Even road surface heat can be set to tempera tures between 50 and 70 C 122 F and 158 F in or der to take this real world factor into account as well Storage facility for pre conditioned fuels 6 conditioning compartments and an adjacent workshop This is where the vehicles are prepared and heated or cooled to the desired temperature Sub sequently the vehicles are taken directly and without external contact to the climatic wind chamber so the tests can immediately begin there The turbine generates any desired wind up to hurricane intensity 200 km h 124 mph Even at wind speeds of 100 km h 62 mph a human being can no longer stand safely In an area of 8 x 2 5 meters 26 x 8 feet the radiation intensity of 200 1 200 watts m2 11 sq ft can be controlled A comparable peak value outdoors can only be found at extremely hot locations such as in Death Valley USA Test facility accommodating passenger cars commercial vehicles from the Smart to the Sprinter The so called hot road is continually variable from 50 to 70 C 122 to 158 F It serves to simulate the heat on a road in summer 4 wheel roller dynamometer The total capacity max 780 kW is sufficient for simulated speeds of up to 265 km h 165 mph Humidifier 55 95 humidity Heating cooling element with a temperature range from 40 to 60 C 40 to 140 F Snow rain simulation Hourly precipitation of up to 80 l m2 21 gal 11 sq ft can be equally simulated as the worst blizzards in which snowflakes hit the test vehicles at a speed of 200 km h 124 mph Cross section of the Mercedes Benz climatic wind tunnel in Sindelfingen Germany IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

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