On August 25th, we had the pleasure of visiting the Auto Research Center in Indianapolis, Indiana to perform some wind testing with our frames and stakes.
The testing platform of the Auto Research Center. Our green "lawn" stage where stakes and frames were installed for testing is bolted down to the ARC platform. Wind is dispersed from the right side of the platform, and the left side "collects" the wind to recirculate. The wind tunnel wraps around the building on the other side of the wall behind the testing platform (see below).
The Auto Research Center is a large building with office and research facilities in the front, and a large wind tunnel taking up the majority of the back. The ARC wind tunnel is one of the leading aerodynamic research tools in the world. Capable of wind speeds over 100mph, the tunnel has a large jet that generates wind. The jet is housed in the large tunnel and the testing platform is located at about the midway point. The wind is dispersed from the tunnel at the mouth which has large metal "teeth" that help direct the wind straight over the testing platform. On the left side of the tunnel is another large opening that narrows gradually to collect the wind and send it back to the jet. The tunnel is constructed as a large loop.
standing inside the wind tunnel, in front of the jet that generates wind.
Once we arrived at the Auto Research Center, the lawn stage we constructed was bolted down to the testing platform on both sides, about 8 feet away from the mouth of the wind tunnel where wind was dispersed to ensure constant direct wind. The technicians running the tunnel for us supplied us with red yard to tape to the products tested to help illustrate wind in photographs and pictures, and then we began testing.
We started out our testing our products individually. The tunnel technicians increased the wind speeds in steps of five mph. We had one team member stand in the control room with the technicians to communicate wind speeds to the rest of us. Our team installed sign stakes and frames on the lawn stage and photographed and recorded video coverage of the tests from several angles.
After all of our products were tested on their own, we performed a side-by-side comparison with commonly used competitor products. We will share more detailed reviews of our results broken down by product type on our blog here!
