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The UOIT Automotive Centre of Excellence - Climatic Test Facility

Journal Article
2013-01-0597
ISSN: 1946-3995, e-ISSN: 1946-4002
Published April 08, 2013 by SAE International in United States
The UOIT Automotive Centre of Excellence - Climatic Test Facility
Sector:
Citation: Best, S., Komar, J., and Elfstrom, G., "The UOIT Automotive Centre of Excellence - Climatic Test Facility," SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 6(1):78-87, 2013, https://doi.org/10.4271/2013-01-0597.
Language: English

Abstract:

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) is the home of the General Motors of Canada Automotive Centre of Excellence (ACE), a university owned and operated facility that is funded by the university and the provincial and federal governments of Canada. As such, ACE is available to all automotive manufacturers (OEM's), Tier 1 suppliers, university researchers, or any other industry requiring the need for independent research and development test capability.
A large climatic wind tunnel is the signature feature of ACE, which also includes climatic chambers (one of which is a high feature chamber), a climatic 4-post shaker test cell and a hemi-anechoic chamber equipped with a multi-axis shaker table. Some key design features of the climatic wind tunnel include a variable nozzle geometry (from 7 m₂ to 13 m₂), a chassis dynamometer inserted in an 11.7 meter turntable, a boundary layer control system and circuit acoustic treatment for low background noise levels. The climatic wind tunnel performance envelope covers wind speeds up to 250 km/h, temperature range from -40°C to +60°C, relative humidity from 5% to 95%, and the test section is equipped for solar, rain and snow simulation.
This paper provides an introduction to the ACE facility and presents the results of the aerodynamic commissioning program. The climatic performance and flow quality test results of the wind tunnel are given, as well as the climatic performance for each chamber.

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