From a press release issued by Dr. Rob Tuluie:
Tul-aris Tests in West Virginia University’s Wind Tunnel
For the last two months the Tul-aris Team, together with faculty and students at West Virginia University in Morgantown, VW, have been working on a joint wind tunnel project. The goal of this project is to develop the UVW wind tunnel for use in motorcycle aerodynamic testing and to improve the aerodynamic design of the Tul-aris for lower drag, optimized lift distribution and optimum air box intake designs.
So far, the Tul-aris Team built a full-scale model of the Tul-aris complete with all the bodywork, tank, wheels, handlebars and footpegs for the dummy rider. This full-scale model was sent to VWU, where Prof. Gary Winn (himself an ex-motorcycle racer and the first AHRMA executive director), Dr. Wade Huebsch, Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Eng., Dr. Gary Morris, Professor, MAE and Mr. Gerald Angle, Graduate Research Assistant, MAE supervised the project and coordinated resources and student efforts.
Much of the technical wind tunnel setup and instrumentation work was undertaken by Gerald Angle, the lead graduate student on the project. A total of 39 students of Prof. Winn’s Engineering Design class participated. Two student teams competed for the best aerodynamic design, which included use of proprietary vortex generators.
Pictured, together with the Tul-aris mock-up, at the Student design fair are (left to right): Hassann Hamad, Eryn Hammond, Dr. Gary Winn and Justin Bushneck
Over the next few months we plan to perform a validation exercise to compare mock-up and actual bike results back-to-back in the wind tunnel. We will also continue to develop aerodynamic improvements on the Tul-aris, focusing on upper fairing design, seat design and airbox intake design. Hopefully some of these improvements can be implemented in time for the first race at Daytona International Raceway in late February/early March of 2002, in the Formula USA Unlimited GP class.