History - Wunibald Kamm 2
kfz-tech.de/YGe40
In 1930, Wunibald Kamm took over a professorship at the University of Stuttgart. That of his former university professor, Professor Baumann, had been divided into aviation and automotive engineering. Kamm was intended
for the latter. He was able to prevent the engines from being excluded from the automotive sector.
Kamm also aimed to found a Forschungsinstituts für Kraftfahrwesen und Fahrzeugmotoren Stuttgart. Behind this should be a foundation in which state and industrial sponsorship are
possible. The city of Stuttgart provided a plot of land for this. Although legally independent, the politics retain control.
There is hardly a more unfavorable time to found a company. After World War I and the inflation that followed, it took automakers a long time to catch up with American, British and French industries. The Black Friday 1929
thwarted these efforts considerably.
In the now prevailing economic crisis there was hardly any money for such projects, no matter how necessary. Up to now it could be scientifically verified at motor vehicles only the drive in its power output, torque output and
its consumption, individually for the engine or completely on roller dynamometers.
For the rest, measuring methods were unknown, everything was determined in the test drive, so to speak, 'on the fly'. For safety reasons, a prototype was rolled down a slope at most once to prove the stability of the body.
Systematic recording of characteristics, e.g. to compare different constructions, was still in its infancy.
Kamm is always a little too easily associated with just part of the research work on the car, e.g. the experiments in the wind tunnel or the particular economics. It is correct that he assumed an overall concept, e.g. combined
the particular streamlined nature of a car with the resulting demands on the chassis.
His writings even reveal thinking beyond the motor vehicle. He was one of the first, for example, to give suggestions for the construction of the autobahn, which was accelerated after Hitler's seizure of power, e.g. the
requirement for concrete as a road surface. It wasn't just about rolling resistance, but also something that would be called 'grip' today.
At times, Kamm was also ahead of its time, e.g. with his unconditional recommendation for front-wheel drive. At the time, the had not been able to establish itself across the board, which was probably also due to the lack of
highly stressable joints, especially on the outside of steered and suspension-equipped wheels.
Despite the great initial difficulties, the FKFS developed, already had over 250 employees in 1937. In addition to modern brake test stands, it now had, for example, a laboratory for the analysis of fuels and the 'Laufende
Straße' (running road) combined with a wind tunnel on a scale of 1:10. It was comparable to the development department of a larger car manufacturer, and could even accept smaller outside orders.
The fact that wind tunnels and test fields for aircraft engines were built on a 1: 1 scale indicated the increasing influence of wartime economy. Constantly necessary work either for expansion or for new buildings marked the
second half of the ten years between 1930 and 1940.
Which brings us to the project with which the FKFS is most often associated. We call it the wind tunnel, even though those involved always referred to it as a 'vehicle full test field' because there were already two wind tunnels
in Germany, one of the DVL in Berlin and one of the AVA in Göttingen.
The new one was supposed to cost more than RM 1 million, cleverly combined by von Kamm with the threat of accepting a job offer from BMW if not granted. One wonders what was still possible under the National Socialists
in Germany in the midst of the preparations for war in 1937. And while one suffered at BMW under the orders of the Reichs-Luftfahrt-Ministerium, here was even possible to contradict and realize
despite rejection.
It was finally built, initially not with the funds of the RLM, but with a cost estimate that was twice as high. Opposite a measuring section with a two-part steel treadmill in the floor, an axial fan with a diameter of 8.8 m drove the
air up to 400 km/h on the other side of the ring duct.
Thanks to two concentric floor turntables, the car could not only be streamed from the side on the running steel belt, but slip angles were also possible. It would have been the most modern wind tunnel in the world. The final
realization in the form of measurements on a vehicle was no longer possible after a heavy bombing raid in 1944.
Reconstruction after the war secured income for the FKSK through outside contracts. Then it was sold to the neighboring Daimler-Benz AG, which modernized it extensively.
kfz-tech.de/YGe41
| 
