Revised Indy aeroscreen progressing toward 2024 debut
The NTT IndyCar Series and its partners at Dallara, Pankl, and PPG are making steady progress on the second-generation aeroscreen that will debut in competition next year.
Lighter than the first-generation driver safety device that was introduced in 2020, the collective efforts of the four parties have come up with an “Aeroscreen 2.0” featuring a new titanium frame that benefits from the latest additive manufacturing to pare weight from the halo that mounts atop the Dallara DW12 cockpits.
“We took the original frame and Pankl used something called ‘topology optimization’ to reduce weight in areas where the stresses are lower,” IndyCar’s Tino Belli told RACER. “It’s 3D-printed, obviously, because there’s a lot of hollow structures in the top frame. If you did subtractive manufacturing, CNC machining, you couldn’t get in there to take all the material away.”
With three seasons of data gathered on impacts to draw from, IndyCar’s partners a
