Low speed wind tunnel- Design, Flow Simulation and Manufacturing
Date
2020
Authors
Mohammad Zayed
Mohammad Arafat
Sa’ad Tomeh
Osaid Odeh
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Wind tunnel, a device that can provide a similar environment for objects moving through
air, like a model of an aircraft. This process can provide a plenty of information on how a
model can behave. Therefore, such an important testing device must be designed properly.
A previous designed low speed closed wind tunnel must be checked to ensure that the right
design was reached. The main purpose firstly to complete the entire design of the tunnel,
this step was achieved by selecting an adequate measurement devices in order to determine a
certain parameters. A strain gauge balance device was selected to measure the aerodynamic
forces acting on a model like lift and drag forces, also pitching moment. The air flow over an
object can be observed by many ways, smoke wire technique was followed, and by generating
smoke the flow patterns could be seen. In addition, the hot wire technology was used to detect
the air velocity anywhere inside the tunnel. Also, the design of major parts of the tunnel was
tested by ANSYS Fluent separately, in order to determine the pressure and velocity of air
at inlet and outlet for each part. The results of total pressure losses showed that there was
an approximate correspondence between the theoretical and numerical approaches. Then, a
scaled down wind tunnel was manufactured to conduct smoke visualization experiment.