Wind Tunnels

Aeronautical and Non-aeronautical

applications

Aerospace Uses of Wind Tunnels

• Airplane Development (Commercial/Military)– Component Testing

– Complete airplane Experiments• Take-off and Landing Configurations

• Ground effect

• Cruise Configuration

• Power effects on areodynamics

– Data Required• Force and moment coefficients

• Detailed pressure disdribution data for structural design

Aerospace Uses of Wind Tunnels

• Airplane Development (Commercial/Military)– Specialized testing requirements

• Spin Characteristics

• Aeroelastic experiments

• External store separation

• Jettison experiments

• Drag chute

• Space vehicles– Ground loads due to wind

– Ascent loads

– Re-entry loads

Non Aerospace Uses of Wind Tunnels

• Ground Vehicles– Automobiles

– Race Cars

– Trucks, motorcycles, etc

– Trains

• Marine Vehicles– Sailboats

– Underwater vehicles

– Surface Ships

Non Aerospace Uses of Wind Tunnels

• Wind Engineering – the study of wind loading on buildings, structures,and environmental factors.– Loads on buildings– Influence of building wakes on other nearby

buildings– Loads on Towers– Loads on Bridges

Non Aerospace Uses of Wind Tunnels

• Wind Engineering – the study of wind loading on buildings, structures,and environmental factors.– Pollution– Bio-terrorism– Accidental hazardous gas or liquid spills– Used for evauation planning

Store Separation

• Store separation deals with the safety issues of separating an internal or external store from an airplane.– Stores could be auxillary fuel tanks

– Weapons

– Other flight vehicles

• How would you verify that a safe separation is possible using a wind tunnel?

Boeing 747/Shuttle

Captive Trajectory Simulation

Drop Model Test

Other Wind Tunnel Uses

Race Car Design

Planetary Mobile Vehicles

High Altitude Airships

Indy Race Car

Race Car

Planetary Exploration Project

• Suppose you were asked to develop a low cost device to move a senor package around the surface of the planet Mars.– Sensor package

• Seismic monitoring equipment

• Water detection equipment

• Weather sensing equipment, etc

• What kind of device might be suitable?

High Altitude Airship