A wind tunnel for an undergraduate laboratory

Rodney J. Kubesh (corresponding author) and Bret W. Allie Saint Cloud State University, 720 Fourth Avenue South, Saint Cloud, MN 56301, USA
Abstract The design and construction of a wind tunnel suitable for use in an undergraduate laboratory are described. The wind tunnel has proved to be an economical addition to a course on meteorological instrumentation, and a similar design would be useful in instruction in many elds of engineering and science, as it provides valuable hands on experience to complement theoretical coursework. In our experience at Saint Cloud State University, student attitudes to use of the wind tunnel facility have been very positive. Keywords wind tunnels; wind tunnel design; wind tunnel experiments; meteorological instruments; anemometers

Introduction Recently, the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences was given possession of an under-used storage room near our ofces at Saint Cloud State University and a decision was made to set up a meteorological instruments laboratory. In discussing what to do with the space, the idea immediately arose of including a wind tunnel. As our program offers a course in instrumentation which is required for meteorology majors, we realized various lab exercises could be centered around a wind tunnel, including tests of anemometers (instruments for measuring wind speed). In this paper, we describe the design and construction of a wind tunnel for an undergraduate laboratory, which may be of use to instructors not only in meteorology but also in other disciplines, including mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, forestry, and agriculture, for example for studies of aerodynamic forces on objects like model buildings, vehicles, aircraft, trees, and so on. Researching commercially available wind tunnels for educational use, we found them to be far more expensive than we could afford, but also found some designs for homemade wind tunnels [e.g. 1, 2]. In addition, a technical website as well as a paper by Mehta and Bradshaw [3, 4] provided a great deal of useful information. Although a bit difcult going for the nonspecialist, these references were nevertheless invaluable. A wind tunnel provides a ow of air that is as uniform as possible in both space and time. The components include an entry section, contraction section, test section, diffuser, and a fan. Details of each components purpose are provided in the next section. The design of our tunnel was constrained by both space and funding available. A closed circuit tunnel, in which the output air is fed back into the entry section as a closed system, would have taken up too much of the existing laboratory, although this form has the advantage that it tends to have lower levels of turbulence and unsteadiness because of the controlled return ow. Ours is open at both ends:
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 37/1

ijmee_2379.indd 21

8/14/2009 4:20:30 PM

22

R. J. Kubesh and B. W. Allie

an open circuit tunnel. At rst, we considered a tunnel built of wood, until we realized that an HVAC contractor might be able to fabricate one from sheet metal (after all, a buildings ductwork is essentially a wind tunnel). Indeed, a local rm agreed to the task and constructed the tunnel to specication in a short time, for a cost of just under $1000. In looking for a suitable fan, agricultural fans used for ventilation of livestock barns seemed a logical choice as both inexpensive and providing a sufcient volumetric ow rate. Coincidentally, another local company manufactures a line of barn fans, and we chose an axial four-blade fan of 61 cm diameter powered by a 120 V, 373 W motor with speed control for our initial drive unit. A meteorology laboratory has specic needs that bear on wind tunnel design. A large test section is necessary to accommodate full-size wind instruments like a standard cup anemometer. It should be capable of very steady, low air velocity for determining threshold velocities and for other low-speed tests, and moderate to high speeds for instrument-comparison studies (our tunnel has a range of approximately 0.520 ms1). Finally, although the planetary boundary layer is normally turbulent, laminar ow is useful in measuring such properties as the anemometer spin-up time and effects of wind components on measured speeds, the so-called cosine response.

Wind tunnel components A discussion of the components of the wind tunnel follows; for more information see Mehta and Bradshaw [4]. Fig. 1 shows a wind tunnel with the components labeled. Entry section The entry section, also called the settling chamber, straightens the ow (that is, minimizes transverse velocity components) as air is drawn into the tunnel. In some homemade designs, short lengths of soda straws are glued together to form a honeycomb placed perpendicular to the ow direction. It was discovered that honeycomb panels are available commercially, used for lightweight stiffening in the cores of aircraft panels, boat hulls, and structures. It has been found that a cell length 510 times the diameter effectively destroys lateral turbulence [4]. A section 107 cm square, 5 cm thick, made up of 6.4 mm polypropylene cells, was purchased from Plascore, Inc., giving an aspect ratio of 8, at the middle of the stated range. The width was chosen to give a favorable contraction ratio (the area of the entrance divided by the area of the exit) based on the desired test section crosssectional area. The honeycomb was mounted ush inside a holder, which, like the rest of the tunnel, was constructed from 22-gauge galvanized sheet metal. Also, Mehta and Bradshaw [4] recommend roughly 150 cells across one dimension, or around 25 000 in total; our honeycomb has 107/0.64 = 167 cells spanning each dimension.
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 37/1

ijmee_2379.indd 22

8/14/2009 4:20:30 PM

Wind tunnel for an undergraduate laboratory

23

Fig. 1

A photograph of the wind tunnel with the main components labeled.

Contraction section The entry section is followed by the contraction section, the purpose of which is to accelerate the ow to the desired velocity in the test section (a low entrance velocity reduces pressure losses). A square cross-section is best, and the contraction ratio should be fairly large in order to eliminate axial uctuations in the ow (ours is 1072/462 = 5.4, adequate for this purpose). Lacking any information on the optimum shape, it was curved by eye by the contractor, using software for fabricating more intricate ductwork. A straight-sided wedge shape would probably be adequate for our application too. Like the other sections, the entry and contraction sections were bolted to each other through anges running along each edge, with rubber gasket material between. Metal clips were then forced over the anges. This made for a very tight seal and a rigid assembly. The entire tunnel rests on sawhorses, which were inexpensive and easily positioned. Test section The test section, as its name indicates, is the part of the tunnel in which measurements are made. Ours is a section 46 cm square, of duct that is 61 cm long and fashioned with 30.5 cm 30.5 cm acrylic plastic viewing ports on the top and one
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 37/1

ijmee_2379.indd 23

8/14/2009 4:20:30 PM

24

R. J. Kubesh and B. W. Allie

side, as well as a metal, ush-tting access door on the opposite side. Fig. 2 shows the test section. A large test section is needed to allow the testing of full-size wind instruments, including side-by-side comparison measurements. The velocity through this section goes down as the square of the height/width for a given volumetric ow rate, however, so one should be careful it is not too large. This lesson was learned in an unpleasant way when the initial 61 cm fan could provide an air velocity of only about 10 ms1 in the test section, about half of the design velocity, due to a high, unforeseen airow resistance in the tunnel, especially that associated with the large static pressure induced by the honeycomb. (The fan power required is normally estimated based on the product of the desired volume ow rate and the static pressure or system resistance, which is often unknown.) While this speed is adequate for most uses, we desired a higher maximum velocity, leading us to replace the motor with a more powerful one, as discussed in the next section. A small hole was drilled in the top of the test section along the centerline to insert a Pitot-static probe, which served as the velocity calibration standard. The access door is set inside an outside frame so that the access doors inner side is ush with the wall of the test section. The door is clamped to the test section with cam latches. An improvement would be to mount a piano hinge along the bottom so that the door could be lowered down and out of the way while working inside the test section.

Fig. 2 A photograph of the test section. An anemometer is visible through the viewing port, with the access door seen opposite. The instrument is magnetically clamped to the oor of the test section. The anges used to bolt the wind tunnel sections together are clearly visible.
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 37/1

ijmee_2379.indd 24

8/14/2009 4:20:32 PM

Wind tunnel for an undergraduate laboratory

25

For most of our uses, a desirable feature of the test section is to have a thin boundary layer along the walls. Observation with the Pitot probe showed that the velocity prole is quite uniform across the test section, except very near the walls (to about 1 cm). Diffuser Just aft of the test section is the diffuser, with a gently aring shape that helps to steady the ow and keep the air speed constant in the test section. This also allows the fan to be of greater diameter than the test section. For best ow steadiness, the diffuser angle should be about 5. Originally our diffuser ared from an 46 cm square cross-section to a 66 cm square over a length of 160 cm, giving an angle of tan1(10/160) = 3.6. The diffuser was later lengthened to accommodate a larger fan (see below) but this angle was kept the same. Fan housing The fan and its housing comprise the nal section of the wind tunnel. As neophytes to wind tunnel design, nothing gave more trouble and expense than the selection of an appropriate motor and fan. We began with a 120 V AC, 373 W motor with direct drive and a 61 cm diameter fan mounted in a sheet metal housing. The fan, rated at 2.7 m3s1, was pointed so that it exhausted air out of the tunnel. A safety screen covers the end of the housing. The initial fan/motor choice, while adequate, was a source of dissatisfaction (see above), so we replaced the initial combination with a 120 V AC, 746 W single-speed unit with belt drive and a 91 cm fan, rated at 7.7 m3s1. This larger fan of course required a bigger housing and thus an extension to the diffuser. A belt drive, while a bit more complicated to install, allows the fan speed to be modied through choice of pulley size. This larger motor was not compatible with the variable-speed controller, so, following the manufacturers advice, it was replaced with a 746 W DC motor with a variable-voltage speed controller. This motor, when run at its highest speed, caused the controller to overheat and eventually fail. Finally, the motor was replaced with a 746 W DC motor with variable-frequency control, powered by a 220 V AC circuit. This has provided stable airow at low (0.5 ms1) and high (20 ms1) speeds with no overheating problems at either extreme. Costs The total cost for sheet metal fabrication, including the fan housing and test section, was $997. The nal choice of fan (91 cm diameter) cost $981, including the motor, which was replaced, as detailed above, at a cost of $476, including the speed controller. The honeycomb was $286. Thus the overall total, including miscellaneous charges and shipping, was around $2500. Possible experiments Some laboratory exercises we have carried out in class have included the following:
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 37/1

ijmee_2379.indd 25

8/14/2009 4:20:34 PM

26

R. J. Kubesh and B. W. Allie

(1)

Anemometer calibration. Using a Pitot-type manometer to measure the true velocity, students compared these readings with those from various types of anemometer to practice least-squares tting and to identify biases in the instruments. (2) Anemometer comparisons. The readings from two anemometers placed side by side in the test section were compared in order to look for bias of one instrument relative to the other. (3) Cosine response. A small cup anemometer was mounted on a clinometer to study how close the anemometer output was to the ideal cosine response (speed should vary with the cosine of the tilt from vertical, that is, the component perpendicular to the axis of rotation). Summary A wind tunnel suitable for use in an undergraduate laboratory was designed and constructed. Costing around US $2500, it has proved to be an economical alternative to a commercial unit, and has been quite useful in the meteorological instrumentation course here at Saint Cloud State University, providing valuable hands on experience in what might otherwise be overly theoretical coursework. Student response as documented in course-end evaluations has been very positive. References
[1] M. Fitzgerald, Build a wind tunnel, Tech Directions, 64 (2005). See http://techdirections.com/ BuildAWindTunnel.pdf. [2] Wandering Wind Tunnel high school project. See http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/ WindTunnel/wandering_windtunnel.htm. [3] http://navier.stanford.edu/bradshaw/tunnel/index.html. [4] R. D. Mehta and P. Bradshaw, Design rules for small low-speed wind tunnels, Aeronautical Journal (November 1979), 443449.

International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 37/1

ijmee_2379.indd 26

8/14/2009 4:20:34 PM