DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF

WIND TUNNEL

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 OBJECTIVE

To design and fabricate an experimental setup for

measuring stall experienced by an object at varying
angle of attack

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 INTRODUCTION
Wind tunnels are large tubes with air moving
inside. The tunnels are used to copy the actions
of an object in flight. Researchers use wind
tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft will
fly.

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 The investigation described herein applies to many
fluid dynamic scenarios like wind turbine blades,
wings on F1 cars, helicopter blades, propeller
blades and hydrofoils.
Airfoil is a body designed to produce lift from the
movement of the fluid around it.

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 Wind tunnels are an extremely useful tool to
conduct aerodynamic tests on aircraft models and
other related components of aircrafts.

Wind tunnels are not just limited to aircraft design

alone, they are also used in design of automobiles,
wind turbines, buildings, bridges etc.

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 They are a very integral part of testing and
analysis when computational analysis is not
feasible.

Also, wind tunnels enable easy testing of scaled

models of aircrafts so as to understand their
behaviour during various phases of flight, and at
various flight speeds, before performing a flight
test, so that any noticeable defects can be
corrected 6
 The design can be improved. Wind tunnels give us
the flexibility to vary the flow conditions like
pressure, temperature, speed etc. for a wider range
of tests that can be performed.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW
Yang Zhao et.al

Introduced the wind tunnel experiment for

simulating the sudden change airflow At
first, the downburst profile was simulated in
the active control wind tunnel, and the
measured and analytical results fitted over
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90 percents. And then the time history of step
airflow was simulated successfully in this wind
tunnel. Finally, the variation of structural
aerodynamic parameters was observed and collected
by the wind tunnel experiment of a high-rise model
under the action of the simulated step airflow.

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Jureczko et al
proposed optimization of wind turbine blades.
They used two methods for optimization. In the
first method, the blade shape was modified to
improve the stiffness and stability. In the second 49
method, the dynamic and mechanical properties of
wind turbine were modified. They used their
optimization tool for minimizing the vibrations of
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blades. They developed a modified genetic algorithm
and implemented it for optimizing various objective
functions with various constraints

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 STALL

Stall is defined as a sudden reduction in the lift generated by

an aerofoil when the critical angle of attack is reached or
exceeded

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 A stall occurs when the angle of attack of
an aerofoil exceeds the value which creates maximum
lift as a consequence of airflow across it.
This angle varies very little in response to the cross
section of the airfoil

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 Experimental procedure
The experiment consists of a drive section,
contraction cone, test section, diffuser and a setting
chamber coupled with honeycomb
The diffuser is connected to the impeller housing
when the power supply is ON, the fluid (air) is
sucked into the bell mouth section
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 The fluid flow is converted into laminar flow by
using honey comb

Fluid reaches into the test section at maximum

velocity and strikes the airfoil placed in the test
section
Observe the movement of air through airfoil using
a smoke generator at a particular angle of attack

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 Repeat the experiment using different angle of
attack

Note the angle at which stall occurs

Then the fluid is reached in to the diffuser where

its velocity gets decreased

Exhaust air is driven out through centrifugal

impeller casing
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 COMPONENTS
1.CENTRIFUGAL IMPELLER

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 An impeller is a rotor inside a tube used to increase
the pressure and flow of a fluid.

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2.SETTING CHAMBER
The inlet starts with dimension
of 300mm x 300mm contoured
to 100mm x 100mm.

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 The axial and lateral turbulence are
reduced and smooth flow of air entering the s
ection is achieved by installing the Honey-combs
for most effectiveness of the air inlet .

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 This is particularly useful for obtaining laminar flow.
The duct is attached to the test section by flange.
The provision is also made easy removal of Effuser
for and diffuser for possible separation from the test
section when required.

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3.TEST SECTION

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 The test section sandwiched between the inlet duct
and the diffuser

It has 100mm100mm cross section and 300mm in

length

Fixed with transparent window on either side

which facilitates fixing and viewing of the models

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Its where the air velocity is maximum
The wing bar is located in the middle of it and an
object can be attached to the bar.
The bar can be rotated to control the angle of attack.

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 3.DIFFUSER

The downstream portion

of the tunnel is the
diffuser
To the end of this is
attached an axial flow
fan
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The diffuser starts with 100mm x 100mm
square section at the test section end and
enlarges to 180mm diameter round at the fan
driven end .
It is flanged and bolted to the test section.

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5.AIRFOIL

An airfoil Is the shape of a

wing

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WORKING DESIGN

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 COST ESTIMATION

SL NO DESCRIPTION SPECIFICATION QUANTITY PRICE

1 GI Sheet 2.4 1.22 m, 16 kg 1500
16 gauge
2 DC Motor 24 V , 1500rpm,50W 1 3500
3 Impeller 0.2 m dia 1 2000
4 PVC Pipe 0.0127m(1/2 inch)dia 4m 100
5 Smoke generator 1 2000

6 Fiber Glass 600 300mm, 2 1000

8mm thick

7 Labour Cost 7000

TOTALCOST 17100
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 REFERENCES
[1] Izzet sahin and Adem acir ,Numerical and Experimental investigations of lift and drag performances of
NACA 0015 wind turbine air foil , Journal of Fluids and Structures, vol. 3, pp.22-25, February 2015.

[2] Selvi Rajan . S , Santhoshkumar . M, Lakshmanan . N, Nadaraja Pillai . S and Paramasivam . M,CFD
analysis and wind tunnel experiment on typical launch vehicle model, Journal of Science and
engineering, vol. 12, pp. 223-229, January 2009.

[3] Haci Sogukpinar and Ismail Bozkurt , Calculation of aerodynamic performance characterics of airplane
wing and comparing with the experimental measurement, International journal of engineering
technologies , vol.1, pp. 83-87 Jan 2015.

[4] L. B. Li, Y. W. Ma, and L. Liu, Numerical simulation on aerodynamics performance of wind turbine
airfoil, in Proc. World Automation Congress (WAC), 2012, pp. 1-4.

[5] D. R. Troolin, E. K. Longmire, and W. T. Lai, Timeresolved PIV analysis of flow over a NACA 0015
airfoil with Gurney flap, Experiments in Fluid, vol. 41, pp. 241-254, April 2006.

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THANK YOU

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