This wind tunnel, located at Newmarket, has a smooth floor. However, to generate models of the natural wind at different scales, e.g. 1:250, 1:2000, and for different terrain roughnesses, e.g. smooth desert, or city centres, different sizes and densities of blocks are required to be located by hand on the wind tunnel floor. This takes time and is tedious to do.
Many wind tunnels have systems where by entering something into a computer, or by pushing buttons etc., blocks are pushed up through the floor to the required heights. We wish to replicate this in our BLWT.
In our wind tunnel, it is not really practical to add structure below the floor, so our "blocks" will have to be above the floor. It is expected that they will be "flaps" that can be raised or lowered to appropriate angles by actuators. The project is to design/test and build such a system that can be controlled by computer.
Undergraduate
A successful auomatic floor roughness system.
Aerohydrodynamics
Aerodynamics Lab (Newmarket 901 Lvl5, Lab)