Open AccessLow Speed Wind Tunnel Design and Optimization Using Computational Techniques and Experimental Validation
Author(s) -
Ahmed Aboelezz
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
incas buletin
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.282
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 2247-4528
pISSN - 2066-8201
DOI - 10.13111/2066-8201.2019.11.2.1
Subject(s) - wind tunnel , computational fluid dynamics , aerodynamics , hypersonic wind tunnel , fluent , wind speed , marine engineering , turbulence , pressure drop , supersonic wind tunnel , workbench , engineering , structural engineering , mechanical engineering , aerospace engineering , mechanics , meteorology , physics , visualization
Generally, the experimental aerodynamics is related to wind tunnel experiments. The wind tunnel design topic is very old but the development in computational fluid dynamics led to improvement in the wind tunnel design. This paper describes the design and optimization of low speed wind tunnel using CFD techniques. The new optimum wind tunnel will replace the old one featuring poor air quality and small area with lower wind speed at the test section. A computational domain was generated and adopted using ANSYS mesh generator and the solution domain was analysed by simulation technique using FLUENT CFD code in ANSYS Workbench package. The pressure drop calculations comparison between analytical, computational and experimental is included for different sections in the wind tunnel. The contraction cone was optimized using the response surface technique. The results identified that the pressure drop and turbulence level are modified as compared to the old wind tunnel.