Investigation into the Factors Affecting the Flow Quality in a Small Suction Wind Tunnel

摘要

During testing of a wind tunnel designed to allow investigation of the dynamic interference on an airfoil, it was found that the tunnel itself was subject to large flow disturbances sufficient to prevent accurate measurements of the effects. Changes to the tunnel were made in order to investigate their relative contributions to turbulence alleviation. Measurements with a hot-wire probe system show that the turbulence can be reduced to under 0.7% by a combination of these changes. However, it is also shown that disturbances from the suction fan are a major cause of the tunnel turbulence and thus suggest that the tunnel/fan combination may not be suitable for measurement of the dynamic interference effects as originally intended.