Wind tunnel design and fabrication for lift force investigation

• Main Author: Kong, Shao Ming
• Other Authors: Yeo Joon Hock
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Aeronautical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/158805
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Wind tunnels are a crucial piece of equipment used in aerodynamics research. The ability to simulate motion of air over a body of interest has led to widespread use of wind tunnels in various industries such as aviation, vehicle design and sports science. As wind tunnels are resource intensive equipment, its potential as a learning aid is greatly hampered due to the sheer cost and logistics involved in the operation of a full sized wind tunnel. This report will discuss in detail the design process and setup of a miniature wind tunnel that is relatively cheap and small sized for use in learning institutes for educational purposes. Experiments and analysis will also be conducted with different airfoils to validate the accuracy of the results obtained from the fabricated setup such that a balance can be struck between cost, practicality and functionality. The results of the experiment proved that the designed setup is sufficiently accurate such that the performance characteristic of different types of airfoils can be distinguished. The miniature wind tunnel setup hence holds the potential to be a viable tool for physical demonstration of concepts in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics taught in theory lessons. The limitations of the design as well as the future work that can be done to further improve on the design are also discussed. Examples of such work include utilising flow visualisation techniques and increasing the flow rate of the air in the miniature wind tunnel.