WIND TUNNEL

Chapter IV

Invention of Wind Tunnel

The forces on an airplane moving through the air at a particular speed are the same as the forces on a fixed airplane with the air moving past at the same speed.

Objective of wind tunnel Design

Determine Determine Obtain

CL Cd

values of the test Reynolds numbers, based on the mean aerodynamic chord.

Air Resistance or Drag

Experiments on air resistance have been performed in two ways: By study of the nature of the flow of air and other fluids past solid bodies.
By

measuring the actual forces produced on the bodies by the passage of the fluid.

Wind Tunnels
There are various type of wind tunnels:
Open Close

test chamber test chamber

Wind Tunnels The open jet type

The closed type

Wind Tunnel

Schematic Drawing

Test Chamber

Test Chamber

Airfoil

Aircraft Model

Fan

Sources of Error
Scale effect: less accurate when there is a great difference in size between the model and the full scale.

Sources of Error
Interference from Wind Tunnel Walls: The second error is due to the fact that in the wind tunnel the air stream is confined to the limits of the tunnel.

Sources of Error

Errors in Model The smaller the scale of the model, the more difficult does it become to reproduce every detail of the fullscale body

Wind tunnel results can provide us with some very useful experimental data. In addition to wind tunnel tests, experiments have been performed in the following ways:
By

Other Experimental Methods

air.

experiments in water instead of

Other Experimental Methods

On

whirling arms, the model being attached to one end of a long arm, which is rotated about the other end.
experiments in actual flight.

By

Streamlines
Lines which show the direction of the fluid flow at any particular moment.

streamline shape

A body so shaped as to produce the least possible eddy or vortex motion.

Drag
The resistance of a body passing through a fluid into two parts:
Form

Drag Skin Friction

PROFILE DRAG
They form a large part of the total drag of an airplane. The sum of the two is, sometimes, called profile drag.

Form Drag

when a viscous fluid flows past a solid object, vortices are formed, and we no longer get a smooth streamline flow.

Form Drag
The extreme example of this type of resistance is a flat plate placed at right angles to the wind. The resistance is very large and is almost entirely due to the formation of vortices, the skin friction being negligible in comparison.

Form Drag
It is essential that form drag should be reduced to a minimum in all those parts of the airplane which are exposed to the air. This can be done by shaping them that the flow of air past them is as smooth as possible.

FORM DRAG

STREAMLINE SHAPE
The streamline shapes which have given the least resistance at subsonic speeds have had a fineness ratio, i.e. a/b - of between 3 and 4 (see Fig 2.14), and the maximum value of b should be about one-third of the way back from the nose.

Parasite drag
This drag is generated from the A/C parts which do not contribute towards the lift.

Induced Drag

A/C parts which generates and/or contribute to the lift, e.g. the wings or lifting surface.

Skin Friction and Boundary Layer

The layer or layers of air in which the shearing action takes place, between the surface and the full velocity of the airflow, is called the boundary layer.

BOUNDARY LAYER
The boundary layer may be either laminar or turbulent and the difference that these two types of flow make to the total skin friction is of the same order as the effect of streamlining the main flow.

BOUNDARY LAYER
It has been stated that if we could ensure a laminar boundary layer over the whole surface of a wing the skin friction would be reduced to about one-tenth of its value.

BOUNDARY LAYER

Resistance Formula
Total resistance of a body passing through the air is dependent on the following factors The shape of the body The frontal area of the body The square of the velocity The density of the air