Wind Tunnel Test Techniques

Wind Tunnel Test Techniques: Design and Use of Low- and High-Speed Wind Tunnels provides an up-to-date treatment of the topic. Beginning with a brief history of wind tunnels and its types and uses, the book goes on to cover subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic wind tunnel design and construction, calibration, boundary corrections, flow quality assessment, pressure surveys, and dynamic testing. It also focuses on wind tunnel facilities, making it useful for both the designer and operator. Engineers and graduate students in aerospace, automotive and similar programs will find this book useful in their work with experimental aerodynamics, gas dynamics, facility design and performance.

• Deals with a broad range of flow speeds in wind tunnels, from low speed to high speed
• Provides a discussion of similarity laws as well as material on statistical analysis
• Includes coverage on facility-to-facility and facility-to-CFD correlation
• Presents advanced topics such as cryogenic wind tunnels, ground simulation in automotive testing, and propulsion testing

Aerospace engineers; Automotive engineers; Wind tunnel testing professionals; graduate students conducting experimental aerodynamics; wind tunnel design engineers

SECTION 1 Introduction
1. A brief history of the genesis of wind tunnels
2. Types and uses of wind tunnels
3. Dynamic similarity

SECTION 2 Wind tunnel design and circuit aerodynamics
4. Subsonic wind tunnel design
5. Boundary interference assessment, alleviation, and correction
6. Model supports and support interference evaluation
7. Transonic wind tunnels
8. Supersonic wind tunnels
9. Hypersonic test facilities
10. Force and Moment Balances
11. Model design and construction
12. Special topics

SECTION 3 Operational and Test Procedures
13. Statistical Engineering Practices
14. Wind tunnel calibration
15. Flow quality assessment
16. Force and moment measurements
17. Facility instrumentation
18. Planning of Test Campaigns

SECTION 4 Wind tunnel test techniques
19. Pressure surveys
20. Dynamic testing
21. Facility-to-facility, facility-to-CFD, facility-to-flight correlation

SECTION 5 Measurement Techniques
22. Flow visualization
23. Nonintrusive quantitative flow field measurements

SECTION 6 Postscript
24. The role of CFD in aerodynamic research
25. The future of ground testing

SECTION 7 APPENDICES
A. A primer on statistical engineering
B. Strain-gage balance calibration example