As the aerospace industry continues to expand due to the advent of a new space age, more and more aerospace companies turn to wind tunnels for testing their prototypes (Melanson et al., 2014). As more wind tunnels are constructed to keep up with the demand from aerospace companies, it is important to understand how these are built and calibrated. So, this study aimed to partially address this need by providing a method for building and calibrating an open return subsonic wind tunnel. First, to understand the full scope of the process, literature was analyzed to determine that manometer and force sensors are necessary for this wind tunnel (Pitsco, n.d.), how to interpret wind tunnel data (NASA, 2015a; 2018), and the limitations of this specific type of wind tunnel (NASA, 2015b). From this, a methodology was developed by the mentor to rebuild and calibrate the wind tunnel. This involved the installation of a force sensor and a manometer to rebuild the wind tunnel. To calibrate the wind tunnel, two approaches were taken. The first one tested two known airfoils in the wind tunnel and compared its data to data taken from other sources. The second method used a digital anemometer of known accuracy and compared its readings to what the manometer claimed the wind speeds were. The results showed that the method to build the wind tunnel was viable. It also showed that the second method outlined for calibrating the wind tunnel was viable. The findings of this study could be used as a guide to build other open return subsonic wind tunnels as well as a guide to calibrating manometers.

The aim of this study is to rebuild and calibrate an open return subsonic wind tunnel for Wheeler High School. While there is a lot of literature on the data wind tunnels can extrapolate and the sensors wind tunnels can use, there is not much literature on the process it takes to rebuild and calibrate a wind tunnel. As an aspiring aerospace engineer, it is very important I learn how to use wind tunnels because of how essential it is to the aerospace industry; it is the primary method to test experimental designs. With help from my mentor, Mr. Taze Lamb from Lockheed Martin, this research will help future Wheeler projects gather accurate and reliable data, and help the wind tunnel company, Pitsco, develop a new user manual for all of their wind tunnels.

Click to access the research paper Here!