Wind Tunnel

[Maverick]

I am building a wind tunnel for a science fair project. can anyone help me out?

[Len Evansic]

How big do you intend to make it, and what do you hope to discover with it?

 

Since you are doing this for a science fair project, I assume that you would want to have it sitting at your booth. A small size like this wouldn't be conducive to collecting good data, as the entire tunnel would be too small to get laminar flow.

 

If you want to measure things like lift or drag forces for an airfoil at various angles of attack, you may be better off making a water tunnel instead. This requires a good bit of math to translate between the viscosity of water to the viscosity of air, but will be easier to make and control accurately on a student budget.

 

If you are just going for a "this is how an airfoil works" type of setup where you don't actually care about the forces of lift and drag, then a wind tunnel will be easier and cheaper to make.

 

-- Len

[Snoopy]

You might contact this gentleman:

Robert Baals

NASA Langley Research Center

MS 464

Hampton, Va. 23681-0001

Some years ago he sent me some information and plans for a 7 X 10 inch wind tunnel. It is small enough to fit on a table and fairly simple to build, though some of the parts necessary for taking measurements would require some machine work.

I hope this is of some help.

Jim