Development of Flow Visualization and Instrumentation Systems for Open Circuit Subsonic Wind Tunnel and Their Validation with Experiments on NACA 0012 Airfoil

Abstract

This report describes the flow visualization and instrumentation systems developed for open circuit subsonic wind tunnel. First off, suitable setup for mounting wing section inside the test section along with load cells for measuring lift and drag was designed and fabricated. Numerical simulation was done prior to experimentation on wing section of NACA 0012 airfoil geometry. Thereafter, flow visualization of flow over the said wing section was done using commercially available smoke generator, smoke fluid, and 5V, 515-532 nm LASER. A wind tunnel test was carried out for the wing section with the same operating conditions as applied in the numerical simulation. Lift and drag curves were obtained from both numerical and experimental results and compared, and were found to be conformable. The stall angle of attack was also compared with both of them and with that of flow visualization which were found to be conformable to one another which thereby confirmed the efficacy of the flow visualization and instrumentation systems developed.