Air Foil Wind Tunnel Model:
Design and manufacture of an airfoil wind tunnel model for educational purposes and implementation of testing methodology.
This project was done for the Motor & Sport Institute (MSI) of Madrid where they teach a Master in Science of Motorsports Engineering. As part of the program, they teach external aerodynamics and CFD specializing in racing cars. The class includes an experimental test in a wind tunnel where the students receive a direct insight to how the aerodynamic design loop works in Formula 1. The project involved designing a wind tunnel model for a practical test aimed at teaching students the fundamentals of Aerodynamics in Motorsports. As part of the project it was necessary to use the tools available in the MSI but also ensure that all the equipment of the wind tunnel was working correctly.
It was decided to design a modular airfoil wing but made with Formula 1 manufacturing techniques. In this case, the wing was manufactured with SLA 3D printing, a resin additive rapid prototyping process (for more information visit this link. The airfoil has internal routing for 16 pressure taps that allow to measure static pressure along and across the wing. It was design as a modular system which allows for different external airfoil shapes and end plate geometries. The support had to be manufactured with existing machining capabilities from the institute to keep costs down but making sure that it allowed for different height positions and different angles of attack of the airfoil while maintaining precise tolerances for the rig.
As part of the project the airfoil was simulated in CFD using XFlow, a software provided by MSI’s software partner Dassault Systems. The software uses the particle-based Lattice Boltzman Method (LBM) to predict flow behavior and in this case the performance of the airfoil inside the wind tunnel (for more information please visit this link.
The results showed a good performance and the behavior that was expected for the practical test. The wing was designed so that it would stall at certain conditions as well as re-attach at certain conditions in order to show students the influence of the Reynolds number, the boundary layer thickness, etc.
Functional assembly inside wind tunnel.
In order to make sure that the wind tunnel was working correctly, all sensors were checked and re-calibrated when required. During this stage, it was found that the load cell was not performing adequately for the conditions of the test, therefore a new calibration setup was obtained in agreement with the load cell manufacturer. This new calibration was implemented to the load calculations through a Python code as part of the data analysis output.