Computational Fluid Dynamics, or CFD, and is applied to everything from aircraft design to how good of a wing a new skyscraper will be. Of course, the science of building airfoils is much older than CFD, leading to the question of how airfoil design was done before computers.
The answer, of course, is a wind tunnel. Walk around a few very good air museums, and you’ll find wind tunnels ranging from the long wooden boxes built by the Wright brothers to fantastic plywood contraptions that are exceptionally interesting to woodworkers.
[Joel] needed final project as an upcoming aeronautical engineer, but he wanted his project to be something physical, and a tool that could be used again. He decided to build a wind tunnel that’s also his entry for The Hackaday Prize.
This wind tunnel isn’t a gigantic device the size of a building. The very first wind tunnels were simple devices just a few meters long. With a fan at one end, a section to stabilize the wind, a chamber, and a place for the air to go, it’s also a very simple device. Just because something is simple doesn’t mean anyone has built one recently, though: [Joel] couldn’t find anyone who built a wind tunnel with step-by-step instructions. This project is just that – an Open Source wind tunnel.
The design of this wind tunnel is simple enough, built out of fiberglass with relatively simple molds. The design can be adapted to various electric fans, and the most fun part of the build – the smoke machine – is already complete.
