Wind Tunnel Familiarization - Speed of Sound

SPEED REGIMES AND GEOMETRY

TYPES OF WIND TUNNELS

Subsonic, Transonic, Supersonic, Hypersonic.

TYPES OF SPEED REGIMES

Open Return and Close Return

TYPES OF GEOMETRY

SUBSONIC

0<M<1.0

Transonic

0.8<M<1.2

Sonic

M=1.0

Supersonic

1.2<M<5.0

Hypersonic

M>5.0

SUBSONIC

These are wind tunnels used to test

objects at low Mach numbers or speeds

slower than the speed of sound and

below sonic speed.

SUBSONIC

Categorized into either Low –speed

subsonic (M≤0.3) w/c air considered

IDEAL , and incompressible and

High-speed subsonic flows.

TecQuipment Subsonic Wind Tunnel – AF1300

An open circuit suction subsonic wind

tunnel. The wind tunnel saves time and

money compared with full-scale wind

tunnels, and it offers a wide variety of

experiments. The wind tunnel gives

accurate results and is suitable for

undergraduate study and research projects.

TRANSONIC

used to study high-speed aerodynamic flows around aircraft and to investigate how these flows interact with the stores and other attachments carried and released from the wings and fuselage.

TRANSONIC

helps in developing and improving the design and

testing of airliners,

Calspan Transonic Wind Tunnel

The only independently owned and

operated wind tunnel in the United States.

It is a continuous

flow, variable density, closed-circuit facility

with an 8-foot x 8-foot test section.

Maximum Mach No. of 1.30

SUPERSONIC

appearance of shock waves.

Shockwaves

are very small regions in the gas (about

10−5 𝑖𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠) where the gas properties change by a

large amount.

supersonic wind tunnel

has a large power demand,

so most are designed for intermittent instead of

continuous operation.

SUPERSONIC

It can be its contribution in the development in terms of designing and creating not only high-speed regions of flights for aircraft but also help in enhancing the development of rocket designs.

Glenn Research Center Supersonic Wind Tunnel

What wind tunnel was designed to conduct research,

development, and acceptance testing of

supersonic and hypersonic air-breathing

propulsion systems. Its experimental

infrastructure includes a shop area for the

fabrication of materials for facility

subsystems and assembly of customer

hardware.

HYPERSONIC

These types of wind tunnels are used to

test flight characteristics in a Mach number 5 or more.

HYPERSONIC

To develop satellite launch rockets,

space shuttles, etc., (example of this is LENS II)