Design Construction and Performance Test of a Low Cost Subsonic Wind Tunnel

– Wind tunnel is a device, by artificially producing airflow relative to a stationary body that measures aerodynamic force and pressure distribution to simulate with actual conditions. Wind Tunnels offer a rapid, economical, and accurate means for aerodynamic research. The most important aspect of wind tunnels is their ability to accurate recreate the full complexity of full fluid flow. In the current study, a low cost subsonic wind tunnel is designed, constructed and its performance is tested. The main focuses were to reduce the cost of construction and to erect it in a laboratory room. The cross section of the wind tunnel is of square type with dimension 0.90 m × 0.90 m and the length of the section is 1.35 m. The overall length of the tunnel is about 7.35 m which can be erected in a laboratory room. After testing the performance of the tunnel it is found that the maximum wind velocity inside the wind tunnel test section is about 28 m/s and the velocity profile along the height and width of the test section is almost linear in nature excluding the approximately 12% allowance in four side walls where boundary layer if formed. The constructed wind tunnel was conformed to the design and can be used for different test in the field of aerodynamics.