Multiple-fan active control wind tunnel for outdoor near-surface airflow simulation

This paper presents a design scheme of a multiple-fan active control wind tunnel system for outdoor near-surface airflow simulation. The wind tunnel, with a rectangular shape, has 6 swivel plates which can rotate in −90°∼+90° at the entrance. Each swivel plate consists of 8 axial flow fans. The stochastic control strategy is used to regulate fan speeds and the angles of swivel plates in order to produce time-varying wind speed and direction. The simulated airflow in the wind tunnel is compared with the outdoor near-surface airflow by analyzing the statistical indicators and multi-scale entropy of wind speed. The experimental results show that the wind tunnel can reliably simulate the outdoor near-surface airflow. This wind tunnel provides a convenient experimental platform for the odor source localization research in the outdoor near-surface breeze condition.