Integrated design process for subsonic open circuit wind tunnel from empirical studies to CFD simulation

This paper proposes a process of determining geometrical configurations to simulating the flow in designing sub-sonic open circuit wind tunnels. Design rules that are based on empirical results and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model are integrated as a Low-Speed Wind Tunnel Design Tool. The tool allows users to undertake the automatic calculation through wind tunnel designed requirements to detailed flow fields analysis. Three configurations with the overall length of 7 to 10 meters and width from 3.5 to 4.2 meters are suggested. The design wind tunnels have the test section (cross section) of 1.7 × 1.7 meters squared and the test section velocity of 15 meters per second. The simulation results help to choose the best-designed wind tunnel configuration for manufacturing in the future.