Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft will fly. NASA uses wind tunnels to test scale models of aircraft and spacecraft. Some wind tunnels are large enough to contain full-size versions of vehicles. The wind tunnel moves air around an object, making it seem as if the object is flying.
The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. At last estimate NASA Ames has over US$3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget.
The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the turbo portion refers to a gas turbine engine which achieves mechanical energy from combustion, and the fan, a ducted fan that uses the mechanical energy from the gas turbine to force air rearwards. Thus, whereas all the air taken in by a turbojet passes through the combustion chamber and turbines, in a turbofan some of that air bypasses these components. A turbofan thus can be thought of as a turbojet being used to drive a ducted fan, with both of these contributing to the thrust.
A railgun is a linear motor device, typically designed as a weapon, that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles. The projectile normally does not contain explosives, instead relying on the projectile's high speed, mass, and kinetic energy to inflict damage. The railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors (rails), along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature and then back along the other rail. It is based on principles similar to those of the homopolar motor.
Orlando Executive Airport is a public airport three miles (6 km) east of downtown Orlando, in Orange County, Florida. It is owned and operated by the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA) and serves general aviation.
The light-gas gun is an apparatus for physics experiments. It is a highly specialized gun designed to generate extremely high velocities. It is usually used to study high-speed impact phenomena, such as the formation of impact craters by meteorites or the erosion of materials by micrometeoroids. Some basic material research relies on projectile impact to create high pressure; such systems are capable of forcing liquid hydrogen into a metallic state.
A water tunnel is an experimental facility used for testing the hydrodynamic behavior of submerged bodies in flowing water. It functions similar to a recirculating wind tunnel, but uses water as the working fluid, and related phenomena are investigated, such as measuring the forces on scale models of submarines or lift and drag on hydrofoils. Water tunnels are sometimes used in place of wind tunnels to perform measurements because techniques like particle image velocimetry (PIV) are easier to implement in water. For many cases as long as the Reynolds number is equivalent, the results are valid, whether a submerged water vehicle model is tested in air or an aerial vehicle is tested in water. For low Reynolds number flows, tunnels can be made to run oil instead of water. The advantage is that the increased viscosity will allow the flow to be a faster speed for a lower Reynolds number.
A hypersonic wind tunnel is designed to generate a hypersonic flow field in the working section, thus simulating the typical flow features of this flow regime - including compression shocks and pronounced boundary layer effects, entropy layer and viscous interaction zones and most importantly high total temperatures of the flow. The speed of these tunnels vary from Mach 5 to 15. The power requirement of a wind tunnel increases linearly with its cross section and flow density, but cubically with the test velocity required. Hence installation of a continuous, closed circuit wind tunnel remains a costly affair. The first continuous Mach 7-10 wind tunnel with 1x1 m test section was planned at Kochel am See, Germany during WW II and finally put into operation as 'Tunnel A' in the late 1950s at AEDC Tullahoma, TN, USA for an installed power of 57 MW. In view of these high facility demands, also intermittently operated experimental facilities like blow-down wind tunnels are designed and installed to simulate the hypersonic flow. A hypersonic wind tunnel comprises in flow direction the main components: heater/cooler arrangements, dryer, convergent/divergent nozzle, test section, second throat and diffuser. A blow-down wind tunnel has a low vacuum reservoir at the back end, while a continuously operated, closed circuit wind tunnel has a high power compressor installation instead. Since the temperature drops with the expanding flow, the air inside the test section has the chance of becoming liquefied. For that reason, preheating is particularly critical.
Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster was a U.S. Navy military installation located in Warminster, Pennsylvania and Ivyland, Pennsylvania. For most of its existence (1949–1993), the base was known as the Naval Air Development Center (NADC) Warminster, but it has also been referred to as Johnsville Naval Air Development Center, NADC Johnsville or simply, Johnsville.
The vortex ring gun is an experimental non-lethal weapon for crowd control that uses high-energy vortex rings of gas to knock down people or spray them with marking ink or other chemicals.
The Bieudron Hydroelectric Power Station is a hydroelectric power plant located in the Swiss Alps in the Canton of Valais in Switzerland. The power plant is fed with water from the Grande Dixence Dam's reservoir, Lac des Dix and is part of the Cleuson-Dixence Complex. The 1269 MW power plant is operated by Grande Dixence SA.
William Garfield Thomas Jr. was born in Watsontown, Pennsylvania.
The University of Texas at Arlington Aerodynamics Research Center (ARC) is a facility located in the southeast portion of the campus operated under the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. It was established in 1986 as part of an expansion of UTA's College of Engineering. The ARC contributes to the vision of UTA and the University of Texas System to transform the university into a full-fledged research institution. It showcases the aerodynamics research activities at UTA and, in its history, has established itself as a unique facility at a university level. The wind tunnels and equipment in the facility were mainly built by scouting for and upgrading decommissioned equipment from the government and industry. Currently, Masters and Ph.D. students perform research in the fields of high-speed gas dynamics, propulsion, and Computational fluid dynamics among other projects related to aerodynamics.
The Variable Density Tunnel (VDT) was the second wind tunnel at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Research Center. Proposed by German aerospace engineer, Max Munk in May, 1921, it was the world's first variable density wind tunnel and allowed for more accurate testing of small-scale models than could be obtained with atmospheric wind tunnels. It was actively used as a wind tunnel from 1923 until its retirement in the 1940s. Langley Research Center historian, James R. Hansen, wrote that the VDT provided results superior to the atmospheric wind tunnels used at the time and was responsible for making NACA, the precursor to NASA, "a world leader in aerodynamic research". It is now on display on the Langley grounds, near the old Reid Conference Center and is a National Historic Landmark.
The Emerson Cavitation Tunnel is a propeller testing facility that is part of the School of Engineering at Newcastle University.
The Aeronautical/Astronautical Research Laboratory (AARL) is an aerospace engineering research facility operated by Ohio State University. It is the principal research facility of the College of Engineering's Department of Aerospace and Astronautical Engineering. It is located on the grounds of Ohio State University Airport, in Columbus, Ohio.
The Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Laboratory, is a specialized research unit dedicated to interdisciplinary scientific research at the Penn State, University Park campus. The ARL is a DoD designated U.S. Navy University Affiliated Research Center. It is the university's largest research unit with over 1,000 faculty and staff. The Laboratory ranks 2nd in DoD and 10th in NASA funding to universities.
The von Karman Gas Dynamics Facility at Arnold Engineering Development Complex, Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee, provide aerothermal ground test simulations of hypersonic flight over a wide range of velocities and pressure altitudes. The facility consists of three Hypersonic wind tunnels: Tunnel A, B, and C. The wind tunnels can be run for several hours at a time thanks to a 92,500 horsepower air compressor plant system. The test unit is owned by the United States Air Force and operated by National Aerospace Solutions.
The Transportation Research Center (TRC) is North America's largest multi-user automotive proving ground. It is operated by TRC Inc. The center occupies 4,500 acres in East Liberty, Ohio, just 40 miles northwest of Columbus, Ohio. These 4,500 acres are split between the main TRC property and a rural road/ATV course located approximately 2.5 miles from the main property.
The SCORPION(Self CORrecting Projectile for Infantry OperatioN) program was a research initiative funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and led by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the Georgia Institute of Technology to integrate micro adaptive flow control (MAFC) technology into small caliber munitions to develop spinning, guided projectiles. The program led to the creation of a spin-stabilized 40 mm grenade, also called SCORPION, that could propel itself to its target by using calculated micro-jet bursts of air to correct its path once launched.
