Aerodynamic Research in 1930: The Progress made during the Year with Special Reference to Wind Tunnel Design and Fluid Flow

Abstract

THE demand for aerodynamic research continues to grow, and there is difficulty in meeting it with the available equipment. The Compressed Air Tunnel will become available shortly, but will not very greatly alter the situation, as it will have a scries of scale‐effect problems of its own to solve, problems that have of necessity been shelved in the past, owing to the absence of any effective weapon of attack. The recent study of the design of open‐jet tunnels in this country has led to the realisation of the fact that a room which can contain a 7‐ft. tunnel of the N.P.L. type can quite easily house two open‐jet return‐flow tunnels of the same size or even slightly larger. A proposal has been made to increase very considerably the available tunnel equipment by replacing the 7‐ft. No. 1 tunnel at the Laboratory by two high‐speed open‐jet tunnels. In view of the feeling that some such step will be necessary in the near future unless research is to suffer delay, model tests have been made to provide design data so that the project could be rapidly carried into effect at short notice. There has been practically no expansion of wind‐tunnel equipment in this country since the War until the construction of the Compressed‐Air Tunnel was sanctioned and later the construction of a 24‐ft tunnel at Farnborough. While special tunnels such as these are absolutely necessary for the effective solution of certain problems, there is always a vast amount of research to be carried out in normal‐sized atmospheric tunnels of reasonable speed, and an extension of equipment on the lines suggested would undoubtedly be well worth the cost.

Citation

Relf, E.F.A.R.C.S.,.R.A.S. (1931), "Aerodynamic Research in 1930: The Progress made during the Year with Special Reference to Wind Tunnel Design and Fluid Flow", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 13-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb029357