Design and Development of Low-Cost Wind Tunnel for Educational Purpose

Abstract

The presence of wind tunnel is undoubtedly bringing infinite possibilities to studying and understanding complex fluid flows. However, commercial wind tunnel is expensive and only limited to highly-focus researchers or exclusive institutions. This paper discusses the design and development of a low-cost, educational-purposed, open-typed subsonic wind tunnel. In this work, an open-typed subsonic wind tunnel is designed with the aim of achieving turbulent intensity (in the working section) below or equal to 5%, within the budget of RM 1500 and a working speed of 6 m/s - 8 m/s to meet the Reynolds number in the order of 105. The conceptual design was studied using Ansys Fluent 14.5 and the optimal design was then developed and experimentally verified.