Designing an Open Circuit Wind Tunnel for Atmospheric Boundary Layers

Abstract

A standard, inexpensive open circuit wind tunnel was built to understand and study some applications that related with atmospheric boundary layers, pollution and generate electricity by wind. Its operation, efficiency, and features were tested. Air speed measurements were taken for both sides: inside and outside the tunnel and the air temperatures were measured, as well. Obstacles were put inside the tunnel to observe the air flow patterns. The relationship between the input voltage of fan and the speed of air inside the tunnel was established to calibrate different types of anemometers. Mach number was calculated for the tunnel which was about 0.02. Bernoulli principle was used to find air speed at the end of diffuser section. It was 1.38 m/s, that means this value was close to the observation value (1.5 m/s).