Design of Unsteady Wind Tunnel

An unsteady wind tunnel was designed and built for the study of unsteady aerodynamics. The wind tunnel was designed as an open-loop configuration, and an active flow control system was designed as a series of horizontally aligned shutters placed in front of the test section which can block oncoming airflow to create time-varying shear flows in the test section. The wind tunnel was constructed using primarily acrylic and plywood and was run by an axial fan. The active flow control system was composed of four shutters that were held in position and rotated using steel rods and actuators located just outside the shutter frame. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used throughout the design processes, ensuring the generation of unsteady flows in the test section