Aerodynamic design of a tilting wind tunnel for the study of a glider in ground effect

A small, low-speed, open return, tilting wind tunnel has been designed. This wind tunnel is intended to simulate the behavior of an unpowered recreational glider that flies down slopes in ground effect at about 1m above the surface. The required tilting angle is 50°. The wind tunnel has to be capable of holding free-flying models with a recommended scaling factor of 14.2 and with Froude number matching.;The designed wind tunnel uses a centrifugal fan to blow air into the test section through a wide angle diffuser, a settling chamber and a contraction. There are six screens and a honeycomb to improve flow uniformity. The test section is closed and rectangular (384mm by 576mm). The maximum obtainable test section velocity is approximately 35 m/s. A moving belt is used to simulate the ground. All the components were designed following methods recommended in literature and the contraction was designed using CFD simulations