Design and development of a three component strain gauge wind tunnel balance

M.Phil.In today's world with its competitive environment there is a need to shorten product development time by using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) to design an object for example a car, aeroplane or missile and to predict the forces that the wind will have on the object (design). To evaluate the correctness of the CFD results, the design or a scale model of the design must be tested in a wind tunnel by using a force balance. The wind tunnel balance is an apparatus used in the designing and testing of wings, shapes and profiles. In general a balance can be used in all aerodynamic designs to determine the forces on an object when it is moving through air. The aim of this project was to design and manufacture a three-component external balance for a low-speed wind tunnel using an axiomatic design method. It also covers the installation of the external wind tunnel balance to a wind tunnel with a computerized data acquisition capturing system, and performance evaluation of the wind tunnel balance