Water tunnel facility design for external flow visualizations

The objective of this study was to design a new flow visualization section that can be integrated into an existing water tunnel system. The section will be used to conduct aerodynamics experiments on subscale models, which requires a low turbulence level uniform flow. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to analyze several candidate test section configurations. The CFD results show that simple contracting and diverging designs produce a relatively non-uniform velocity profile across the test section. The available axial length is not sufficient to allow water tunnel designs that recover a uniform velocity profile. Therefore, the study was re-directed to assess incorporating a water tunnel test section sold by a commercial vendor. The CFD simulations have shown this design produces good flow conditions. A solution for integrating this test section into the existing water tunnel is proposed along with a structural analysis of the necessary extra support structure.