The University of Canterbury Aerodynamics and Optics laboratoriesare unique in offering facilities for a wide range of studies in experimental fluid mechanics, including Sports Aerodynamics, Vehicle Aerodynamics, Atmospheric Boundary Layer studies, Aero-acoustics studies, and hydrodynamics.
The Aero lab houses two subsonic wind tunnels, the Closed-Circuit Wind Tunnel achieving wind speeds up to 200 km/h, and a low-noise Open-Circuit Wind Tunnel (one of only two in Australasia) accommodating multiple nozzles with conditioned flow of up to 140 km/h. Turbulence intensities are ~1% and the velocity is uniform to within 5%.
The facilities have a range of modern fully calibrated instrumentation with user-friendly manuals and readily-available expertise to streamline access and operation of the equipment. These include the 6-axis force balance, pressure probes and transducers, smoke generators, and a 6-channel hot wire instrument for air velocity and turbulence measurements. There are a range of microphones and attachments for measuring noise in airflows. There are automated traversing systems for moving sensors through a grid of measurement points.
The Open Circuit Wind Tunnel is equipped with a platform for aerodynamic measurements involving athletes and sports equipment.
The Optics lab is equipped with a fully instrumented and interfaced Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) setup for non-invasive quantitative flow measurements, a Schlieren imaging system for studding acoustic and inhomogeneous flow density fields, and a high speed camera for imaging up to 1 million frames per second.
These facilities are used for teaching fluid mechanics, supporting Final Year Projects and postgraduate research, and are available to external users on a fee basis.
Available equipment includes:
- Aeronautical closed-circuit wind tunnel - 1.25m x 0.91m with a 2.5m long working section, max. air speed 55m/s (200kph).
- Atmospheric boundary-layer wind tunnel - 1.23m x 1.26m with a 13.1m long working section, max. air speed 26m/s (94kph) - with low noise working section.
- Six- and three- axis force balances
- Various pressure measurement systems
- Dantec miniCTA hotwire anemometry system with associated software (single and 3-axis probes)
- Smoke flow visualisation equipment.
- Various air-flow anemometers and manometers.
- StereoPIV measurement equipment with a 120mJ double pulse Nd:YAG laser, 2x TSI 4MP cameras, 2x Dantec 2MP cameras.
- Photron SA5 high speed camera.
- UAV rotor thrust rig.
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