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Adaptive Wall Wind Tunnel T´-3

Adaptive wall tunnel T'3

The adaptive wall tunnel T’3 was built by ONERA as the pilot facility for the cryogenic, transonic, pressurized tunnel T2 of ONERA located in Toulouse and it has now been relocated at VKI. It has stainless steel walls with a 5 mm thickness of internal cork insulation for cryogenic operation.  The original insulated test section is 100 mm wide, 600 mm long and 117 mm high at inlet with flexible top and bottom walls.  Although originally designed at ONERA for transonic operation (11400 RPM fan speed, 125 kW mechanical power, Mach 0.8, 4 bar pressure, 120 K temperature with liquid nitrogen injection), it is being used at VKI under ambient conditions with a 7.5 kW motor, yielding Mach 0.23 (80 m/s) in the test section.

A new VKI-developed test section is available, with increased length (800 mm) and flexibility (130 mm total deflection) for increased streamlining capability.  A method based on the Cauchy integral technique is available to obtain interference-free test conditions on airfoils up to 200 mm chord length at Reynolds numbers between 2 x 105 and 1 x 106.

Both test sections are equipped with multiple pressure taps on top and bottom walls. Pressure acquisition through scanning valves is performed using specific data reduction and wall adjustment programs.

 

Adaptive wall tunnel T'3

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