The Role of Wind Tunnel Experiments inCFDValidation

Abstract

An attempt to answer the question of the current and future role of wind tunnel experiments in CFD validation is derived by using a selection of typical examples of suited experiments in the field of unsteady aerodynamics at subsonic flow regimes. Such examples concern 2D/3D flows over airfoils, cylinders, as well as tapered wings, and illustrate the three‐folded role of experiments. The three folds consist in providing a detailed description of the physics of complex flow phenomena, constituting reliable databases, and establishing reference comparisons for the CFD validation, both on global and local aerodynamic fields. Some points of interest, for instance integrating the use of wind tunnel experiments and CFD approaches, are also discussed including the evaluation of uncertainties in experimental and numerical results and requirements to yield efficient experimental databases.

Measurements of Aerodynamic Performance of the Fuselage of a Hybrid Multi-Rotor Aircraft with Autorotation Capability

“…The developed numerical models are often validated by wind tunnel testing [5]. In the wind tunnel, it is possible to perform tests on objects used in various sectors of the economy: automotive transport [6]- [8], railroad [9], [10] or wind energy [11]- [13].…”

Effects of nonuniform incident velocity on a dynamic wind turbine airfoil

“…For combinations of both an airfoil oscillation and a freestream velocity oscillation, previous researchers have presented results applicable mostly to helicopters and maneuverable wings. For wind turbines, the effect of a nonuniform incident velocity is usually ignored although it plays an important role since the amplitude of the velocity oscillation may be high. …”