Wind Tunnel/Howard Community College/Spring 2012/BJM550

Problem Statement
Design, Develop, and Build a Wind Tunnel for testing other projects.

Team Members

 * Brittany Simon
 * Justin Jones
 * Michael Walker

Summary
We started this project by first researching designs for wind tunnels through multiple databases to find which designs are the most efficient, simplistic, and realistic for our needs in this project. We found that we had to build a wind tunnel that incorporated an air compressing section with a honeycomb to reduce air buffeting, a test section where the wind velocity is at its highest for testing objects, and a diffuser which reduces the wind speed and releases it. We also found that we should pull the air through instead of pushing it to reduce air buffeting. We then began setting up the fan assembly through an esc and an arduino board. this would give us the best control over the velocity of the fan and would allow simple operation. Following this we began building the wind tunnel in sections. We built the air compressor and diffuser from scratch to the specifications we found necessary for proper operation. We also began designing the test section which will be made of plexi glass and ways to to measure wind speed as well as be able to see its movement around the solid objects.

Story
''Tell a detailed story of the project. Describe how split up, what the obstacles were, what testing was done, what informal decisions were made, what assumptions were made, what the results were.''

Decision List
Decsion to make the air blown through the wind tunnel by the fan, or blown out the wind tunnel and sucked through by the fan. We decided to pull the air through.

Material List

 * Adruino Uno
 * Hextronik HXT 80 Electronic Speed Controller
 * Brushless Motor
 * Converted computer power supply

1 4'x 4' sheet of 1/2inch thick particle board. $10.00  2000 8.5 inch inflexible straws $20.00
 * Purchases made

This is an arbitrary condition. It is not yet known what may need to be purchased in order to complete this project. Depending on what is needed to determine wind speed and to create a way to see air stream further purchases would be logical.
 * Future Purchases

Software List

 * Arduino 1.0 Programming Software
 * Google Chrome

Time
35 hours

Tutorials
Arduino/ESC_Programming Was updated

Next Steps
The next group will need to be able to find a way to measure wind speed inside the tunnel, find a way to observe the wind patterns inside the tunnel using dust,toner,smoke, etc. create a simple on off mechanism for the fan,esc,arduino system ,and finish the test section by finding a way to safely cut plexi glass. Some of the current problems include, making the fan system able to run off of outlet power instead of an external power source, making all the straws adhere together in the honeycomb so that they do not jostle during testing, and being able to cut plexi glass.