Welcome to All Sensors “Put the Pressure on Us” blog. This blog brings out pressure sensor aspects in a variety of applications inspired by headlines, consumer and industry requirements, market research, government activities, and you.
Pressure in a Wind Tunnel
With their pioneering efforts in powered flight on December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers had to take their airplane to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to prove that it worked. The craft initially flew at an airspeed of 34 mph. However, before that day in December, they had performed air tunnel testing. Their 1901 wind tunnel design provided an airflow of about 30 mph and balance instruments that they designed and built measured lift and drag to test their concepts on portions of the design.
Today, wind tunnels are essential to test any aircraft or modifications to an aircraft prior to an actual flight test. With classifications of low-speed or high-speed (as well as subsonic, transonic, supersonic, hypersonic and hypervelocity), air velocity in a closed-circuit design is controlled by changing the speed of the rotating fans or by adjusting the angle of the fan blades. Other measurements include pressure, temperature, and humidity of the air as well as force.
In 2018, wind tunnel testing was performed on a model Vimana aircraft design created from Indian Sanskrit writings over 1,800 years ago. A model pressure of -0.055” H2O was measured in a 56 mile per hour wind and force measurements indicated that the design was very stable.
Wind tunnel testing of an aircraft design from ancient Indian writings.
Source: YouTube (Ancient Aliens: Vimana Model Aircraft Experiment (Season 12, Episode 11))
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