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Multidisciplinary Experimental Fluid Dynamics Lab
This facility is located at J.J. Pickle Research Campus of The University of Texas at Austin. A plan view of the facility's primary features are illustrated in Figure 1 and was developed in collaboration with Drs. Charles E. Tinney and Jayant Sirohi. The general design of this facility came together during the Fall-2008 and Spring-2009 academic semester with contruction commencing shortly after on June 1, 2009. This new research facility is designed to operate as an open circuit wind tunnel with a 4ft.(W)×4ft.(H)×6ft.(L) variable test section completely enclosed within a fully anechoic chamber. Interior dimensions of the chamber (wedge tip to wedge tip) are ~19ft(L)×~15ft(W)×12ft(H) while all surfaces (walls, floor and ceiling), are treated with melamine fire-retardant wedges designed to absorb 99% of sound above ~100Hz.
A complete overview of this facility has been assembled into a series of documents that can be obtained below.
1.) Facility Overview: UT-PRC-A-Overview_2011.pdf.
2.) Anechoic chamber design and framing: UT-PRC-B-Framing_2011.pdf.
3.) Design and characterization of sound treatment for anechoic chamber: UT-PRC-C-Wedge_2011.pdf.
4.) Overview of high-pressure air system: UT-PRC-D-PresSym_2011.pdf
An acoustic characterization is scheduled to commence in the coming months and will employ ISO-3745 and MIL-STD-1474D testing standards in order to complement a separate series of impedance tube measurements conducted in October of 2009. These impedance tube tests were performed to quantify the normal incident sound absorption coefficient of the acoustic wedge and was conducted by Jeff Schmitt, Mike Black, Einar Ristroph and John Phillips at ETS-Lindgren, a privately owned company located in the Austin area. The results of this are shown in Figure 2 and can downloaded from the the above document: UT-PRC-C-Wedge.pdf.
Figure 1: Plan view of Multidisciplinary Experimental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
 
Figure 2: (L) Low and (R) high frequency normal incidence absorption coefficient from tests conducted at ETS-Lindgren, ~October 2009.
Figure 3: Timothy Valdez and Guadalupe Garza nearing completion of the wind tunnel exhaust duct, ~August 2010.
Figure 4: Installation of the 500HP vane-axial-fan...the backbone to this wind tunnel. Special thanks to Blake Stasney and Dennis Fillip from the Ferguson Lab for their assistance during this part of the project, ~October 2010.
Figure 5: Installing the quad rotor test stand, ~May 2011.
Figure 6: The nozzle jet rig installed in the fully anechoic chamber, ~August 2011
Special thanks to a number of outstanding students and technicians who have made this facility come to life:
Guadalupe "Lupe" Garza
Jonathon Bruss
Timothy Valdez
Christopher McCormick
James Stephenson
Miguel Ibarra
Jeremy Albright
Craig Dolder
Woutijn Baars
Linley Duke
Pablo Cortez
Edward Zihlman
Travis Crooks
David Gray
Ricardo Palacios
Ulisses Hernandez
Antonio Paramo
Christopher Rangel
Kevin Sinkar
Dr. Jeremy Jagodzinski
Blake Stasney
Dennis Fillip
Brian Donald
Alexis Avram
Lauren Cooper
We would also like to acknowledge the outstanding help from the Jeff Schmitt, Mike Black, Einar Ristroph and John Phillips at ETS-Lindgren's Acoustic Research Laboratory.
Low-speed wind tunnel in WRW
This is a closed-circuit, open test-section wind tunnel located in the basement of WRW. The test section is equipped with a three axis traverse. A sting balance allows for force measurements to be performed.
Inlet centerline velocity: 20ft/s to 80ft/s
Test section dimensions: 36in x 22in x 30in (W x H x L).
Turbulence intensities measured at the inlet: u/Uj<0.5% RMS
 
Eidetics Model 1520 Water tunnel in WRW
This is a closed-circuit water tunnel located in WRW-01.
Inlet centerline velocity: 0 to 1ft/s (30.48cm/s)
Test section dimensions: 15in. x 20in. x 60in. (38.1cm x 50.8cm x 152.4cm).
Turbulence intensities: u/Uj=<1%.
Instruments: 2-component Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) from Dantec Dynamics
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