Wind Tunnel Facility

Made possible through the generous support of the Emil Buehler Perpetual Trust, the Wind Tunnel Facility is a $10M state-of-the-art, low-speed tunnel located at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

Celebrating the legacy of Emil Buehler, whose many engineering and philanthropic contributions include the development of Mach 3 wind tunnel technology, the Embry-Riddle 6-by-4 feet Low-Speed Wind Tunnel (LSWT) is a large, state-of-the-art, closed-return type, atmospheric pressure, subsonic wind tunnel.

The wind tunnel has a nominally rectangular test section of 6-by-4 feet with tapered corner fillets. The test section is 12 feet long. Flow speeds of up to 420 ft/s (286 mph) can be obtained in the test section with the 1,200 horsepower (0.9 MW) motor driving its 8-foot-diameter fan. Measured turbulence levels in the test section are uniformly less than 0.2% of flow speed.

The test section is equipped with a comprehensive set of complementary instrumentation, all providing a set of powerful measurement capabilities. The test section includes:

• A high-precision, six-component balance mounted on a seismically isolated concrete foundation to accurately measure three forces and three moments
• A full three-axis instrumentation traverse that can be used with appropriate probes to examine the entire test section
• A high-resolution multi-channel pressure measurement systems
• Advanced optical flow diagnostic systems, including Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV)