1Department of Mechanical Engineering, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM 87801, USA
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA
*Corresponding Author.
This paper presents an examination of the velocity scaling question for model testing in an open wind tunnel and utilizes CFD calculations to support conclusions which are drawn. The application considered presently is the inner courtyard, or patio area of an actual structure which is subject to free stream wind, and the parameter of interest is the resulting air velocity and pattern at various locations in the courtyard area. To support this study, data for the full scale was collected. Similarly, wind tunnel testing was conducted at free stream velocities which bracketed a typical wind velocity range and the velocities at the comparable 5 locations in the recirculation region were measured. A 1:93 scale model was used for the wind-tunnel model experiments. The CFD code Star-CD was used to predict air velocities at each of these 5 locations for both full scale and model scale subject to their respective free stream velocities. Conclusions reached are that over a representative range of velocities, the model measurements provide a meaningful reflection of the full scale behavior, so that wind tunnel testing can be performed at the same free stream velocity as the full scale case. Results also show that the CFD code Star-CD provides a high quality predictive capability for both scales.
CFD Modeling, Velocity Field Measurement, Scaling, Wind-Tunnel Simulation
