Inside General Motor's Wind Tunnel

[thewayne]

This is a very cool photo series, I'm impressed by the engineering that goes into this thing. I find one thing a little perplexing: they maintain the air at 72f, I wonder if the flow physics are different at different temperatures, and for that matter, different altitudes? Would they benefit from building a similar complex at Cloudcroft, at 8600' ASL? If only I knew someone with a doctorate in physics who could answer such a question... ;-)

I also am curious about the "Do not run fan 193-207 RPM", I wonder if they have a harmonic issue that could damage the facility, and I thought the use of propylene glycol to be quite interesting.

http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/multimedia/2008/09/gallery_windtunnel?slide=1&slideView=3

Comments

[silveradept]

Hrm. An interesting place, the wind tunnel.

Why was the propylene glycol so interesting? Is there something else they could use as "visible smoke" as it were?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I've heard of wind tunnel testing using underwater flow, but I don't remember what the basis for it was. Smoke is easy enough to generate, I just don't get using the propylene glycol.

One of my brother-in-laws used to work at a wind tunnel facility for NASA, but he eventually was squeezed out of the job. That would be pretty cool.

[silveradept]

That would be pretty cool to watch airflows and how they work, and to see how car designs can be adjusted to make them better.