Wind Tunnel Blockage Corrections for Propellors

Abstract

Early in the twentieth century, Glauert developed a still widely used correction methodology for blockage in wind tunnels. Since then, several improvements to this method as well as new methods have been developed. For this thesis, powered propeller data was gathered in two wind tunnels of significantly different size. The Glauert correction, Hackett-Wilsden correction, and one of the newest corrections, developed by Srensen and Mikkelsen, was applied to the data. Additionally, predictions of the pressure change in the tunnel due to the energy of the propeller were calculated. The data, when corrected using each method, are essentially identical up to a thrust coefficient of approximately 1.2. Beyond this value, the correction data begins to diverge. The pressure predictions are inaccurate when compared to experimental data and it is suggested that this be an area for further study.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2007
Accession Number
AD1005600

Entities

People

  • Ryan E. Fitzgerald

Organizations

  • University of Maryland

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Base Pressure
  • Boundary Layer
  • Data Acquisition
  • Data Reduction
  • Dynamic Pressure
  • Experimental Data
  • Free Stream
  • Measurement
  • Power Supplies
  • Pressure Distribution
  • Pressure Measurement
  • Pressure Signatures
  • Static Pressure
  • Test Facilities
  • Wind Tunnel Tests
  • Wind Tunnels

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Fluid Dynamics.