We are delighted to be with our Research Intern, James Cleverley from the University of Southampton here at Evolution Measurement where he has started a 10-week internship in experimental aerodynamics. The project, in collaboration with the University and James’ supervisor, Professor Bharath Ganapathisubramani, involves James designing and producing a table-top wind tunnel to be used to demonstrate Evolution Measurement’s aerodynamic instruments at events.

Following the initial briefing with Paul Crowhurst, Evolution Measurement’s Managing Director, James met with his university supervisor to work on initial designs.

Independently, James has self-learned the CAD programme Fusion 360 to be used in the project, researched other examples of similar tunnels, and read various papers and books about wind tunnel design. All this has led to an initial calculation stage, where based on the requirements discussed with Evolution Measurement, a parametric CAD model and detailed excel sheet with calculations are being used to determine the optimum fan and controls to use in the tunnel, a key component in the project.

Other considerations that have been made are related to the manufacturing methods, materials, and test article location and management have been considered and discussed, and further development in these areas will be the next stages in this project.

The overall plan is to have this project completed by the early autumn and further updates will follow in this exciting project!