Design and Validation of an Aerodynamic Balance for Inmetro's Wind Tunnel
Pollyana de Lima Massari1; Fábio Ouverney Costa2; Maria Helena Farias2
1 Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro - PUC-RJ; 2 National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology - Inmetro
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1217
Resumo
The aviation, automobile and civil industries are increasingly dependent on new tools to know and improve the performance of their projects, since aerodynamic effects can substantially modify the behavior of a model. When an object is immersed in a fluid flow, it's subjected to moments and forces, which are commonly resolved into two components: the drag and lift forces. To analyze these loads it's essential to have a wind tunnel equipped with an aerodynamic balance, which illustrates these efforts in a quantitative way. The aim of this work was to develop and validate an aerodynamic balance, designed and built specifically for the aerodynamic wind tunnel of the Fluid Dynamics Metrology Division from the Brazilian National Institute of Metrology - Inmetro. It was designed using load cells, signal conditioning circuits and a LabVIEW software for data acquisition and processing. To validate the balance, a NACA 2412 wing profile was used. Tests were done for many angles of attack in different speeds, and the lift and drag coefficients were calculated and compared with literary values. The balance proved to be efficient and coherent when subjected to the application of aerodynamic loads. The results showed good concordance with the literature, for most angles of attack.
Palavras-chave: aerodynamic balance; lift force; drag force