Numerical Evaluation of Contemporary Low-Speed Wind Tunnel Contraction Designs

A potential flow and viscous flow solver have been coupled to produce a robust computational tool useful for the design of low-speed wind tunnel contractions. After validation against published numerical and experimental wind tunnel data, the method is used to evaluate recently proposed contraction shapes from the literature. The results show that, on balance, a fifth-order polynomial provides a good design solution. Newly proposed shapes will either improve available flow area at the expense of contraction outlet flow uniformity or vice versa.