A magnetic suspension balance system (MSBS) holds wind-tunnel models in place with magnetic fields instead of wires or struts, eliminating the aerodynamic interference those supports create. This matters because engineers currently struggle to measure the precise forces acting on vehicles like submarines, drones, and re-entry space capsules during complex manoeuvres—especially at high angles of attack or in mixed ballistic-and-aerodynamic flight. The MSBS allows researchers to capture unsteady aerodynamic phenomena that are critical for controlling highly manoeuvrable vehicles, and it enables hardware-in-the-loop simulations where a real vehicle’s control system responds to wind-tunnel forces as if in free flight. The National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF) hub, meanwhile, provides a single point of access to wind tunnels across twelve UK universities, matching researchers to the right facility and expertise. This proposal also funds a Director of Operations and Business Development to expand NWTF’s engagement with industry and government, targeting gaps in higher-technology-readiness-level (TRL5+) testing that university facilities have not yet addressed. If successful, the project will improve the design of drones, submarines, and spacecraft, and establish a sustainable model for sharing expensive experimental infrastructure across the UK.
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NWTF is a distributed facility with the hub at Imperial College and facilities spread across UK universities (nodes) at: Bristol, Birmingham, City, Cranfield, Cambridge, Glasgow, Imperial, Manchester, Loughborough, Oxford, Southampton and Surrey. A novel facility from a new member at the University of Liverpool is included in these proposals. NWTF membership depends on the institutional commitment to support its facilities, its research priorities and co-location of an active research group with the facility. It is not fixed, and membership can reflect any changes to node activity such as low usage or personnel change over a period of some years. Each NWTF+ of the seven proposals describes the motivation for new facilities to be built - one proposal for each cost centre. This proposal contains justifications for the MSBS (at Oxford and Imperial), the NWTF hub (Imperial) plus those for transformational equipment at the other six NWTF institutions. MSBS offer an unrivalled opportunity for making sting-free measurements of time-dependent forces acting on aerodynamic models. Except for the usual challenges associated with Reynolds-number dependence, an MSBS offers the best way of estimating forces on engineering bodies as in 'flight', such as submarines, UAVs and re-entry space capsules. Often such bodies operate in a mixed ballistic / aerodynamically assisted regime. The understanding of the fluid forces is important when the flight is ballistic, and essential when, for example, recovery of a UAV or space capsule depends on an accurate measurement of the operating forces, lift and drag. Measurement of dynamic properties (mass, and inertia of the vehicle) and aerodynamic properties (of the vehicle and its control surfaces) are key to precise control. MSBS offer the opportunity to identify unsteady aerodynamic phenomena that are of paramount importance for control of highly manoeuvrable vehicles operating at high (post-stall) angles of attack or indeed novel vehicle configurations and flapping flight. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations would enable free-flight testing of such vehicles in the wind tunnel. The NWTF hub provides a single point of contact for access to university wind tunnels and researchers enabling connectivity and collaboration by matching researchers from both the UK and abroad to facilities. A general principle is that, even if the converse is possible, movement of the researcher to the facility is more efficient than transport of facility/equipment to different sites. This involves the recognition that a particular site offers more - expertise, training, data storage - than just the facility itself. This proposal extends the role of NWTF by developing interactions with both industry and public-sector institutions such as EPSRC/UKRI and government departments (DBT, DSIT). It has strong links with the Aerospace Technology Institute. These developments require a new outward-facing role, a Director of Operations and Business Development. This is a key organisational role which enables NWTF to be defined as an organisation (possibly as a legal entity) in its own right. The importance of fluid mechanics across all sectors of the UK economy has been established, with NWTF demonstrating a new viable model for the running of, and enabling access to, state-of-the-art facilities. While NWTF has recently made significant contributions to R&D (often involving industry partners), the scope thus far has excluded industry facilities of higher TRL. While university support includes that for training and skills development at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, the benefits of the NWTF model have yet to be fully exploited in all relevant sectors of the economy, most notably industry. Through its Director of Operations, NWTF has initiated meetings to discuss the construction of new and the development of existing facilities that meet perceived gaps in the TRL5+ landscape.
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