National Wind Tunnel Facility+ (NWTF+)

The EPSRC National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF) is focused on providing access to world class and unique wind tunnels for UK academia and industry. Since 2012, NWTF has provided a distributed network of large scale and well instrumented facilities to the benefit of UK Aerodynamics sector. Support from RCUK has ensured that the aerospace sector has continued to thrive, but a decade later, new wind tunnels are required to ensure the UK has future-proofed capabilities which match the changing technology, environmental conditions, and sovereign requirements of this highly innovative sector. To this end, the present application proposes the invention and development of three new wind tunnels at the Oxford Thermofluids Institute (OTI). 1. The Icing at Altitude Tunnel allows ice accretion conditions for aircraft and aero-engines to be replicated. Both climate change and technology introduced for ultraefficient aero-engines have made current and planned engines more susceptible to glaciated ice ingestion than ever before. A range of fundamental research questions, addressing the complexity arising from combined heat transfer to accretion and shedding phenomena, need to be answered. The industry also suffers from a paucity of robust instruments capable of detecting ice at flight conditions. Furthermore, high TRL testing and the evaluation of components which need to meet certification requirements is also required. The proposed tunnel will match reduced pressure conditions of civil aircraft, flow speeds, humidity and injection of both super-cooled liquid water and ice crystals. This tunnel will be a first for the UK, where icing conditions can only be currently replicated at unrepresentative sea level conditions. 2. The Hypersonics Quiet Tunnel will replicate the low-noise (low turbulence) environment found in flight for high speed vehicles, such as re-entry space craft or hypersonic passenger planes of the future. Knowledge here is important due to the increased heating and shear stress once a boundary layer transitions. This process can only be replicating in a low noise wind tunnel. The implementation requires appropriate settling chambers and nozzle bleed system to ensure the quiet operation. The proposed tunnel will operate from Mach 5 to 7 with a test component size of approximately 300 mm. This will be the first hypersonic quiet tunnel in Europe. 3. The LH2 Enabled Wind Tunnel will enable research into heat exchanger and thermal system performance using a selection of relevant heat transfer fluids, as well as cryogenic liquids including liquid hydrogen. This will enable research for aerospace technologies relevant to thermal systems for battery, hybrid, fuel cell and liquid hydrogen aircraft propulsion system envisioned for sustainable aviation. The facility will be a European first and will include a large test section (approximately 0.5m x 0.5m) capable of running continuously at Mach 0.5 - 0.6 able to test full engine and airframe thermal system components at engine scale.