5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel - Public domain drawing

Schematic drawing of 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel. Carl Wenzinger and Thomas Harris describe the tunnel in NACA TR No. 387: "The tunnel has an open jet, an open test chamber, and a closed return passage. ... The air passes through the test section in a downward direction then enters the exit cone and passes through the first set of guide vanes to a propeller. From here it passes, by way of the return passage, through the successive sets of guide vanes at the corners, then through the honeycomb, and finally through the entrance cone." In an earlier report, NACA TR 387, Carl Wenzinger and Thomas Harris supply this description of the tunnel: "The vertical open-throat wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ... was built mainly for studying the spinning characteristics of airplane models, but may be used as well for the usual types of wind-tunnel tests. A special spinning balance is being developed to measure the desired forces and moments with the model simulating the actual spin of an airplane. Satisfactory air flow has been attained with a velocity that is uniform over the jet to within 0.5%. The turbulence present in the tunnel has been compared with that of several other tunnels by means of the results of sphere drag tests and was found to average well with the values of those tunnels. Included also in the report are comparisons of results of stable autorotation and of rolling-moment tests obtained both in the vertical tunnel and in the old horizontal 5-foot atmospheric tunnel." The design of a vertical tunnel having a 5-foot diameter jet was accordingly started by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1928. Actual construction of the new tunnel was completed in 1930, and the calibration tests were then made.

NASA Identifier: L5385