NASA Ames Research To Close Largest Windtunnels

Makarand writes "The world's largest and second largest wind tunnels operated by the NASA Ames Research center will be shutdown after 60 years and may remain shut unless major defense contracts from the Pentagon or the private sectors are available. The largest windtunnel will be fired up for the last time in June for four hours. It will test the parachutes that will land the Mars exploration rovers onto the Red Planet next year. Fewer defense contracts and the increasing use of computer simulations are being cited as reasons for the windtunnels to face closure."

Comments

I�m surprised.

[insecuritiez]

Super computers are great for this sort of research. But I'm surprised that large wind tunnels aren't still needed. The space gained by scrapping the tunnels will be taken up again by climate controlled rooms to house expensive super computers. You'd think that there would be needs where only the largest wind tunnels would do. I guess not any more.

Re:I�m surprised.

[nihilvt]

For the simple stuff, there are wind tunnels. For everything else, there's computers.

Wrong. For simple stuff there are computers, for everything else there's wind tunnels. Just because a computer can model something, does not mean we know how to model it.

This isn't absolutely horrid...

[TWX]

Yeah, I can see how people aren't happy about this. We lose something that can be used under short notice if they're mothballed. We reduce the number of jobs. However, I won't go so far as to call this bad. We aren't likely to forget the technology that goes into these systems, and we can always build them again. If they only mothball them, they might be able to be refurbished and opened again, similar to how the US Navy's Battleship fleet was brought back into service for a time. If they raze them, it won't be as easy, but it'll still be possible.

I'm just glad that the kind of world that built them isn't here. Not that widespread fear of terrorism, suspension of civil rights without public outcry, and widespread imperialism are good, but at least we're unlikely to see the kind of war that ravages an entire continent for a decade, or at least not ours.

Note: I wrote this at almost three in the morning, so if it's a bunch of crap, that's probably why.

recipe for failure

[prgrmr]

More and more science is relying upon computer simulations in the place of Real World testing. Simulations are only as good as the infomation available to create them. If we really knew everything we needed to know about a particular application of scientific theories, we wouldn't need to run simulations, just to verify against a rather long and complex checklist.

very encouraging

[bumblingbee]

i just got my aero degree yesterday (literally)- it's already reassuring to see headlines like this everyday. on a more serious note, i'm continuing to a graduate degree in CFD studies, but it is a huge mistake to get rid of too many unique resources like this. our AIAA chapter just had a guy down from Langley speaking about research in such tunnels, and while I know they are antiquated, so is most prevalent consumer aerospace technology. regardless, the experimental side of aerodynamics is important; many boundary layer methods are based on curve-fits or redundantly-proven data obtained from these experiments. computational aerodynamics gives a (relatively) cheap and widely available way to conduct "testing" which otherwise might not feasible or achievable (i.e. chemically reacting, high temp, hypersonic, unusual reynold's number, or varying composition flows), but errors do occur (approximation, method, roundoff, etc). theoretical aerodynamics gives good background, and provides understanding, a way to interpret results, and intuitive explanations for correcting problems with design. however, experimental aerodynamics are still extremely important. computer simulation and theoretical approaches can only take you so far. as an example, on our senior design project, SLA models were dontated for wind tunnel testing, in addition to validation using CMARC (computer code) and traditional analysis on paper. while the computer simulation provided the most usable information (stability derivatives, lift values), and traditional analysis came next (drag buildups on paper-the computer code was inviscid), the wind tunnel gave alot of information that could not be obtained before flight and with reliability any other way (stall patterns on the wing, neutral point determination, etc). however, the SLA model was much more expensive than the entire rest of our project. wind tunnel testing on a large scale can alleviate errors (nondimensionalization, boundary layer buildup on tunnel walls, measurement error, etc) and provide otherwise unattainable results in some cases. as a pilot and aerospace grad, i wouldn't want to test-fly a vehicle only proven in computer code and on a two-foot scale in a wind tunnel.

Takeoff, Landing, Rotorcraft

[K-Man]

The main reason for testing in the high-reynolds, low speed regime is to make sure the damned thing takes off and lands. It doesn't matter how fast it goes in the air; it still has to take off and land in a reasonable distance. This part of flight isn't the most glamorous, but it's the bread and butter of real-flow testing.

As far as "flying the thing for real", it's very hard to get a 3-D picture of the flow around an aircraft in flight, especially if it isn't flyable yet.