Development of a Subsonic Wind Tunnel in UTP - Selection of the Flow Visualization Device

The report is written to present the work done on the Final Year Project entitled
'Development of a Subsonic Wind Tunnel in UTP - Selection of the Flow Visualization
Device'. Themain objective of the project is to perform research anddevelop a subsonic
wind tunnel in UTP and also to study and perform the flow visualization experiments on
the developed wind tunnel. Without a wind tunnel, the learning and understanding
process on topics related to flow behavior become more difficult. Also, since the wind
tunnel's working medium, air is not visible under normal conditions, flow visualization
method is essential to make the flow visible. Those are the problems that trigger the idea
to initiate this project. This project will cover scope of works on the research of the
available wind tunnel design criteria, research on flow visualization methods, the
selection of the most suitable design recommendation on wind tunnel, selection of most
suitable flow visualization method, the design and fabrication of the wind tunnel and
model to be used, the experimental procedure of the selected flow visualization method,
materials required to perform the experiments and also results and findings from the
performed flow visualization experiments. Various methods used in undertaking this
project in order to obtain the best results, which include project planning, researching,
weekly meetings with supervisor and technicians, and performing the experiments. A lot
of findings have been obtained from this project. The findings obtained are in term of
wind tunnel dimensions and final design, materials to fabricate the wind tunnel, fan
selection result for designed wind tunnel, flow visualization experiment procedures,
materials required for experiments, model and test section design, findings from both
flow visualization experiments, coat estimation and conceptual design of a smoke
generator. From the designed wind tunnel, the air speed inside test section is 12 m/s with
test section cross sectional area of 30cm x 30 cm. Byproper work, this project can yield
a great output. This project can bring a lot of benefit to all parties involved if done
successfully.