The Poul la Cour Tunnel is operated by DTU Wind Energy, a department at the Technical University of Denmark, DTU.
Two dedicated persons take care of the daily operation and a staff of ten scientists carry out high level research and support the tests and further developments of the wind tunnel.
Aerodynamic test of a NACA63-418 airfoil
The NACA63418 airfoil with a chord length of 1.00m was mounted vertically in the test section and clamp both to the turntable in the floor and in the ceiling. The test section was in the aerodynamic configuration with hard walls mounted. Lift as a function of angle of attack and as a function of drag (polars) were measured to characterize the airfoil. Very good comparison was found comparing the performance with clean surface to other high performing wind tunnels. Also, the airfoil had an exchangeable leading edge and in this way the airfoil was tested with different types of leading edge roughness. This provided a valuable data for further investigations of leading edge roughness in the wind energy sector.
The NACA63018 airfoil with a chord length of 0.90m was mounted vertically in the test section and clamp both to the turntable in the floor and in the ceiling. The test section was in the aeroacoustic configuration with Kevlar walls mounted. Lift as a function of angle of attack and as a function of drag (polars) were measured to characterize the airfoil. The measurement on the symmetric airfoil revealed that the flow in the wind tunnel is symmetric and that the determination of the angle of attack is very precise. The noise was measured using the microphone array with 84 microphones and it showed that noise could be measured with high precision in the range from at least 300Hz to at least 2000Hz. Apart from testing the airfoil in clean condition also tests with add-ons like serrations were carried out.
