Design and Fabrication of Low-Speed Water Tunnel for Flow Visualization

Abstract

The Hydrodynamic Water Tunnel serves as an equipment that helps to study the behavior of hydrodynamic forces, boundary layer, vortex shedding, lift-drag forces generated due to submerged objects. This paper presents the design and fabrication of the water tunnel’s key components and the methodologies involved in fabrication, for example, design of baffles, Pump, Test Section, and the Diffuser/Nozzle. The Water Tunnel has an observation chamber of Width Height and Length of 270 mm, 260 mm, 9144 mm respectively with flow velocity of 0.7 m/s. The pump selected for the Water Tunnel is a centrifugal water pump (10 hp) with a pumping capacity of 2200 LPM at a maximum head of 120 ft. This Water Tunnel will be used for the testing of various specimens to determine their flow patterns, stability, and hydrodynamics. Experimentation has been performed using on this Water Tunnel with a test rig of heat exchanger tube bundles with cross-arrangement to study the behavior of Fluid Elastic Instability generated because of fluid structure interaction.