Applied Aerodynamics Laboratory

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Western Michigan University's Applied Aerodynamics Laboratory, located at the Kalamazoo International Airport, is operated by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The laboratory houses the Advanced Design Wind Tunnel, the Small Wind Tunnel (SWT), and the GM Wind Tunnel (to be set up) and a small turbine engine test cell. The Applied Aerodynamics Laboratory conducts research in measurement techniques and experimental and applied aerodynamics. The lab has close collaborations with 51��'s Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and other related departments at 51��.

The selected topics include the following:

Pressure and temperature sensitive paints in aerodynamics
Fluid flow and optical flow: general framework for global flow diagnostics
Geometric and kinematic aspects of image-based measurements
Global luminescent oil-film skin friction meter
Skin friction topology in complex separated flows
Extraction of skin friction fields from surface flow visualizations as an inverse problem
Analytical and numerical inverse methods for determining heat flux in TSP measurements in hypersonic wind tunnels
Videogrammetry and vision for aerospace applications
Airfoil/wing flow control using trailing edge devices
Aeroship: hybrid fight platform for personal, near-space and planetary flight
Scaling analysis of propeller-driven mars aircraft
Flapping flight: scaling, geometry, kinematics, aerodynamics, design and testing\
Wind oscillator for power generation
Fluid mechanics of deposition of micron droplets on wall in turbulent flows