OA-002 / Project
May 2025 – September 2025
Modular Desktop Wind Tunnel
Designed and built a working wind tunnel from scratch over 80+ hours of CAD.
Designed, analyzed, and fabricated a modular desktop wind tunnel with nozzle, diffuser, and test-section geometry refined through 80+ hours of SolidWorks CAD.
Role
Designer and builder
Organization
Personal project
Test record
0+hours of SolidWorks CAD behind the flow path
- Objective
- Build a small, reconfigurable test platform for lift experiments and flow visualization.
- Setup
- Intake cone contracting the flow into the test section
- Honeycomb flow straighteners on both sides of the test section
- LED bar lighting the test section and a platform for mounting the model
- Method
- Refined nozzle, diffuser, and test-section geometry in SolidWorks against aerodynamic literature
- Built the tunnel as seven separate parts
- Fabricated and assembled it as a desktop rig
Designing the tunnel
I designed, analyzed, and fabricated a modular desktop wind tunnel. The nozzle, diffuser, and test-section geometry were refined over 80+ hours of SolidWorks CAD, informed by aerodynamic literature, so the intake, test section, and exhaust worked together as one flow path.
Inside the tunnel
Cut in half along its centerline, the tunnel shows the flow path the CAD was built around. Air enters through the intake cone, which contracts it toward the test section, then passes a honeycomb connector that straightens it before it reaches the model.
The test section carries an LED bar to light the model and a platform to mount it on, with a second honeycomb connector downstream before the exhaust tube. The whole assembly is about 71 cm long and 20 cm (7.87 in) across, and it is built from seven separate parts, which is what makes it modular.
Building and testing
The modular design let me fabricate the tunnel as a small, reconfigurable test platform for lift experiments and flow visualization, a physical rig for trying the aerodynamics I'd been reading about.
Documents
Wind Tunnel Report