Button to Display Data Form Button to Display Data Form Button to Display Graph Form Button to Display Data Form Button to Display Data Form
Airfoil images courtesy of The Franklin Institute Online - www.fi.edu. Tunnel and balance images courtesy of Wright State University via OhioLINK Digital Media Center.

This simulation works exactly the same way that the Wright Brother's 1901 wind tunnel worked. The layout of the simulator shows an overhead view into the tunnel test section at the upper left. You can choose to test the wing model on either the lift balance or the drag balance by clicking on the appropriate label in the view window at the upper left. Clicking on the words "Wind Tunnel", "Lift Balance", or "Drag Balance" will also display pictures of the actual machines. In the upper middle part of the simulator is the output dial. This dial is the only output from the program. For the lift balance, the dial gives the angle between the brackets holding the model and the reference drag plates. The sine of this angle is the major portion of the lift coefficient used in the lift equation as understood by the Wright Brothers. For the drag balance, the dial gives the angle which the model is deflected by the flow through the tunnel. The tangent of this angle plus the angle of attack gives the drag coefficient divided by the lift coefficient. To the right of the output dial are the sequence buttons which take you through the operation of the tunnel. The white button is the current operation, and you must push the red/white buttons before doing the procedure.

The brothers selected the shape of the models to study the various design variables which affect wing performance.

NOTICE: In this simple program we are using a very simplified analysis to compute the lift. We have applied some correction factors to account for the wing stall which occurs at high angles of attack. If you compare the results of this program with actual data from the Wright experiments of 1901, you will notice some numerical differences, but we have tried to properly model the trends of the data.