Focusing on the digital trarsformation of wind tunnel tests
in response to the demand for the integration of physical wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics(CFD) numerical tests
this study designed and developed a digital wind tunnel system based on the NF-3 airfoil wind tunnel at Northwestern Polytechnical University(NWPU). The system replicates the experimental NF-3 wind tunnel model
simulates the control process of experimental wind speed
and enables automated execution of experiments in a virtual wind tunnel. To achieve automation and operational deployment
the digital wind tunnel system uses customized grid templates for the automatic generation of both background and model grids. These grids are assembled using overset grid technology
and low-speed precondition techniques are employed to accelerate the convergence of the compressible flow solver. This paper firstly introduces the basic component sections and the control strategy of the physical wind tunnel. Subsequently
it elaborates on the design of the digital wind tunnel system
including the automatic generation of airfoil grid
automated assembly of wind tunnel and airfoil grids
flow solver methodologies
and virtual control strategies for digital wind tunnel. Finally
this research conducts a virtual experiment in the digital wind tunnel utilizing the standard wind turbine air-foil DU91-W2-250
and compared with traditional CFD simulated results. The results demonstrate that the system can effectively support digital wind tunnel experiments
capturing spanwise separated flow region variations that are absent in conventional quasi-2D simulations and the results align better with physical experiments.
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