The better quality measurement data produced by the new wind tunnel cannot only be used to directly investigate reality, but also to validate Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models. In the case of atmospheric flows (e.g. examining pollutant dispersion in case of an accident), most of the field measurements are not representative since the boundary conditions for the measurement (wind velocity, direction) do not stay constant or cannot be measured in full detail for the necessary amount of time. Therefore, a wind tunnel experiment is much more suitable in these cases for validation purposes, as the boundary conditions are well known and can be measured.
Numerical simulations of atmospheric flows with great computational domain and large Reynolds numbers require great computational capacity. In other words, it needs a multi-core computer and a software license capable of handling it.
However, a numerical simulation validated with wind tunnel experiments offers a much wider range of possibilities than solely the wind tunnel measurements. The whole 3D flow field can be investigated, thermal effects can be considered and optimization algorithms can be implemented.
Therefore, we are planning to acquire a high performance 16-24 core workstation and an ANSYS FLUENT CFD software package (capable of multi-core, parallelized simulations) for the CFD simulations of the atmospheric flows examined in the wind tunnel.
Establishment of an Atmospheric Flow Laboratory 