Wind Tunnel Design Team Takes 2nd Place at AIAA Student Conference

AME’s student wind tunnel design team recently accepted an award in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the weekend of April 13th at the student conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Representing the team, Karen Martinez Soto traveled to the conference to accept the 2nd place award on behalf of her team for the AIAA region IV team technical paper category. In addition to Soto, her teammates include Samuel Jett, Orhan Roksa, and Marko Mestrovic, who are all undergraduate students at AME.                                         Their paper highlights the design, fabrication, and uniformity testing of a low-budget, wind tunnel. With a budget of only $5,000, their group examined characteristics of wind tunnels through computer models and they continued their study further by building a tunnel of their own to test other aerodynamic components. The focus of their design and construction for this tunnel, according to their paper, serves to provide “a robust platform for development and testing of many aerodynamics components, including UAV propellers.” Congratulations to Karen, Samuel, Orhan, and Marko for their impressive efforts to design and test a wind tunnel and their 2nd place award from the AIAA student conference.

Link to the team’s paper: design-fabrication-uniformity (1)-1ghgtt2