Engineering Now 2009
 
 

Aerospace and Ocean Engineering (AOE)

Launching a major facelift, not just a few nips and tucks

Equipment as old as Methuselah — okay, maybe not quite — is being replaced and the incoming engineering classes will be reaping major benefits.

Topping the list for replacement is the historical open jet wind tunnel that takes up much of the space in Virginia Tech's Randolph Hall basement. Sometime in the 1930s, speculated Chris Hall, head of the AOE department, this wind tunnel was built for model testing to serve as an educational laboratory for the Engineering Experiment Station, then under the directorship of Earle Norris. At that time, the acquisition of this training tool was a coup, trumpeted in 1937 in the Bulletin of Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Later, this facility was moved to the newly constructed Randolph Hall and used successfully to test the aerodynamics of the historic Mackinac Bridge of Michigan, the third longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened in 1957.

But after many decades of use, the old wind tunnel's issues started to outweigh its educational value. It is not alone. Other antiquated pieces of equipment that Virginia Tech's AOE undergraduates have used for decades, such as a pressure measurement system and the smoke visualization wind tunnel, also concerned Hall and the other AOE faculty members. This latter piece generated streams of smoke so students could see the airflows around various models. The problem was that the smoke is generated by vaporizing kerosene, and the resulting fumes had to be vented out of the windowless basement of Randolph Hall. “Our new smoke tunnel will operate on water vapor,” an environmentally sounder way of exposing the students to the concept of shapes of wings and blades, Hall explained.

“We are trying to put a new face on everything,” Hall said. When deciding on how to best spend the engineering fee money dedicated to AOE, “we met with our juniors and seniors to obtain their input. They raised a lot of concerns, even about little things, such as tools for a student shop, and even getting printers,” Hall said.

When the classes resumed in fall 2009, the students found a new research-quality open jet wind tunnel surrounded by new state-of-the-art instrumentation and equipment, including a computer-controlled traverse, a pressure scanning system, and the new water vapor flow visualization facility. The entire laboratory will have also been renovated and reorganized into a much better teaching space.

“No one is a bigger fan of the engineering lab fee than I,” said William Devenport, AOE assistant department head for laboratory facilities. “The lab fee has provided the inspiration for these improvements and the means to make them a reality.” He also noted other improvements that have been made possible through the lab fee, including an LCD video system that undergraduate students now use to operate the department's supersonic wind tunnel. “We decided it was not safe for people to be in the lab when the facility is in operation, but with the video system, they can control the wind tunnel and see what goes on inside the lab. In general, we are raising the level of experience the undergraduates can have, and the upgrades are also having a positive effect on the research laboratories.”

And because of students' suggestions, AOE now has a model-building shop. “The students told us they were unable to access the Ware Lab (as it is already filled with student projects), so we found the perfect spot to remodel for them — a room next to the loading dock and our machine shop,” Devenport said.

The improvements brought by the lab fee have been augmented by improvements in student access to the college's large-scale commercial facility — the Stability Wind Tunnel. “We are significantly increasing the undergraduates' use of the wind tunnel, both inside and outside required classes. Student groups can now write proposals to obtain wind tunnel time.

“We are just beginning to see the impact of the engineering fee. It will help with our nationally renowned program,” Devenport added. AOE currently ranks 10th and 16th in the nation at the undergraduate and graduate levels, respectively.