Facilities and Equipment – Winds, Fluids, and Experiments Lab

Facilities

UTD Mobile wind LiDAR station

A mobile wind Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) station has been developed at the WindFluX Lab for a facilitated deployment of two scanning Doppler wind LiDARs. A WindCube 200S LiDAR by Leosphere and a Streamline LiDAR XR by Halo Photonics are connected to a workstation, which allows remote control, monitoring, programming and setup of the wind LiDARs. Therefore, the mobile wind LiDAR station is a remote sensing system that enables performing continuous wind turbulence measurements. The remote-control unit includes a field computer with external hard-drive, modem for 4G network connection with two different providers, web-switch for power control of the unit itself and the two LiDARs, one datalogger CR3000 by Campbell scientific for data acquisition from atmospheric instruments, fans for temperature control of the unit, UPS and surge switch to prevent power shocks on the unit and LiDARs.

This facility provides also ancillary atmospheric instruments, such as several sonic anemometers CSAT3 by Campbell Scientific, thermistors in order to characterize heat and momentum fluxes needed for the characterization of the atmospheric conditions. The deployment of the wind LiDARs is performed through a truck and trailer devoted and equipped to perform field measurements. Two computers with wide screens are provided for on-site data post-processing and flow visualizations. Moreover, general tools for field deployment are present in the station.

Boundary Layer and Subsonic Wind Tunnel

Specifications of the Boundary Layer Test Section:

• Dimensions: 2.8 m x 2.1 m tall x 30 m long;• Cross-section area 5.88 m^2;• Maximum velocity 35 m/s;• Turbulence intensity < 0.1 %.

Specifications of the Subsonic Test Section:

• 1.8 m wide x 2.1 m high x 4 m long;• Maximum wind speed 50 m/s;

Contraction specifications:

• Contraction ratio 5:1;• Largest edge of 5.1 m;• 5th order polynomial lateral profiles.Single stage axial flow fan with power of 255 kW;Homogeneous heat exchanger;Honeycomb and 5 turbulence screens.