DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND EVALUATION OF A COMPACT RECIRCULATING WIND-TUNNEL FOR AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS

The purpose of this study was to design, construct and evaluate the pe rformance of a compact, low-speed wind tunnel, The wind tunnel was des igned particularly for small scale agricultural experiments in a contr olled environment. The design criteria for air velocity, temperature, and relative humidity were 0 m/s similar to 10 m/s, 0 degrees C simila r to 50 degrees C, and 10%similar to 95%, respectively. The overall le ngth was limited to about 3.5 m. An air delivery system, a heat exchan ger and a humidifier unit were installed and tested The study successf ully demonstrated the feasibility of simulating velocity humidity, and temperature controlled environments in a limited space. A spatially u niform and steady free stream was achieved in at least 64% of the tran sverse cross-section of the test section. The system was able to maint ain desired conditions for an extended period of time.