A REVIEW OF THE ROLE OF SOME SMALL HIGH-SPEED WIND TUNNELS IN AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH

This presentation reviews the contribution made to aeronautical resear ch by workers using the high-speed blowdown tunnels in the Engineering Department at Cambridge. This work is chosen to illustrate the resear ch potential of the many small tunnels in university departments exist ing world-wide. Studies on basic boundary-layer research together with extensions to complex shock/boundary-layer interactions are highlight ed as are parametric studies of wing shapes for flight at high superso nic speeds. It is concluded that workers using small high-speed tunnel s still have a significant role to play in aeronautical research in sp ite of recent developments in tunnel design which have lead to a new g eneration of efficient large tunnels in which model tests on aircraft at near flight Reynolds numbers are possible. (C) 1998 Published by El sevier Science Ltd.