Wind tunnel at the Applied Mechanics Department of IIT Madras
Academic Facilities , Departments
The wind tunnel in the photograph was a part of the Applied Mechanics Department and was located in the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory (One of the workshop-type laboratories). It was assembled by a team of German technicians and it was operational by the late 1960s. Technically, it is a low-speed closed circuit, open test section variant with a single fan variable speed DC motor Ward Leonard Drive.
The Applied Mechanics Department report published in Annual Report of IIT Madras 1969-70 notes that “The Wind Tunnel erection work including the calibration of the six component balance was completed.” From this information, we can gather that the wind tunnel was a fairly recent arrangement at the Institute when this photograph was taken. The wind tunnel was eventually dismantled some decades after it was put up.
Prof. Santhakumar Sundaram (Aeronautical Engineering Department) notes that he used to see parts of the wind tunnel lying outside the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory before it was assembled by the Germans. This was in the mid 1960s. “I have, as a student, seen some large steel shells like nozzle, collector, diffuser lying in the sun and rain just outside the large shutter of the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory just across the road from the Aeronautical Engineering Department.”
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