Design and calibration of a water tunnel for skin friction research

A new water tunnel facility has been designed for application in skin friction and boundary layer research. The closed loop, recirculating facility with working section 200 × 600 × 2400 mm and test surface 600 × 1000 mm has been designed to operate at working section flow speeds of up to 2 ms-1 (Reynolds number based on test surface length 2.2 × 106). A force balance enables the direct measurement of drag on test surfaces. Hot film, pitot and multi-hole pressure probes are used to investigate the near wall flow. © Institution of Engineers Australia, 2009.