Construction and testing of a wind tunnel for in-door investigation of environmental effects on buildings

Constructional details of a locally-built wind tunnel test facility are given. The facility was designed and constructed at the Building Research Center, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt and was tested as part of a comprehensive project on in-door investigation of the problem of building/environment interaction. The rig was constructed such that a wid range of environmental conditions could be provided for a series of tests on building model configurations. For this purpose, turbulence-generating as will as velocity-profile-generating grids were manufactured and mounted upstream of the working section. Atmospheric conditions (turbulent wind with atmospheric boundary layer) could therefore be simulated. The flow in the working section was examined with various grid combinations and locations. Velocity contours and velocity profiles were plotted and the best possible combination and location of grids were thus determined.