Assembly Session 1

During the first session of the wind tunnel construction, we focused on building the two wooden chambers that would hold in the air as it flew towards the fan. The cross sectional area of the boxes were 2 sq. ft. with a length of approximately 4 ft.

We also built supports around them to stabilize the structure and also put it on the ground safely, without compromising the internal surface of the chambers.

Once we had the first diffuser, we began building the contraction cone. In the original designs, the funnel has a conic shape, but the wood did not allow us to achieve such geometry. Instead, we build a funnel made out of four equal wood trapezoids. We joined them together by putting 2 L-brackets at each joint. As with the diffuser, a support was also built around the smaller cross-sectional area which also served as sort of a lip to mount it to the diffuser.

Lengthwise, the diffuser-contraction cone surpassed the 8 feet mark.

This is what half of the assembly of the wind tunnel looked like. It's worth mentioning that the joints haven't been sealed up to this point. Stands were added to the diffuser.