Seminar about the Wind tunnel

Yesterday, principal investigator Anders Hedenström gave a brief talk about the wind tunnel. Afterwards we all had the opportunity to go and see the tunnel “in action”. It was SACT (Scientific Activities group) that had arranged this talk and Anders told us all about how the wind tunnel is built and what can be done with it. The wind tunnel is huge and covers two floors. To get rid of the turbulence created by the big fan that makes the air flow through the tunnel, the tunnel is built to bend the air and make it smooth. When the air reaches the test section (where the animals fly and are studied) it has almost a laminar flow. The wind tunnel can also be tilted thus making it possible to also study gliding and climbing flight. Read more about the wind tunnel here.
 

Anders Hedenström

When we came to the wind tunnel, the master student Gide Koekkoek showed us the new invention, a robotic bat wing. This makes it easier to study air flow etc compared to using real bats that not always is so cooperative. If you want to know more about bat flight and different studies done in the wind tunnel, don´t miss the dissertation of PhD student Florian Muijres on the 28th of April. It takes place in the Blue Hall, the Ecology building.

Anders and Gide in the test section

We were many that wanted to see the wind tunnel

The robotic bat wing in action