…...all tested in the Wind Tunnel of the Politecnico, Europe's biggest boundary layer laboratory!!
With 'Wind Tunnel' we identify a certain type of lab that includes in itself other kinds of labs - says Marco Belloli, scientific director of the Wind Tunnel to Corriere Innovazione, which has published an article on one of the biggest laboratories of the Politecnico di Milano, Europe's biggest boundary layer laboratory. Here is tested everything that moves through air, such as sports cars and regular cars, aircrafts and other fast-moving means of transportation as well as everything that needs to stand still in high wind situations: bridges, buildings, eolic turbines and other technologies. "We have two test rooms- says Belloli: one of boundary layer and the other of low turbolence. The first room replicates the condition of wind blowing against still objects: buildings, turbines etc. The low turbolence one is used to test objects that move through air, such as elicopters and high speed trains.». Objects but people as well: here athlets such as Viviani and Zanardi tested their skills.
Together with a lot of civil, naval and aeronautical engineering (buildings, towers, stadiums, bridges), the Wind Tunnel is a key instrument for a lot of research projects financed by the European Commission: for example the “Clean Sky” project, which aims to reduce the emission in aereonautical transportation and for eolic energy. The maximum velocity in the boundary layer chamber is 15 meters per second, while in the low turbolence one is 55 meters per second: that is more than 200 km/h.
Credits header/home: https://www.windtunnel.polimi.it/
