![]() The wind is then funneled into the 26-foot diameter test unit. The pipes get bigger and bigger in the direction the wind is blowing to reach a maximum diameter of 79 feet. The wind is blown through a rectangular frame (509 feet by 131 feet) of large pipes known as diffusers. The fans are driven by two 27 metric tonne (30 US tons), 25 bucket Pelton turbines, which are 16 feet in diameter. The wind in S1MA is created by two 15-meter (50-foot) diameter drive fans, one of which has 10 blades and the other 12 blades, each weighing 900 kilograms, nearly a ton. And all sorts of optical and acoustical tests also can be undertaken. Air intake is tested up to a very high angle of attack and IR signatures are measured with jet engine simulation.įull-scale missile tests with real engines firing can take place in S1MA. Military aircraft are generally tested at one-fifth scale to validate release of bombs, missiles or other ordnance. Still, its size means that full, large-scale models can be tested, even those that are powered. Today no human would ever be in the system when it’s switched on. When the Germans designed the first tunnel in the early 1940s, they’d planned on putting a full-sized Messerschmitt aircraft in there with the pilot. (Hypersonic speeds are generally defined as five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.)īack at S1MA, walking through the innards is like being in a science fiction movie where humans have been shrunk to ant size. Journalists were not shown these latter two systems due to their sensitive nature. Tests in there last between 25 to 90 seconds in speeds from Mach 6 to 12. The fastest tunnel, S4MA, is a blowdown hypersonic wind tunnel that was used to test a space shuttle. The S3MA is what’s known as a blowdown wind tunnel that can test in gusts of wind that last between 10 seconds and 15 minutes, creating simulated flight speeds of between Mach 0.1 and 5.5. The Modane-Avrieux complex has just celebrated its 70th anniversary so it’s hard to believe that these vast structures, construction of which started in 1942 by German and Austrian engineers in the Austrian Tyrol before they were dismantled and brought here by train as war booty, are still today the best way of simulating how air passes around an object flying at speeds of up to Mach 12.Ī diagram shows the S1MA wind tunnel at an ONERA facility in Modane, France. ONERA claims it is also the “greenest,” given that its two giant fans are powered with water from two reservoir lakes in the mountains above. The star here is undoubtedly the “Wind Cathedral,” aka S1MA, the world’s biggest supersonic wind tunnel that stretches more than 1,300 feet and has a max diameter of 79 feet - big enough to stand a tennis court up on its end. MODANE, France - In a narrow Alpine valley, a stone’s throw from the border with Italy, sprawls a complex of wind tunnels owned by ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales), the French Aerospace Lab. A worker stands at the bottom of one of ONERA’s massive wind turbines. ![]()
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