Today was my first day with Dr. Gopalarathnam at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Gopalarathnam spends his time researching aerodynamics and experimenting with aircraft design. My day started with a program that Dr. Gopalarathnam uses for his research. The program is called OpenVSP, and it is an open-source modelling software where different types of aircraft can be created. Dr. Gopalarathnam had me download this program onto my computer and showed me how to create models. With help from some tutorial videos and reference images, I was able to create the airplane shown below, as well as a very rudimentary helicopter design. I also met Pranav, a PhD. student at NC State. He showed me two wind tunnels that NC State students could use to research aerodynamics, and explained how the wind tunnels could be used to collect data on the force, pressure, and moments acting on a flying body.
That sounds super cool! All that science-y stuff would go way over my head, but I bet it’s really interesting. I’d like to ask, how big is that wind tunnel? And also, do you get to make little model airplanes to test?
The tunnel shown in the picture is a supersonic wind tunnel, so it has to be pretty small (~1.5ft by 1ft). The subsonic wind tunnel is a fair bit larger (~4ft by 4ft). Unfortunately, I don’t think I will be making physical airplane models during my internship.